The Refurbishing Workflow

If you're doing a one-off refurbishing job in your daily repair work, then a workflow may not really matter much. But if you're thinking of making refurbishing a sustaining business model then it is imperative to adopt a proper process to ensure success.

Refurbishing follows a repeatable workflow, though the depth of each step varies by product type. Of interest is the first step: Intake/Triage. What exactly is triage, you might ask. In refurbishment, it refers to the initial, rapid assessment and sorting of returned, damaged, or aging items to determine the most cost-effective action: repair, refurbish, resell, or dispose. This process prevents wasting resources on irreparably damaged items and prioritizes those that can be quickly returned to the market. 

You might not realize it but intake triage is the most economically critical stage. A misclassified unit will lose money at every subsequent step. Here's an economic triage rule you would do well to adhere to: 

A product is economically viable for refurbishing if (Resale value of refurbished unit) – (Cost of parts + labor + overhead) ≥ 30% of resale value. That's the minimum margin threshold and it varies by business model. If the margin falls below this threshold, the product is better used as a donor unit or sent to recycling.

A "donor" unit in refurbishing refers to a used, broken, or identical device (often a hard drive, appliance, or electronic component) that is utilized to supply parts for the repair of a "patient" device. This process allows technicians to restore non-functional equipment to working condition by replacing damaged, rare, or obsolete parts that are no longer produced. It's also referred to as "parts harvesting".

It is also important that each unit received during the intake has a unique tracking identifier (serial number, barcode, or RFID). This ID follows the product through all six stages, creating an audit trail. It ensures traceability, compliance, and quality control, providing visibility into the "who, what, and when" of the refurbishing process. 

Bet not many know of such details involved in starting a refurbishing business. There's more but I'll stop here for now. Once I sort out the workflow process in my upcoming book, you'll have the needed information all in one place.

 

A Memoir in the Works

It's been almost three years since I wrote "PCB Diagnostics", the last of my engineering books. After diverting to writing sci-fi and other genre of faith-related books, I felt it's time to retrace my life's journey from a high school electronic hobbyist to a full-fledge engineer. 

Few engineers write their own memoirs and I can understand why. Writing is hard, Writing about your engineering knowledge (and expertise) is harder. But writing about your own life's journey on this aspect? Believe me, it's much, much harder.

So what prompted me to write my own biography? Well, age is catching up on me and my health isn't as good as it's used to be. So before I pass off the scene, I thought, "Heck, why not tell the story of my life and how I arrive at where I am now?" I'm sure readers of my engineering books would love to know the intricate details of those personal anecdotes which I mentioned in passing in several of my works.

Here is the book cover concept and back blurb:

As most readers are aware, I have the habit of creating the book cover and blurb to give me a handle before I start out to write the content. It helps me focus on my task better——in this case, my life story.

This work is of a different nature, though. It will have a mixed of engineering and emotional stuff weaved into a personal narrative. Readers who enjoyed my engaging style of writing will most certainly not want to miss out on this opportunity to know, really know the author behind the books they found helpful in learning the black art of PCB-RE.

So keep a look out for the progress. And leave a comment if you are a fan of my books. I would love to hear from you and be inspired to write more, if health permits.

Stay well and safe, my friends!

PCB-RE: A Niche Skillset

A novice starting out to learn PCB reverse engineering usually begins with a multimeter and the simple notion that it's all about finding the interconnection points between components on the circuit board. In truth, it's not entirely correct. If it were that simple, electronic engineers the world over would be doing it.

Like the game of Go, the basic rules of PCB reverse engineering is easy to pick up, but mastering the skill requires time and certain know-how, if you want to shorten the learning curve and avoid costly mistakes and pitfalls. That's the reason I set out to write the sequel book PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques. To some measure, I was prompted by readers to give this niche topic a more complete treatment; also, I was driven by the desire to enhance my own learning journey by leveraging from the expertise of engineers who are willing to share their knowledge in their own peculiar field and experience using equipment and approaches I might or might not have heard of.

Here is the table of content for this book:

While it is by no means complete (which book can claim that?), it's nonetheless thorough in the fields of interest presented. As one reader aptly commented: 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It has many chapters on all sorts of techniques to reverse engineer printed circuit boards, with the intent of either replacing them with identical boards that no longer exist or determining the schematic for debugging a faulty circuit.

So take it from the likes of renown individuals and companies like Joe Grand (aka Kingpin), John McMaster, Bill Loving and Jeff Rupert (and their remarkable team from ScanCAD International, Inc.), Bob Elder (Teel Technologies), Fraser Castle (a seasoned engineer in multiple disciplines), Dr. Sergei Skorobogatov (University of Cambridge), etc. It is my firm belief that:

The best experiences of our engineering careers and endeavors can become a lasting legacy for future generations of engineers.

If the Art of PCB Reverse Engineering is the de facto reference for PCB-RE, this book is definitely the companion supplement to it!

Diagnosing PCB Failures

One of the questions I often get asked during my tenure as a test and repair engineer in my former company was: what's the most difficult thing about PCB repair. My reply: intermittent faults and erratic failures. I'm sure those in the PCB repair industry would readily agree with me on this. And it's not getting any easier anytime, given the increasing complexity of today's PCBs in terms of their designs and functionalities.

That's one reason I embarked on writing PCB Diagnostics, a book that attempts to address not only this thorny challenge faced by the PCB repair community, but to promote a greater awareness on the available tools and techniques to help them get the job done. For readers who want to know what is discussed in this book, here's the table of content:

Beyond the basics, I've included some rather esoteric approaches and methodologies, along with real-world examples and interesting case studies, to give readers a taste of how repairs are carried out using benchtop equipment and testers that they only heard or dreamed of, but have never gotten the chance to work on.

Some of the processes are laid out in detailed steps while others are covered only in enough depth, either due to the nature of the technique that is self-explanatory, or the scope of work involved which would overrun the book length. This is especially true of automated testing which I would love to devote specific coverage on a book series basis (see Conceptual for an idea of what I mean).

It's still too early to say how well PCB Diagnostics will be received by the repair community, but I hope that those who have bought it would leave their reviews on Amazon so I know if it has served the intended purpose when I started out to write it. Thanks!

The Art of PCB-RE

Since it's debut in November 2015, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering has been a consistent best seller among my books, though not the best seller on Amazon (far from it). It underscores the point of having a good textbook resource on this niche topic which sadly, is still quite lacking after nearly eight years since I penned my experiences.

While PCB-RE has not received the attention it needed, I believe that with the emphasis on 'Repair Don't Waste' to encourage recycling instead of discarding to save the earth, perhaps more people will see the importance of this special skillset in the repair and refurbish industry in the not too distant future.

For those who have yet to get their copy of this now de-facto and classic work on PCB-RE, here is a breakdown of the chapters:

To many engineers PCB-RE is a black art because of its coveted nature (not many in this field are willing to share their knowledge and know-how). However, I can assure you that it's not as difficult as you think, though some pre-requisites are essential to avoid pitfalls when you start out on the journey.

Chapters 2-4 make up the bulk of the book and teach you how to identify and organize the component data necessary to begin PCB-RE on a board without documentation. The drafting tool of my choice is Microsoft Visio, though if you are good at another 2D CAD software, it works just as well. It's the process that's important and that's what I emphasize in the book. Drawing the PCB layout and schematic diagram is really a matter of personal style, and I really encourage you to develop your own that works for you.

That said, I hope you would at least give Visio a try and see for yourself how versatile and powerful its features are. There are some things that will only connect when you learn it first hand, and I can tell you from personal experience that no other 2D drafting tools even come close to Visio. Don't believe me? Get the book and go through the examples in chapter 5 and you'll wonder why you didn't take up Visio sooner.

Then, of course, I will point you to other resources that can enrich your PCB-RE journey, one of which is the darling of the DOS era: the OrCAD suite of engineering software tools (SDT, VST, PCB, PLD, and MOD), which once sold for $4,995 but is now free for download at one of the Old DOS Communities.

The Art of PCB-RE took me almost a year to write while working part-time. It's one of the most challenging book I took on but I'm glad I did, with the support of my understanding wife. At least I know that I now have a legacy for future generations of engineers who will make a difference to the world when they apply what they learn to reduce wastage and increase the operational life of the equipment they're servicing.

Tea with Wesly Lo

Met up with Wesly Lo of ABI Electronics for afternoon tea during his business trip here. It was eight years since he came over to my workplace to give training on two testers which we ordered from him. Good time catching up. He even brought my book along to get my personal signature. ;)

Saelig's RevEng

Well, no... this post is not about an intriguing plot from a suspense novel. Saelig is a company specializing in electronic test, measurement, diagnostic and design solutions, and RevEng is a product from ABI Electronics which it represents in the US.

Dan Evans, the Sales Manager of Saelig, came to know about my book through a tweet I posted in Twitter and bought a copy. He was of course delighted to discover one full chapter on the RevEng system. He has since made contact with me for permission to reproduce that chapter for distribution to his clients, which I heartily approved.

Here's what he wrote in his LinkedIn post:

Although Singapore engineer and author Ng Keng Tiong devoted most of one chapter of his new book to ABI Electronics' RevEng system, people at ABI and Saelig Company were not aware of the author or his work until we saw a tweet about the new book.

Published just three months ago, PCB-RE Tools and Techniques is the sequel to an earlier book titled The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering, which is about reverse engineering the hard way – without assistance from hardware/software tools.  

Along with information from other reverse engineering experts, PCB-RE Tools and Techniques includes information about systems that help automate the process of reverse engineering. Titled Clip-N-Learn: As Easy As ABC, Chapter 8 is mostly devoted to ABI Electronics' RevEng system which, quote:

To demonstrate the clip-n-learn technique I have selected ABI Electronics RevEng system for its straightforward design and ease-of-use.

as the author wrote in his introduction to that chapter.

For more information of the RevEng system for your PCB-RE needs, contact Dan Evans @ Saelig. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to show you its functionalities and capabilities.