Ask Helena & Leo

Question: 10 years ago I use to be an aeronautical radio technician and I used to maintained(troubleshoot), installed TX/RX radio equipment’s, but I changed my field to management for 5 years and again I decided to be that super technician! I am 36 years old mother of one daughter, and with the will of God I will graduate from Thomas Edison State college, NJ in Electronics Engineering Technology (Associate degree). I would like to ask you which course would be best to specialize in and to be certified to, considering all the information I provided about myself and my experience. Thank you.

Answer: Congratulations on your success in acquiring your degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. You should be proud.

From what I understand and can remember about the field that your are in, it will involve working in the quality segment of the manufacturing process, where you will be involved in conducting electrical testing and troubleshooting of electronic products. With this in mind, I would think you would be the one identifying which element or elements to fix to bring the circuit board to its functional state.

Most times this would involve removing and replace components, updating the product due to an Engineering Change Order – (ECO), or fixing the board itself due to defects within the board. You should be aware of how this is done, so you would know whether or not it was done correctly. The courses I would suggest would be J-STD-001 which would provide you with information about the standard processes of assembling and soldering the components on the boar. I would then suggest IPC-610 to provide you with an understanding of the differences between good and bad solder joints on the product, along with other assembly techniques which are involved with the inspection of printed circuit boards and assemblies. Finally I would recommend the Rework and Repair class which would get into the various methods to fix defective products, be it either different methods of component removal, methods of fixing laminate materials and methods for bringing the physical board back into compliance with the master drawing.

I hope this information is useful and if more is needed please let me know.

Thank you and congratulation again on you wonderful achievement.