Jose Pereira De Merces

The road here

Wood, circuits and gold — and the same demand in all three

1. The workshop

   At twelve, earning one and a half wages

   He learned cabinetmaking as a child, before he was old enough to choose a trade. At twelve he was a paid apprentice earning one and a half wages — more than many an adult in the same workshop. He was a professional cabinetmaker until he was twenty-five, all the while set on becoming an engineer. The thirteen years working wood were not a detour from that road: they were its foundation.

2. What wood teaches

   Tolerance, jig and raw material

   A piece of wood does not forgive an optimistic drawing: either it fits perfectly or it does not, and the mistake destroys the piece. Anyone who learns that way carries three rules for life:

   • A tolerance is a number, not an intention.
   • A good jig saves more time than any shortcut.
   • A design that ignores the material simply does not get built.

   Years later he met the same principles again under another name, in an English factory manual: Design for Manufacturing.

3. 2001 — 2006

   He put down the plane and went where boards are made

   At twenty-five he enrolled at ETEC — industrial computing, robotics and electrotechnics — and went on to UNISAL, to the industrial electronics technologist course. But his training did not happen only in the classroom: he worked on the shop floor as a maintenance technician on PCB fabrication and assembly machines. He repaired the copper-etching machines, the drilling machines, the component inserters and the final test rigs. He learned the process from the inside — not by reading manuals, but by diagnosing and repairing the equipment that had stopped.

4. 2006

   He moved to the other side of the table

   In 2006 he stopped repairing the machines and began drawing what they build: CAD operator and PCB designer at CADSERVICE, in Campinas. The transition was a natural one — it was the same production line, seen from the point of view of whoever designs. From that experience he brought an unbeatable practical advantage: knowing exactly what the factory can execute before sending the design files. From that year on he never stopped designing circuits. Alongside it he taught applied computing, Excel and AutoCAD — because teaching is the best way to consolidate precision.

5. 2009 — 2020

   The third end: testing and safety

   To master the whole cycle, one stage was missing: the one where final quality is validated. He was an electrical test inspector at CAF Brasil, developing dedicated cable-testing tools for railway equipment — a sector where safety standards allow no margin for sampling. There followed nine years at ZB Service, supervising projects and installations and designing boards. It was during that period of continuous work that he completed his second degree, in Electrical Engineering and Power Systems. By the end of that stage he had mastered all three ends of the process: the machine, the design and the test.

6. 2010 — 2016

   Craftsman by day, board designer by night

   He founded MercesArtGolden in 2010, and the craft put him on the road: temples in several countries around the world. Recognition came in 2015. Those were years of two professions in the same day — on the scaffold by day, gold leaf in hand; at the computer by night, designing printed circuit boards. Two distinct fields, and neither of them done by halves.

7. What gold demands

   Zero margin for error

   Cabinetmaking taught him that a mistake costs you the piece. Gold raised the bar: the work is in the open air, tens of metres up, and the finish has to survive decades in a place where there is no margin to come back and correct. It is the same demand as PCB design — where a wrong board is only discovered after the factory has made thousands of it — taken to the point where the only possible correction is not to have got it wrong.

8. 2016 — today

   Designing from scratch, with an integrated view

   He was Senior Electronic Engineer at WiseHome, in Brazil, designing control boards for inductive loads with a focus on energy efficiency and signal stability. In Portugal he went on to AQSUP Aquatic Rescue Systems, in Cascais, and Dotiima Technologies, in Póvoa de Varzim. At Biocollabs he designed and implemented industrial machinery that raised the plant’s productivity by 35% — a result measured on the factory floor. He rounded out the profile with a specialisation in Networks and Systems from IEFP and with English certified at level C2.

9. Today

   Three trades, one standard

   He is currently CTO of Merces Innovation Hub, creator of the Circuit Sage platform and founder of MercesArtGolden. He goes on developing printed circuit boards, providing technical consultancy and writing the books he would have liked to read at the start of his career — practical manuals grounded in the machines he repaired himself. In theology, after more than three decades of studying the scriptures, he applies to people the same technical rigour he demands of circuits: it does not matter what the structure claims to be, what counts is the measurement of its performance and of its real fruits. Whether in wood, in electronics or in gold, the lesson stays the same — what is badly made, sooner or later, comes to light.

His own houses

Three trades, and the houses that keep them

Experience

1. 2023 — today Electronic Hardware Designer · PCB Designer Electrónica de A a Z · Cascais, Portugal · independent
2. 2023 Senior Electronic Engineer · PCB Designer Dotiima Technologies, S.A. · Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal
3. 2020 — 2022 Senior Electronic Engineer · PCB Designer AQSUP Aquatic Rescue Systems · Cascais, Portugal
4. 2016 — 2020 Senior Electronic Engineer · PCB Designer WiseHome · Hortolândia, Brazil
5. 2011 — 2020 Project and Installation Supervisor · PCB Designer ZB Service · Hortolândia, Brazil
6. 2009 — 2011 Electrical test inspector CAF Brasil · Hortolândia, Brazil
7. 2008 — 2009 Project and Installation Supervisor Universound Comércio e Serviços · Campinas, Brazil
8. 2007 — 2009 Excel and AutoCAD instructor People Escola Técnica · Hortolândia, Brazil
9. 2007 — 2009 Applied computing instructor Hortolândia Town Council · Hortolândia, Brazil
10. 2006 — 2007 CAD operator · PCB Designer CADSERVICE · Campinas, Brazil

Publications

A critical study of digital manipulation, faith turned into an instrument, and the threat to democracy. Grounded in scripture and in the documentary record, this book gives the believer back the discernment that was taken from them.

Pre-order nowE-book 5,39 €Printed book 25,00 €includes the e-book

5 languages

Theology & Politics

In Defense of the Truth — Volume 1

It accepts the accuser’s own criterion and applies it with the Bible in hand. Two hundred years of accusations against the Book of Mormon — Campbell, the Spaulding manuscript, the witnesses — put to the test, with the dates and the sources.

BuyE-book 5,99 €

5 languages

As Regras de Fé 4 a 13, uma a uma. De onde vem o homem, porque está aqui e para onde vai — três perguntas que quase nenhuma teologia responde as três com o mesmo cuidado.

Pre-order nowE-book 5,99 €Printed book 25,00 €includes the e-book

Electronic Engineering

KiCad and PCBs — Complete Edition

Both guides in a single volume: the design work in KiCad and the industrial fabrication of the board. 42 chapters, from the first schematic to additive manufacturing.

BuyE-book 9,99 €

Electronic Engineering

PCB Fabrication and Assembly

What happens to the board after the design leaves the software — from materials science to additive manufacturing. Twelve chapters written by someone who maintained the machines on the line.

BuyE-book 5,99 €

Electronic Engineering

KiCad, A Guided Course

Thirty chapters that follow one project from the first schematic to the files the factory receives. Written by someone who repaired the machines that make the board before he ever drew one.

BuyE-book 6,99 €