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

Saturday, March 7, 2026

The Zen of Work


Before I move on to the next phase of my life's journey, I want to dwell a little on the work philosophy I developed during those Air Force years.

Not the technical skills—those I've already described. Not the equipment or the procedures or the test programs. Something deeper. Something that would prove more valuable than any technical certification.

The mindset.

The way of approaching work that transforms pressure into purpose, chaos into clarity, mundane tasks into meditation.

The Zen of the workbench.

If we approach work as just a means for livelihood—a necessary evil, something to be endured until we can go home and live our real lives—then every task becomes a burden. The backlog feels oppressive. The duties feel pointless. The pressure feels personal. We feel miserable. We perform poorly. We confirm our own worst expectations.

But if we keep our heads cool and level, something shifts. The same tasks, the same pressure, the same demands—they don't disappear. But our relationship to them changes.

We can always find a silver lining in the midst of chaotic work situations and personal conflicts. Not by pretending the chaos isn't there, but by recognizing that chaos is just information. It's telling us something about priorities, about resources, about what truly matters.

This wasn't wisdom I was born with. It was something I learned—from Ron.

 

Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)