PCB fabrication
Pages: 1 2
Colin Ferris (399) 1797 posts |
Thank you for that info – did you take any pics of the old system? Seems to remember sticking bits of acid resistant ‘paper’ on a copper board – but may be wrong:-( In the Archive mag – there was no pics of the milled board (mirror image) :-( |
Theo Markettos (89) 919 posts |
Yes, that’s the ‘pooled PCB’ concept. The manufacturing panels are large (ballpark 1 metre). Normally on a production run you panelise your project, ie repeat to fit in the size of the panel (eg a 10×10cm PCB would get 100 on one 1×1m panel, before wastage), and they run N panels through the line to get as many boards as you need. In a pooled PCB they put multiple designs on the same panel, and run several panels (eg for 5 of one design, put each board on the panel once and run 5 panels; for 10 boards put it on twice and run 5 panels). When doing this you have to use the same manufacturing settings across the whole panel. This is a different way of doing things than a traditional line which is optimised for volume production – it is best to conform to their defaults, rather than you as customer calling the shots. JLC have enough scale that they now have 4 subcontractors across China, who specialise in different options: 2 layer in a few factories, 4 layer in another, flex PCBs in another. Then the boards are sorted based on your choices (the 1.0mm thickness goes on one panel, the 1.6mm on another). The fancier options tend to take longer as they wait for enough submissions with a particular set of parameters to come in, and maybe those are run on smaller panels (hence higher cost). But their scale is vast so it probably won’t be long before they can collect enough submissions to fill a panel with any combination of options they offer. Strange Parts did a video from inside their factory showing the process, another from their flex PCB factory and one on assembly from competitor PCBWay |
Colin Ferris (399) 1797 posts |
It seems that KiCad PCB designer runs on Raspberry Pi’s (Linux) – has anyone tried Kitty Cad? [Edit] That’s on the Ti or Pi. |
Pages: 1 2