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

Monday, May 11, 2026

The Three R's in the Work


I've spent a couple of day designing the front cover for my next engineering book. I decided that the best way to accelerate and build my knowledge on the subject of remanufacturing is to write a book on it, alongside two others I'm familiar with—refurbishing and retrofitting. Hence the title of the book.

Back in 2009, my former company had sponsored me to attend a course "Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)" conducted by Donald Seger. This was in view of the threat of obsolescence stemming from a shortage of critical electronic components and the importance of stocking up based on predict forecast of the repair works we were doing.

On hindsight, it was an eye-opening experience though I did not link it to the three R's as the plausible Solution to Obsolescence. Now that I revisited the subject after my eventful visit to the ASTER facilities, I'm beginning to see how all these things tie up.

As usual, I will need to write a book blurb to keep me focus on what I want to write. Chapter outline will then follow, subject to changes as the work progresses, of course. It will be both interesting and challenging. And I suspect it will take me beyond electronics—well into the broader industries facing this same problem.

We'll see how it goes...

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