To My Readers



If this is the first time you're visiting my blog, thank you. Whether you're interested or just curious to find out about PCB reverse engineering (PCB-RE), I hope you'll find something useful here.

This blog contains many snippets of the content in my books to provide a more detailed overall sampling for my would-be readers to be better informed before making the purchase. Of course, the book contains more photos and nice illustrations, as evidence from its cover page. Hopefully, this online trailer version will whet your appetite enough to want to get a copy for yourself.

Top Review

I started doing component level repair of electronics with (and without) schematics more than 40 years ago, which activity often involves reverse-engineering of printed circuit boards. Although over the years my technical interests have shifted into particle beam instrumentation, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam technology fields, till this day——and more often than not——PCB repairs have returned multiple multi-million-dollar accelerators, FIB, and SEM instruments back to operation, delivering great satisfaction and some profit.

Many of the methods described by Keng Tiong in great details are similar to the approaches I've developed, but some of the techniques are different, and as effective and useful as efficient and practical. Systematic approach and collection of useful information presented in his books are not only invaluable for a novice approaching PCB-level reverse engineering, but also very interesting reading and hands-on reference for professionals.

Focus on reverse engineering instead of original design provides unique perspective into workings of electronics, and in my opinion books by Keng Tiong (I've got all three of them) are must-read for anybody trying to develop good understanding of electronics——together with writings by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Phil Hobbs, Jim Williams, Bob Pease, Howard Johnson and Martin Graham, Sam Goldwasser, and other world's top electronics experts.

Valery Ray
Particle Beam Systems Technologist

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

CoVid Disruptions

The past weeks have been pretty rough going. Since the government adopted the CoVid endemic policy on the premise that over 90% of Singapore's population has been vaccinated and reopened the borders, cases of infection have since skyrocketed.

First, my mum contracted the virus and worse, had outbreak of shingles. I brought her to see her regular doctor who prescribed medication for the latter. Thankfully, after a week and a half she recovered. Sadly, however, a close friend of mine recently succumbed to the virus after experiencing high fever for over a week. The first doctor gave him a week's MC and told him to self-isolate at home. After a week, he went to another doctor who told him it's normal and prescribed some medication for sore throat and cough. Bad diagnosis... barely three days later he collapsed at home and was sent to the A&E. But it proved too little too late.

He was only 54 when CoVid took him from his family. It affected me quite a fair bit, though I'm sure his bereaved family will be most grieved by the lost of a father and husband.

I'm into the last mile of Deciphering Schematics, but writing proves difficult during this period with messages coming and going from friends and this family whom I've come to know personally. I just need to take a breather and regather my thoughts so that I don't write nonsense that will break the trust of my readers.

Life is just so frail and unpredictable. CoVid only makes it more apparent, I suppose. Rest in peace, my dear friend...

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