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, November 11, 2026

Long Time No See!

I left my company in January of 2016, that's over a decade ago. Things change alot during this period of my absence, as I soon learned from an ex-colleague—no, my apprentice to be precise. We had wanted to meet and catch up since I completed my memoir, Without a Schematic, which contains a small anecdote of him in the chapter "The Quiet Years." But due to work commitments he could not afford the time—until today. 

I received his message in the morning. He was meeting a customer near my area and thought it would be good to drop by for lunch. I readily agreed and brought along a copy of the book for him. In return, he treated me to a Japanese meal of Wagyu beef and pork katsu, a generous gesture. He still calls me "Shifu" (master teacher), a respectable term that stuck with him since the first day we met. Today, he holds a position that is higher than what I was when I left, and I couldn't be more proud of him.

Besides updating me on the people I knew in my previous department, he also let me in on the new contract—Singapore will be acquiring the fourth generation long-range radar to replace the current one. Talks are in progress and it won't be long before the deal is sealed. Though his future seems bright, he didn't sound excited at all when he related the details to me, and I understood why. I sensed the frustrations he faces at work over the increased buracratic craps that has already festered even when I made my exit.

He's into his late forties and I suspect that once a person hit the second half of his life, success is no longer something he pursues. Significance takes over. This was what happened to me when I crossed the halfway line over a decade ago. But like I say in my memoir:

The path you choose matters less than how you walk it.

This and many other lessons I learned in life are all in the book as I recounted my journey from a boy of nine with a self-made throwing star (shuriken) to an independent publishing author with a steady pen. If you want to make out what life has to offer, it's rewards, surprises, and challenges, get a copy of my memoir.

 

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