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

Friday, November 13, 2026

Old and New PCs...


Recently I wanted to give my "new" desktop a memory upgrade, but was shocked to learn that the prices of RAM has gone up by 2-3 times! I decided to visit Sim Lim Square, the place many IT enthusiasts go to for their PC needs. Again, I was shocked by how much it has changed after ten years of not being there. Almost 80-90% of the shops there are now run by Indian nationals; I could only find 2-3 that are managed by Singaporean Chinese and even these carry limited range and supply of electronic goods.

The funny, or should I said weird, thing is the top level is mainly occupied by Karaoke bars and dance studios which are run by—you guessed it—Indians. Arrrgh...!!! What on earth has happened to the familiar haunt that I once frequented? And to rub salt into the wound, RAM prices there are just as high, if not more. In the end I decided to just stick with the current 8GB I had with my 5-year-old PC.

And as if it isn't bad enough, my wife's ASUS all-in-one (AIO) desktop died a few days ago. After opening up and checking for possible fixes, I suspected that the motherboard had died (probably from an electrical surge during a recent thunderstorm). Having explored available options, I decided to get her a new AIO replacement, plus getting a USB adapter for her M.2 SSD to extract and transfer her files to the new host, which is slated to arrive in 1-2 days. All in all, it set me back by a few hundred bucks.


Ps: Today, I just put my old PC of 18 years to rest. It has been sitting in my mum's house for the past 5 years, collecting dust. For some reasons, I hesitated to dispose it as it carried memories of my transition from the working days to authoring desk (it was assembled by me in 2008, part by part, literally). But as they say, "When it's time to go, it's time to go..."

 

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