Benefits of Using Printed Circuit Boards

It is obvious that anything that is advanced technologically is usually better than its predecessor. It is tough to imagine a time before printed circuit boards existed. Thanks to the advancement and development of technology, it has made our jobs easier. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) play a vital role in the manufacturing process of almost every other piece of equipment that you are familiar with. Be it the computer on your desk, the phone in your pocket, your television, and much more equipment rely on printed circuit boards.

Many of you might not know but it is due to the use of PCBs that many electronics are getting smaller and more compact in size over the course of the last few years. However, there are still some large and complex boards that are used in many big pieces of equipment. Circuit Board Manufacturers tend to keep in mind the various benefits that the electronics manufacturers want to avail by using PCBs, so they manufacture these boards accordingly.

There are various different benefits associated with printed circuit boards, some of them are mentioned below.

• A compact solution:
  A PCB has the ability to have a number of elements and parts. Since these boards use copper tracks instead of actual wires, it allows for the same types of results without utilizing current-carrying wires. Printed circuit boards are small and not as bulky as other alternatives. This property of the board contributes to many electronic devices getting smaller than they were earlier.
• Saving energy and time:
  Another one of the significant benefits related to PCBs is the amount of time that it saves. If the conventional methods were to be used to connect components then it is bound to take a lot of time, while on the other hand, circuit board would take far less time to assemble when the design is finished.
• No loose connections:
  The connections that are done in the boards by the Circuit Board Manufacturers are made through the copy tracks, and as far as they are built and manufactured in a proper manner, it is less likely that you would have to deal with issues such as loose connections or short circuits.
• A reliable option:
  It is not a coincidence that almost every other company and individual is making good use of the printed circuit boards. It is because they are considered to be a reliable solution that has the ability to work for a wide range of products, both large and small. Moreover, they last a long time if they have been manufactured efficiently, which would boost the confidence of the companies using them in their electronics.
• Low costs:
  Surely, when it comes to manufacturing and developing several types of electrical devices, it is very important to keep the cost in mind. Fortunately, when the circuit boards are designed and tested in order to know if it is working properly, the mass production of these boards is very affordable and profitable.

These are some of the advantages of using PCBs in various electronic devices.

How is PCB Prototyping Beneficial to the Production of Your Product?

A prototype is nothing but an initial sample of a product, built with the sole purpose of putting the design idea to test and see if it serves its purpose. Yes, prototypes are usually made to test basic functionality, but printed circuit board (PCB) prototypes are expected to be somewhat, if not totally, functional. It is because of the fact that PCB prototypes are built to test the functionality of the entire design and not just the PCB.

Before getting to the full production run, it is important to run a PCB functional test to see if the printed circuit board prototyping is done aptly or not. Utmost cautiousness is necessary while working on the project, as even the smallest of mistakes can lead to the failure of the functionality of the final product. It can prove to be extremely unprofitable, if these problems are not taken care of at the earliest, before full production. Therefore, most of the engineers prefer to order prototypes boards regularly before full-scale manufacturing.

PCB designers and engineers use prototype PCBs during the whole process of design, constantly testing the functionality of their product by introducing new changes and additions. Surely, most of you all would think, why don’t they simply choose to go into the standard production runs instead of using PCB prototypes?

It would seem like the prototypes do nothing but add unnecessary steps and costs to the production process, but they are quite essential in the design process. Printed circuit board prototyping provides several benefits for both the clients and the designers, which are as follows.

• Reduced timeline:
  Developing a PCB design can be a lengthy process as engineers go through several changes before creating the ultimate product. To help this process be less time consuming and speed up things, PCB prototypes are very useful.
• Manufacturing review and assistance:
  Using a third-party printed circuit board prototyping services can benefit the companies with assistance from a new set of eyes. There are numerous things that can go wrong during the whole design process, which can result in consequences such as inefficiencies, design flaws, and similar other issues. What a third-party prototyping service offers is to catch these small problems that can cause major damage to the final product. Hence, they can suggest design improvement before prototyping, making the prototype even more efficient for the testing process.
• Reduced costs:
  Usual PCB production runs can be quite expensive, and not using the help of prototypes and making room for mistakes can only increase your bill. These prototypes make sure that you avoid unnecessary costs by helping the designer avoid certain problems during the process. All in all, PCB prototyping services can enhance your product quality while reducing the manufacturing cost of the whole process as well.

So, if you want to avail of all the above-mentioned benefits and make a significant amount of profit in the manufacturing process of your product, then make sure that you choose a good printed circuit board prototyping service.

Single sided PCBs – Components and Benefits!!

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are those boards which are used as a base in most electronic devices- as a component for physical support and also as the wiring area for the socketed and surface-mounted parts. They are mostly made of composite epoxy, fiberglass, or any other composite material. PCBs for simpler electronics are mostly made up of only a single layer. Hardware which is sophisticated, for instance, motherboards or computer graphics cards can have many layers of PCBs, up to 12 in some cases.

More often than not PCBs come to be associated only with a computer whereas they are found in many other electronic gadgets, such as radios and stereos, vending machines, coffee makers, sensor products, digital cameras, calculators, power supplies, printers, industrial relays, TVs, and mobile phones. Apart from this PCBs are majorly used in certain fields including in industrial machinery, medical devices, aerospace and automotive industry, and in lighting.

What are Single-sided PCBs?

Single-sided PCBs are those circuit boards in which the components are mounted only on one side and the conducting wires are placed at the other side. It is a PCB which is basic and simple, yet, much in demand. These PCBs are composed by coating one thin layer of a thermally regulated and electrically encased dielectric with copper. Usually, over the layer of copper, a layer of solder mask is secured.

What are the components of PCBs?

The four main components of a printed circuit board are:

• Substrate:

Fiberglass is usually used for the making of a substrate. Fiberglass is used for the strength that it can offer to the PCB and thus prevent breakage. You can say, it is the “skeleton” of the printed circuit board.

• Copper Layer:

Depending on the type of board, this layer is either a foil of copper or a complete coating of copper. In either of the case, the purpose remains the same- to conduct electrical signals to and from the PCB just how the nervous system carries signals between the brain and muscles.

• Solder Mask:

This is a layer of polymer which is there over the copper layer to ensure that it does not short-circuit by coming in contact with the external elements. You can understand better if we term this as the “skin” of the PCB.

• Silkscreen:

This part of the PCB is to display logos, symbols switch settings, parts numbers, components reference, and tests points. The silkscreen is also referred to as the nomenclature or the legend.

Benefits of Single-sided PCBs:

You must be wondering why the single-sided PCBs are considered to be the best choice for a wide variety of appliances. It is simply because of the many advantages that they offer. Listed below are few of such advantages:

• Single-sided PCBs are easily understood by most of the manufacturers. This is a major reason why they are popularly used in the making of a variety of appliances by the majority of manufacturers.
• These circuit boards are much preferred because of their simple and low in weight designs.
• In the whole manufacturing process, these PCBs pose the minimum amount of issues as compared to other PCBs. thus, the process of manufacturing speeds up.
• In case of high quantity orders and otherwise as well, single-sided PCBs are available at much lesser cost as compared to their other counterparts.

It is often seen that assembled PCBs are static sensitive and therefore one must carry them in an antistatic bag when in transit.

How To Choose The Right PCB Manufacturer?

A PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is one of the key components of all the simplest and large electronic devices. PCB is mainly used for the purpose of connecting and supporting electronic components with sheets of copper and with conductive tracks. It is commonly used in passive switch boxes and various other electronic tools. There are basically three types of PCB available in the market namely single-sided PCB, double-layer PCB, and multilayer PCB.

PCB Manufacturer

If there is a situation when you have to select a PCB manufacturer then you must note that selecting the right manufacturer is a tricky decision, as the competitors who provide PCB’s are plenty in numbers. It is not always an easy task to choose the right PCB manufacturer as there are many factors to look for when finalizing your decision. When developing the design for the PCB itself, the circuit board needs to be made and this generally is undertaken by a specialist or an experienced PCB manufacturer.

Selecting an appropriate manufacturer can make the entire process much easier and convenient but the wrong one can result in a lot of errors and issues. So, to make things easier for you, here is a list of all important factors that will help you choose the most productive PCB manufacturer.

Guidelines to select the right PCB manufacturer

1. Check the experience of the manufacturer:

Experience makes everything perfect and in case of the PCB field, it makes the manufacturers well versed as well. A PCB manufacturer who has several years of experience will have a better understanding of the customer’s demands and requirements. Such manufacturers have a brand name to handle and hence, they do not commit issues that would ruin their reputation.

2. Look for the manufacturer’s certifications:

Another major thing to look for is to check if the manufacturer has some of the important certifications including UL, IPC, and ISO and so on. There are a number of manufacturers that can provide you PCBs at a relatively cheap rate, but they will cost you later on. So, you need to be very careful regarding this and should always try to choose a manufacturer who is quality compliant.

3. Know about the manufacturer’s delivery time:

Nobody would want to work with a manufacturer who can’t provide the PCBs at the given time. So, check if there is consistency in the manufacturer’s delivery times. Remember to ask them what all they do to ensure on-time delivery of their products. You should always avoid manufacturers that don’t meet deadlines and make false promises.

4. Know about their potential clients:

Before you choose a PCB manufacturer, always remember to ask them about their past and existing clients. If the manufacturer is genuine, they would easily provide you their client’s names. However, if the manufacturer is hesitant in providing you the details of their clients, don’t choose them.

Choosing the right PCB manufacturer is very important to ensure that the electronic products are safe to use and has no problem in their working. Considering these points while searching for an appropriate manufacturer will surely help you and it will become easier for you to choose the best PCB manufacturer that will provide you with the best quality PCBs.

Printed Circuit Boards Are the Key Need of Today’s Technological Advanced Tools!

Time is changing, trend is changing so as the technology too and if we don’t keep pace with the changes of time and technology, our impression will be buried somewhere in the past. If we truly want to keep our head and shoulder high in the current technological advanced society, we must adapt its inventions.

As a matter of fact whatever electric equipment we use in our day to day life today are more or less connected with technology and all these machinery devices have raised their standard with the passage of time. The best example of this technical advancement can be seen in the form of Printed Circuit Board. Printed circuit boards have taken a huge hype from being a traditional tool to highly developed equipments.

What is Printed Circuit Board?

To define, printed circuit board is not any visible equipment or appliance that we use on our home and offices. It is simple an electronic unit used to create conductive connection. While it is not any essential device of today’s age, virtually all the modern devices require it to function. This board is widely used in all types of electronic components like computer systems, home appliances, cell phones and so on. Without its use, we can’t imagine a smooth functioning of an electric component.

Contact a reliable manufacturer only to design your PCB –

Seeing the high value of PCB, you are strongly advised not to rely on any source you come across to get your printed circuit board designed and manufactured. While there are a number of service providers available in the industry today and they all claim to provide the better service than the next in terms of manufacturing this green board for your device but when it comes to prove true to their words, most of them fly over night. Hence, being a smart investor, you need to rely on a reliable PCB manufacturing company only in order to obtain the high quality service with no complaints at all.

Type of Printed Circuit Boards –

There are basically 3 types of PCBs are designed to support the wide variety of appliances.

• Multi-layer PCB

• Double sided PCB

• Single sided PCB.

Depending on the specific need of your electric unit, the PCB manufacturing company can best advise you what type of boards will best suit your need and support your system aptly.

To sum up, Printed Circuit Boards are the integral need of today’s technological advanced equipment and getting it designed and manufactured from a reputed company can be a good deal for you; just go for it!

Printed Circuit Boards – A Must Have Component of Today’s Electric Equipments!

It is the era of technology where everything just revolves around the technological inventions. From kitchen to bedroom and from school to office, the ever increasing dominance of technical power can be spotted at every segment of life. The best form of this technological dominance can be seen in the form of Printed Circuit Board. Printed Circuit Boards are fabricated for a variety of reasons.

If you are wondering what exactly a printed circuit board is, how they are manufactured and what functions do they perform, you are not alone. There are a number of people who have an unclear understanding of PCB and they really find themselves incapable when it comes to define what a printed circuit board is.

Basically, a printed circuit board is a thin piece of board built from fiberglass or a similar substance and it is often green in colour. This board is usually used to support and connect an electronic component to the board. Once the board is connected with the wiring and electronic component, the PCB is called a Printed Circuit Assembly (PCA) or Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA).

The key function of printed circuit board is to make sure that the main processor can be connected to the various components within the device. For example, when PCB is manufactured for a computer, the main circuit board or motherboard connects to the various smaller ones that carry out the other related functions within the computer.

With so much importance equipment in our lives that are just useless and worthless without the connection of printed circuit board, PCB manufacturers must try their best to use the latest technology in the fabrication of the boards. Also, they must ensure that the products are precisely engineered to produce the highest quality printed circuit boards.

So, if you are anyhow associated with the sue of printed circuit boards or you are in the business of manufacturing electronic equipments that require the use of a PCB, be sure to count on a reliable PCB manufacturer or supplier only that is known to fabricate high quality PCBs at reasonable rates.

How Can We Successfully Assemble PCBs!

As I like the way technology is getting ahead in time and doing miracles, I always prefer spreading the information related different electronic things and their workings. Today, in this blog, I will be discussing some of the major steps that you should perform during the assembly of a PCB in order to produce a high-quality working PCB and that would also be cost-effective.

The very first thing you should do is to talk to your chosen manufacturer about the production quality of the PCB in details.

You’ve most likely counseled various assets while you arranged the outline of your PCB. Similarly, as we would ask you to consult your PCB maker about the design majorly, keep in mind to utilize your constructing agent (such as an assembler) as an asset as well as they can likewise provide you with value through the assembling procedure. PCB assembling tools offer recommendations on the effective configuration of designs, instructing you on new or enhanced materials or item strategies, and, depicting a portion of the latest industry tools in PCB manufacturing and assembly.

If you are looking for off-shoring PCB assembly, you should consider the total cost of production. This is the first step towards a successful assembling as having a single contact with a supplier can turn out to be a big failure, hence keep a couple of more suppliers on the speed dial.

In case, your PCBs has a part or parts that are just available from one provider, you may keep running into inconvenience if the provider encounters production deferrals or chooses to stop the production of the part forever. Hence, choose wisely. You’d need to make sure your label name makes sense and keep some consistency.

While you’ve presumably checked every one of the markings on your design copies twice, shouldn’t something be said about the markings on the components that would be mounted on your PCB? There are several ways to mark a document and not all producers and suppliers mark their parts in any similar way. You’d need to keep this fact in mind especially when assembling multilayer PCBs as these may require hundreds of components to be mounted and it would be better if you already make a rough document first to make sure how many components you need.

In case, you include a bundle of parts with your plan bundle, ensure every one of the parts is numbered, named, and coordinate with your documentation. Also, keep in mind to make them easily readable. (e.g. “your alphabet ‘o’ should not be misinterpreted as a zero); Utilize every one of the devices you can at the start to get the best outcomes in the end.

You should consider lead time as important, both in the plan and the assembly.

You and your maker most likely have great evaluations of your standard time to outline the design and time to assemble, in view of past projects. In case, you’re building up an alternate sort of load up then you typically do, there might be more “increase time” to plan and assemble. Keep in mind to figure that your opportunity in time.

You should choose the supplier who is knowledgeable about working with most of all the document formats that you intend to submit.

Rapid Prototyping and Its Different Types!

Prototypes play a vital role in the study, research, and development. The main job of these developed prototypes is to test a model prior to production and to recognize the problematic possibilities which may occur later during the production due to faults in design. Previously, it used to be an extremely costly process to generate a prototype model; moreover, it was time taking also. But today the speed of developing a prototype is increased due to the support of CNC – Computer Numerically Controlled Machining. The duration of the procedure is also reduced from days to hours through rapid prototyping.

Nowadays, rapid prototyping is an additional yet essential part of any manufacturing process. This stage generates a model of an object from a computer-aided design and the model is built in a layer. A three-dimensional model of a casting is built from a CAD drawing using the computerized equipment.

Following are few major types of Rapid Prototyping:

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM): FDM, short for fused deposition modeling is a type of rapid prototype technology usually used to transform CAD drawings into physical parts. FDM was developed by S. Scott Crump and is a trademark of Stratasys.

FDM works on an additive substance which expels material in layers. Plastic or wax is heated, melted and condensed in the expulsion head and expelled through a nozzle. The nozzle is made to move over a trail recognized by the CAD configuration to create the part. Doing this, a single layer is expelled and after that, it is dropped to expel the following layer over the first until the point that the whole prototype is made, with one layer at a time.

Stereo lithography (SLA): Another type of rapid prototyping is stereo lithography in which the process is done using UV ray to convert liquid acrylic polymer into the solid state, the process is done on a moving platform doing layer by layer. After many layers, the prototype is formed in a preferred form. The process consists of a device named VAT that is filled with photo curable liquid acrylate polymer. Due to best accuracy, less time taken this type of prototyping is capable of making objects that are geometrically difficult to be machined and fine details of parts can also be made, thus, it is the most used type of prototyping.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS): In this type of prototyping, non-metallic and metallic powders are sintered and a laser which is guided by a CAD program fuses the powdered material. Selective laser sintering uses the sintering principle and it is a process in which the material gets heated up rather getting melted to produce a coherent mass.

3D Printing, Laminated Object Manufacturing, Optical Fabrication, Photochemical Machining and Solid Base Curing are some other available types of rapid prototyping.

Designers can obtain several benefits by using Rapid Prototyping. Planners can look their parts virtually on a computer and on the off chance if any mistake happens they can fix it without much of a stretch. This technique is also used to make different parts which later form a whole part by combining each part. This advanced procedure gives blank patterns to use in the casting process. Rapid prototyping has provided help to biomedical science.

Advantages of Using Rapid Prototyping for Product Designing

One of the major challenges that any product designers face is that they cannot show the upcoming designs to their clients. Despite advancements in 3D technology, explaining designs to the customers can never be easy.

In this situation, rapid prototyping technology or additive manufacturing is gaining popularity among manufacturers and engineering designers as it offers an accurate and fast way to realize the prospective of the product. Adopting rapid prototyping brings higher faithfulness from the conceptualized design as compared to the predictable paper design. Here are some of the benefits of this technology:

1.Realizing the design before finalizing – Rapid prototyping technology allows the designers to get an idea of their design beyond implicit visualization. This helps them and clients to understand the overall look of the design, rather than simply estimating through the CAD model. This helps the designers to implement their ideas in their design after finalizing everything. This helps the designer to develop viable products with better approval rate.

2.Can make changes immediately– if the designer will have a physical model, it will be easy for him to make some changes in the design instantly by taking feedback from the clients. Before finalizing the design, several iterations are required and with each iterative, the design gets better which ultimately improves good relation between designer and customer.

3.Save time and money– With rapid-prototyping manufactures, the time and money to develop designs and patterns can be eliminated. The same printing equipment and CAD software can be used to manufacture several geometries. Unlike conventional prototyping methods, the quantity of waste created is very less, since addictive manufacturing only prints the final material.

Read Also : Printed Circuit Board- How to purchase it online

4.Modifying designs– The most promising advantage of this technology is that it has quality to develop modified products as per the requirement of the customers. It does not require any special tools to change the design. A small change in the CAD model is enough to customize designs.

5.Reduce design error– This technology allows the designer to identify errors in the design before mass production. It is important to identify the flaws of the product at very early stage to avoid problems that might occur during or after during manufacturing process.

The use of rapid-prototyping in product designing is a profitable decision and must be encouraged. In a cutthroat competitive landscape, this technology can be very helpful in developing innovative products in minimal price.

PCB and it`s connections

The Printed Circuit Board is also known as PCB. The job of PCB is to support the electronic device mechanically. In almost every electronic gadgets and appliances of today PCB is being used. It plays an important role of making any gadget as PCB is a backbone of every electronic device. There are many different types of PCB with similar use.

Earlier, these PCBs were designed manually by creating a photomask. And now these PCBs are designed by some layout software. From gadgets like laptops to smart phones everything is built on PCB. This PCB device have been in use from past many years but with help of improved and modern technology it is now being used in many electronics gadgets.

Though, there are many types of PCB but three types of PCBs are being used in almost every gadget that is mentioned below:

• Single sided PCB- This type has only one circuit side hole. All the electrical components are fixed one side of this device.

• Double sided PCB– This is very commonly used in PCB as it has two layers of holes, in order to connect two sides of this device with electronic components.

• Multilayer PCB- The layers of this device depends up on the need of the customer. They usually come under minimum four to somewhere around forty layers where, so many electronic components can be connected.

 PCB Manufacturers designed these PCB devices in bulk depending up on the order and need of the customers. The customer can place the order according to the design of their product or the kind of gadget they made. PCB is almost in every electronic product that you use. It now becomes the most essential part for any gadget.