Hardware failure analysis is my current job role. The analysis become difficult when there is no schematic /Reference PCB board. Any tips to improve my skills so i can excel in this career

 

A little more information would make it much easier for us to offer any suggestions. Are you trouble-shooting electronic devices to find out why they failed?

 

It's a bit like asking a police officer to stop a bank robbery in progress without a gun. Little chance of success. I think your efforts should be proportional to the resources you are given. Without contrary evidence baseless speculations cannot be challenged.

 

I handle VFD ,PLC ,Servomotor and their accessories. If a component burned in a PCB ,my job is to find why they failed .I only receive repeated issue .Mostly in VFD it will be repeated error code. I have to find why they occur and provide a solution

 

A little more information would make it much easier for us to offer any suggestions. Are you trouble-shooting electronic devices to find out why they failed?

I handle VFD ,PLC ,Servomotor and their accessories. If a component burned in a PCB ,my job is to find why they failed .I only receive repeated issue .Mostly in VFD it will be repeated error code. I have to find why they occur and provide a solution

 

It's a bit like asking a police officer to stop a bank robbery in progress without a gun. Little chance of success. I think your efforts should be proportional to the resources you are given. Without contrary evidence baseless speculations cannot be challenged.

Yeah I understood .In PCB analysis if you have any tips, any courses, books please do share .

 

Frankly, it sounds like you are not qualified to do what they are asking you to do. You should be working under someone that is, so that you can learn how to do failure analysis on those kinds of systems.

Consider this -- you are given several boards for a VFD model that have burned components and are throwing the same error codes but you are not given a schematic or reference PCB design. You are asking someone to tell you how to figure out why the boards are failing and to provide a solution, because you currently don't know how to do it without a schematic or reference PCB design. Okay, what if tomorrow they come down and hand you a schematic and reference PCB design. Are you really saying that at that point you would know how to proceed to do the failure analysis and come up with a solution? If that is really the case, then start by asking yourself what specific information in this schematic and reference PCB is critical to you now being able to be able to perform the analysis when, yesterday, you couldn't, and consider how you could go about figuring out the needed information from what you have in your hands.

 

Hardware failure analysis is my current job role. The analysis become difficult when there is no schematic /Reference PCB board. Any tips to improve my skills so i can excel in this career

Analysis of a circuit board is virtually impossible without the correct documentation. If schematics, service manuals and specifications are not available, there is no way you can do your job effectively.

 

Yeah I understood .In PCB analysis if you have any tips, any courses, books please do share .

So, an error code from a VFD is not strictly a hardware problem at all. For all you know or can prove it might be a problem in the VFD firmware. Reporting an error that is not really a problem. I feel your pain in what seems an intractable position. I would have a chat with a firmware colleague if you can cultivate one.

 

Analysis of a circuit board is virtually impossible without the correct documentation. If schematics, service manuals and specifications are not available, there is no way you can do your job effectively.

It is certainly a lot harder, and is going to cost a lot more, but there are plenty of situations in which this is the reality. It generally starts with a lot of reverse engineering, which is a pretty specialized skill -- and someone that has the needed skills is unlikely to be asking how to do failure analysis without the proper documentation, and someone that doesn't have the needed skills is unlikely to obtain them by way of tips or some course, or some book.

 

So, an error code from a VFD is not strictly a hardware problem at all. For all you know or can prove it might be a problem in the VFD firmware. Reporting an error that is not really a problem. I feel your pain in what seems an intractable position. I would have a chat with a firmware colleague if you can cultivate one.

Ok thanks

 

It is certainly a lot harder, and is going to cost a lot more, but there are plenty of situations in which this is the reality. It generally starts with a lot of reverse engineering, which is a pretty specialized skill -- and someone that has the needed skills is unlikely to be asking how to do failure analysis without the proper documentation, and someone that doesn't have the needed skills is unlikely to obtain them by way of tips or some course, or some book.

Mostly we do reverse engineering sir, But the problem arises if you don't have anything to refer. I am looking for people who faced similar situation and did something about it. Btw thanks for the reply

 

Frankly, it sounds like you are not qualified to do what they are asking you to do. You should be working under someone that is, so that you can learn how to do failure analysis on those kinds of systems.

Consider this -- you are given several boards for a VFD model that have burned components and are throwing the same error codes but you are not given a schematic or reference PCB design. You are asking someone to tell you how to figure out why the boards are failing and to provide a solution, because you currently don't know how to do it without a schematic or reference PCB design. Okay, what if tomorrow they come down and hand you a schematic and reference PCB design. Are you really saying that at that point you would know how to proceed to do the failure analysis and come up with a solution? If that is really the case, then start by asking yourself what specific information in this schematic and reference PCB is critical to you now being able to be able to perform the analysis when, yesterday, you couldn't, and consider how you could go about figuring out the needed information from what you have in your hands.

Yes sir ,I accept my lack of skills .I am here to learn & grow .I am working on it .I am not expecting a solution from internet .I just want to know that people out their with similar situations, if they did something about it. Btw thanks for the reply

 

Mostly we do reverse engineering sir, But the problem arises if you don't have anything to refer. I am looking for people who faced similar situation and did something about it. Btw thanks for the reply

Not having anything to refer to IS reverse engineering. If you have the references, you aren't reverse engineering -- you are, at most, analyzing.

Have you even done a basic search to find out information about reverse engineering printed circuit boards? If nothing else, at least read the Wikipedia article.

 

Yes sir ,I accept my lack of skills .I am here to learn & grow .I am working on it .I am not expecting a solution from internet .I just want to know that people out their with similar situations, if they did something about it. Btw thanks for the reply

The usual "thing" they did about it was to get training, often over a period of many years, in reverse engineering by working with/for someone that already has those skills.

Rittesh, is there no one at your company that has the skills and experience to reverse engineer a system with no documentation?

 

The usual "thing" they did about it was to get training, often over a period of many years, in reverse engineering by working with/for someone that already has those skills.

Rittesh, is there no one at your company that has the skills and experience to reverse engineer a system with no documentation?

Currently there is no one sir.But i raised this concern with my manager .He told me that he will arrange someone from china factory to assist me.The parent company is in china .My office is in india .For products sold in indian market ,we have to handle the quality issues.And I am newly joined in this role sir.