Showing posts with label specialty pcbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label specialty pcbs. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2009
ROHS Compliant Printed Circuit Board
A Rohs compliant pcb is one that does not use any lead in the manufacturing process or soldering. Rohs is a regulation for the use of lead in various products, and has slowly become a standard in printed circuit board manufacturing.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Quick guide for buying printed circuit boards
As you know [ probably don't, but anyway... ], I love electronics, and getting your projects and design looking professional and mechanically stable is a great plus you get when assembling them in a printed circuit board.
When ordering PCB's there's a certain process you have to go through, from designing the circuit, to designing the board, then ordering and actually assembling the circuit. For this guide I'm assuming you know your basic electronics and are looking to order a batch of PCB's for your finished project.
First off, you need to have your project designed and tested. This is probably the hardest part of the process, since you need to be making schematics, some calculations and stuff related. In this process, make sure to have a dependable breadboard, power source and measurement tools around, because many times problems with the functioning of the circuit can be caused by irregularities in any of the equipment described.
Parallel to designing the circuit, you need to be making the schematic in a computer program, because you'll need them to generate the circuit board layouts. The program you choose is pretty much a matter of choice, since most of them work around the SPICE model and net lists, so choose one that you like or a friend recommended and get to work.
Next up is designing the circuit board. Before you start doing this, make sure to check with your manufacturer if they offer standard sizes, more often than not, these standard sizes will give you a better value for low volumes of circuit boards. Once you have the size, you can get started on the design of the circuit board. The actual designing of the traces and positioning of the components in the board is an art and science in itself, and that is outside the scope of this thing. Many top notch manufacturers offer tutorials on how to properly design a PCB [ they want to make their job easy too you know ].
Remember I told you you needed to have a PC version of the schematic?, well that's because you really should check, double check, simulate and re-simulate your circuit and confirm that all connections in the PCB design correspond to those in your schematics, because once you order, there's no going back [ except for manufacturing defects ], and circuit boards are not the cheapest thing to buy.
Now that you have your circuit and circuit board designed, its time to get them manufactured. If you took the time to check for standard sizes then this step should be very straightforward, you just select your standard order, upload the Gerber files [ which are the layout definition file of the circuit board ], depending on the manufacturer, you may need to compress [ zip ] the files before uploading.
Before purchasing your circuit boards, make sure to order the lead free finish. It's better for the environment, better for you [ lead can cause all sorts of bad stuff to your health, and specially to children ], and looks far better than the leaded variety.
One thing to have in mind for future orders, is that most manufacturer give special attention to large volumes of boards, mostly by price [ they set some pretty steep base prices for most production services ], so if you only need few boards, always make sure they have standard orders [ most likely small boards, 3 to 5 boards is common ]. Also make sure to consider all the options, because sometimes a little extra on a board can get you a long way on quality and looks.
Now that you have ordered your circuit boards, check each and every one as soon as you can get your hands on them. Should you find a defect such as broken traces, broken or chipped edges or anything like that, its better to have that checked before you start assembling your project so you can get a quick replacement without any hassle.
So there you go! If your boards arrived safe and sound, your project should be well on its way to be a professional looking piece of technology.
- Zakmata
When ordering PCB's there's a certain process you have to go through, from designing the circuit, to designing the board, then ordering and actually assembling the circuit. For this guide I'm assuming you know your basic electronics and are looking to order a batch of PCB's for your finished project.
First off, you need to have your project designed and tested. This is probably the hardest part of the process, since you need to be making schematics, some calculations and stuff related. In this process, make sure to have a dependable breadboard, power source and measurement tools around, because many times problems with the functioning of the circuit can be caused by irregularities in any of the equipment described.
Parallel to designing the circuit, you need to be making the schematic in a computer program, because you'll need them to generate the circuit board layouts. The program you choose is pretty much a matter of choice, since most of them work around the SPICE model and net lists, so choose one that you like or a friend recommended and get to work.
Next up is designing the circuit board. Before you start doing this, make sure to check with your manufacturer if they offer standard sizes, more often than not, these standard sizes will give you a better value for low volumes of circuit boards. Once you have the size, you can get started on the design of the circuit board. The actual designing of the traces and positioning of the components in the board is an art and science in itself, and that is outside the scope of this thing. Many top notch manufacturers offer tutorials on how to properly design a PCB [ they want to make their job easy too you know ].
Remember I told you you needed to have a PC version of the schematic?, well that's because you really should check, double check, simulate and re-simulate your circuit and confirm that all connections in the PCB design correspond to those in your schematics, because once you order, there's no going back [ except for manufacturing defects ], and circuit boards are not the cheapest thing to buy.
Now that you have your circuit and circuit board designed, its time to get them manufactured. If you took the time to check for standard sizes then this step should be very straightforward, you just select your standard order, upload the Gerber files [ which are the layout definition file of the circuit board ], depending on the manufacturer, you may need to compress [ zip ] the files before uploading.
Before purchasing your circuit boards, make sure to order the lead free finish. It's better for the environment, better for you [ lead can cause all sorts of bad stuff to your health, and specially to children ], and looks far better than the leaded variety.
One thing to have in mind for future orders, is that most manufacturer give special attention to large volumes of boards, mostly by price [ they set some pretty steep base prices for most production services ], so if you only need few boards, always make sure they have standard orders [ most likely small boards, 3 to 5 boards is common ]. Also make sure to consider all the options, because sometimes a little extra on a board can get you a long way on quality and looks.
Now that you have ordered your circuit boards, check each and every one as soon as you can get your hands on them. Should you find a defect such as broken traces, broken or chipped edges or anything like that, its better to have that checked before you start assembling your project so you can get a quick replacement without any hassle.
So there you go! If your boards arrived safe and sound, your project should be well on its way to be a professional looking piece of technology.
- Zakmata
Thursday, December 17, 2009
RF Printed Circuit Boards
RF PCB's are specialty circuit boards that are designed and optimized to work with radio frequencies. Extra care is taken to ensure the board doesn't radiate undesired signals or that it acts as an antenna and captures undesired interference and noise.
Multilayer Printed Circuit Boards
Multilayer PCB's are used when extra track density is needed. Layers of substrate and etched tracks are "sandwiched" to create this kind of board. Sometime extra heat or chemical processes are required in order to have reliable connections and mechanical stability.
Metal Core PCB
Metal core printed circuit boards are used when thermal losses or output of the components needs to be managed, since the core aids in dispersing and acting as a heat sink.
In this kind of pcb, a piece or plate of metal is laminated inside the regular insulating substrate, where the tracks are etched and components soldered.
In this kind of pcb, a piece or plate of metal is laminated inside the regular insulating substrate, where the tracks are etched and components soldered.
Flexible Printed Circuit Boards
Flexible circuit boards are made from a flexible substrate, instead of the common rigid. They are used when space constraints or the difficulty to service rigid components limits the use of rigid circuit boards.
Double Sided PCB
Double sided PCB's, as the name suggests, is a kind of circuit board that has tracks etched on both sides of the board. This configuration allows for more compact designs, or when space limits the use of extra boards.
Circuit Board Prototype
A Prototype circuit board is used in low volume, test or design applications, when the circuit has not been tested or to improve the design before full scale production.
Sometimes, prototype boards are created by hobbyists in their own labs, in case an order of commercial PCB's becomes expensive or unneeded.
There are also some prototype boards that are similar in construction to breadboards, but require soldering for component connections.
Sometimes, prototype boards are created by hobbyists in their own labs, in case an order of commercial PCB's becomes expensive or unneeded.
There are also some prototype boards that are similar in construction to breadboards, but require soldering for component connections.
Blank Circuit Boards, Copper Clad Boards
Blank circuit boards are PCB's that haven't been etched with the regular copper traces for component connection. These are sold for the DIY crowd, who want to experiment with PCB etching.
Other name for these kinds of PCB is copper-clad boards, and are sold for etching at most hobby and electronics shops.
Other name for these kinds of PCB is copper-clad boards, and are sold for etching at most hobby and electronics shops.
BGA or Ball Grid Array PCB
A BGA PCB is a printed circuit board that instead of pins for connection to external circuitry, it has solder ball contacts, which come from the IC's that use that connection technology.
It has the advantage of having high 'pin' density, that other packaging technologies don't have, but a disadvantage is expensive testing of solder joints.
This kind of PCB is mostly use in the connections for CPU's.
It has the advantage of having high 'pin' density, that other packaging technologies don't have, but a disadvantage is expensive testing of solder joints.
This kind of PCB is mostly use in the connections for CPU's.
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