Circuit Board Repair Course

Lesson 1 • Core Electronic Concepts

Covers voltage, current, resistance, and power relationships essential to circuit analysis. Establishes the theoretical base for all diagnostic work ahead.

Lesson 2 • PCB Construction and Anatomy

Examines board layers, substrate materials, copper traces, and via types. Connects physical structure to electrical function for informed repair decisions.

Lesson 3 • Electronic Component Identification

Teaches recognition of passive, active, and electromechanical components by package and marking. Prepares students to locate and name parts during inspection.

Lesson 4 • Workplace Safety and ESD Control

Establishes safe handling practices, ESD precautions, and chemical safety for the repair bench. Prevents component damage and personal injury from the first session.

Lesson 1 • Oscilloscope Operation

Teaches timebase, trigger, and probe settings for capturing waveforms on live boards. Waveform analysis reveals faults invisible to a multimeter.

Lesson 2 • Thermal and Visual Inspection Tools

Covers thermal cameras, UV leak detection, and magnification tools for non-contact fault finding. Visual and thermal clues often pinpoint faults before electrical probing.

Lesson 3 • Power Supply and Load Testing

Explains bench power supply setup, current limiting, and load simulation for safe board power-up. Controlled power application prevents secondary damage during diagnosis.

Lesson 4 • Signal Generators and Logic Analyzers

Introduces signal injection and digital bus capture for functional testing. These tools extend diagnosis to digital and mixed-signal circuits.

Lesson 1 • Solder Joint Inspection Standards

Applies industry inspection criteria to evaluate joint quality and identify defects. Consistent inspection ensures repair reliability before board return to service.

Lesson 2 • Through-Hole Soldering Techniques

Teaches correct heat application, solder feed, and inspection criteria for through-hole joints. Through-hole work remains common in power and connector assemblies.

Lesson 3 • Surface-Mount Soldering by Hand

Develops hand-soldering skills for passive SMD components and fine-pitch ICs. SMD hand work is essential when rework stations are unavailable.

Lesson 4 • Desoldering Methods and Tools

Covers solder wick, vacuum pumps, and hot-air desoldering for component removal. Clean removal preserves pads and prevents board damage.

Lesson 1 • Structured Troubleshooting Process

Introduces a systematic fault-isolation framework: gather symptoms, hypothesize, test, and verify. A defined process reduces random probing and repair time.

Lesson 2 • Signal Path Tracing

Develops skills to follow signals from input to output, isolating the stage where the signal fails. Signal tracing localizes faults to a specific circuit block.

Lesson 3 • Visual and Physical Inspection

Teaches systematic board inspection for burns, cracks, corrosion, and mechanical damage. Visual findings often reveal the fault or narrow the search area immediately.

Lesson 4 • Power Rail and Supply Diagnosis

Covers mapping and measuring all supply rails, checking regulation, and finding short circuits. Power faults underlie a large proportion of board failures.

Lesson 1 • BGA and QFN Rework Techniques

Addresses reballing, flux application, and placement alignment for area-array packages. BGA rework demands the highest precision of any SMD operation.

Lesson 2 • Post-Rework Cleaning and Inspection

Covers flux residue removal, ionic contamination testing, and final visual inspection after rework. Cleanliness directly affects long-term reliability of repaired boards.

Lesson 3 • Through-Hole Component Replacement

Covers multi-pin through-hole removal, pad cleaning, and lead forming for replacement parts. Proper technique prevents lifted pads on dense through-hole boards.

Lesson 4 • Pad and Trace Repair

Teaches lifted pad repair, trace bridging with wire, and epoxy anchoring of damaged lands. Pad repair restores board functionality when copper is damaged.

Lesson 1 • Serial Bus Troubleshooting

Teaches capture and decoding of I2C, SPI, and UART traffic to find communication faults. Serial bus errors are a leading cause of embedded system failures.

Lesson 2 • Sensor and Peripheral Interface Repair

Covers diagnosis of ADC inputs, PWM outputs, and external peripheral communication lines. Peripheral faults are isolated by substituting known-good signals.

Lesson 3 • Clock and Reset Circuit Diagnosis

Covers oscillator verification, reset timing, and power-on sequencing faults. Clock and reset failures prevent microcontrollers from starting correctly.

Lesson 4 • Digital Logic Fault Analysis

Applies logic probe and analyzer techniques to verify gate outputs and bus states. Digital faults often appear as stuck lines or incorrect logic levels.

Lesson 1 • Linear Regulator Diagnosis and Replacement

Covers dropout voltage, load regulation, and thermal shutdown testing for linear regulators. Linear regulators are common on mixed-voltage boards and fail predictably.

Lesson 2 • Capacitor and Inductor Replacement in SMPS

Addresses ESR-related failures, inductor saturation, and correct part selection for SMPS replacement. Incorrect substitutions cause oscillation or efficiency loss.

Lesson 3 • Protection Circuit Analysis

Examines fuse, polarity protection, overvoltage clamp, and current-limit circuit operation. Protection circuits must be verified after any power fault repair.

Lesson 4 • Switch-Mode Power Supply Fundamentals

Covers buck, boost, and flyback topologies, switching waveforms, and feedback loops. Understanding topology is prerequisite to diagnosing SMPS faults.

Lesson 1 • Repair Documentation and Traceability

Teaches fault logging, parts traceability, repair records, and revision control for professional accountability. Complete records support warranty claims and repeat-failure analysis.

Lesson 2 • Continuous Improvement in the Repair Bench

Introduces metrics, process audits, and tool calibration schedules to sustain repair quality over time. Ongoing improvement distinguishes a professional shop from an ad-hoc operation.

Lesson 3 • Industry Repair and Workmanship Standards

Introduces accepted workmanship criteria for solder joints, rework, and board cleanliness used in professional repair environments. Standards define the pass/fail threshold for every repair.

Lesson 4 • Functional Testing and Burn-In

Covers end-of-repair functional test procedures, stress testing, and burn-in protocols. Functional testing confirms the repair before the board returns to service.