Blog Request

[bpn1028]

Hey Dave...  Really love your videos.  I am just a hobbyist for less than a year now and have learned a ton from your videos.  I have seen you re-engineer circuits such as you just did in #388 blog and others, but, I would really benefit from a blog on how you go about doing that.  The techniques, where you start, the tools, etc....  I personally think it would make for a great video.  Please consider.... Thanks for all you do. 

[bpn1028]

I really meant to say reverse engineer as opposed to re-engineer...  Of course in the case of #388 - it appears re-engineering is in order.

[TriodeTiger]

I really meant to say reverse engineer as opposed to re-engineer...  Of course in the case of #388 - it appears re-engineering is in order.

I sort of can't imagine this being a video blog topic, I mean crack open a 3V wall adapter you can spare and try to trace out what it is doing.

Once you learn "Oh, that's must be a switcher with optoisolator feedback" and you can easily trace what parts go where.  I suppose that's where experience comes in.

ICs you've seen dave use his microscope, or a bit of spit to rub off plastic shavings to try to see what the manufacturer tried to hide :-)

If you know its a voltage regulator supplying a ...checks...3.3V rail.. or NMOS or whichever 3-legged thing you can substitute without knowing the part, etc.

[free_electron]

In order to effectively reverse engineer , you must first get a lot of knowledge about various circuits, the underlaying concepts etc. if i just give you a bunc of parts you will have no clue what it is doing. Someone who has never seen an off line power supply will have no idea what the optocoupler is for... Or the tl431 reference diode.
Get familiar with as much circuitry as possible. Take service manuls of equipment and read them. Learn to recognize functional blocks.

Learn all about components. The different types of caps and their applications, different types of resistors etc... You need a lot of knowledge to reverse engineer well.

[xDR1TeK]

There is a huge difference between experience and knowledge. You might be asking for Dave's full mind to unfold. Much of his knowledge is acquired from basic theoretical concepts. The rest is just by transfer experience. Tips and Tricks. etc. You might try to convince yourself that academic refinement is a load of crap, but it is not. Any experience you might want to get in life will make no sense to you if you at least don't have the basics.

So, no, Dave's mind unfolding before you will make little sense if you don't take things slower.
I know because my thirst is never quenched, and the more i learn the more I find that I know nothing.