Benefits Associated with Rapid PCB Prototyping

Without any proper plan, implementing new PCB products have the tendency to introduce further unnecessary delays and spending, which could have been easily avoided.

Rapid PCB Prototyping proves to be a useful process when trying to reduce the time needed for developing new and innovative designs for your business.

What is rapid PCB  prototyping?

Before we talk about the benefits of rapid PCB prototyping services, it is important to know a few basic things about prototyping. A PCB prototype is an early, demo version of a particular product built for testing purposes. In simpler terms, prototyping is considered to be quite an effective method in order to evaluate new innovative design ideas and seeing if they can be incorporated into the final product or not. Moreover, it allows the manufacturer to enhance the precision as well as the quality of the final product.

Now that we know a thing or two about rapid PCB prototyping, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of rapid PCB prototyping services.

·         Creative designs:
The more that you seem to know about your design, the more creative you can become. Thorough testing and examination of your product tend to help you come up with innovative and creative ideas that you didn’t come up with before. Furthermore, you would be able to implement all these new ideas practically in a short period of time.

·         Several test runs of PCB designs:
With a large number of prototypes available at the ready for verification and testing, you have the ability to get several examinations under distinct conditions and situations in order to assure a certain level of quality of the product, which tends to lead to final top notch products.

·         Test components separately:
One of the major problems faced in advanced projects is that the troubleshooting of several PCB based components can be tough. It can be quite a daunting task to test and verify such models as a single part. However, with the help of PCB Prototype, there is a possibility to have a single prototype for separate components. Having this capability to test and verify each component separately can ease the troubleshooting process significantly.

·         Reduced costs:
Detecting certain problems and issues in the PCB model, before you move on to the production phase of the final product, tends to eliminate the risk of losing your money in a final manufacturing process. In addition to this, the prototypes fast forward the testing and verification process, resulting in a shorter time to market and diminish manufacturing costs.

So, if you want your business to avoid losing money and instead avail all the above-mentioned benefits, then it is recommended for you to turn to rapid PCB prototyping services.

Advantages Associated with Using Printed Circuit Board Prototypes

Before starting a full production process, it is vital to make sure that a printed circuit board (PCB) is functioning in a proper way. Doesn’t matter how carefully and cautiously designers tend to work on the project, trivial mistakes and invisible problems are inevitable and pose a threat to the functionality of the final product. If these problems aren’t dealt with before starting the full production, it can turn out to be extremely expensive for the project as a whole. Hence, more and more engineers prefer to order prototype boards before indulging in full-scale manufacturing of the product.

What is a printed circuit board prototype?

A prototype, in simpler terms, is an early sample of a given product, constructed with the intention to test the design idea in order to see if it works or not. While a majority of the prototypes are simply constructed with the purpose of testing basic user functionality, in case of Printed Circuit Board Prototyping, it lets your product have the added need to be somewhat, if not completely, functional. This is because PCB prototypes are designed to test the overall functionality of the product in question.

There are certain advantages of printed circuit board prototyping when designing a product, and a few of them are mentioned below.

·         Reduced timeline:
In the process of developing a printed circuit board design, the engineers tend to go through a number of changes before finalizing the design of the final product. This can create lengthy timelines and make your production process time-consuming, but printed circuit board prototypes have the capability to help speed up the design as well as the manufacturing process as a whole.

·         Manufacturing review and assistance: 

By hiring a third party Printed Circuit Board Prototyping service, firms have the tendency to benefit from the assistance of a new set of eyes and vision. There are multiple things that can go wrong during the designing process of a product such as excessive input, design blind spots, and design rule check (DRC).
      All these issues can lead to inefficiencies, flaws in the design, and other issues that the designers and engineers may have missed in the review process. But, third party PCB prototyping services can be relied upon in order to catch these problems as early as possible.

·         Test components individually:
Engineers tend to use prototype PCBs quite frequently, but the most advantageous testing happens with simple printed circuit boards that test singular functions and components. These types of prototype PCBs test single functions that are usually incorporated into a much larger PCB, in order to make sure that they function.

·         Reduced costs:
      Standard printed circuit board production runs can be a costly affair, and leaving things to chance is most likely to increase the bill. Hence, prototypes are vital in order to reduce production costs as they help the engineers to address and tackle various issues such as catching design flaws, determining product adjustments, and pinpointing cost-saving adjustments.

So, if you are looking to avail all these benefits then make sure that you hire the services of a reliable PCB prototyping company.

Find Your Online PCB Manufacturer

In today’s technology oriented world, most of the people are buying printed circuit board prototype rather than making their own product. They consider it a difficult task to manufacture it all by them as it requires assembling and fabrication facilities. Moreover, it is a very costly to do so in case of prototypes. Therefore they are nowadays outsourcing the fabrication of printed circuit boards. You can also outsource the printed circuit boards by following simple procedures to your advantage:

Know the cost online
Many companies that get outsourcing of printed circuit boards provide online quotes. By doing so you can get an estimate cost of prototypes and can plan accordingly. You can get the quotes by just filling out a simple form asking about certain details like material, size, dimension etc.
Online quotes save cost

You can reduce the cost of your PCBs by ordering in large quantity. The cost is also dependent on material and dimension but overall the cost is inversely proportional to quantity of order.


Read Also : Understanding the importance of Prototype PCB

Delivery time
When outsourcing your PCBs there are various factors which are to be taken into account for delivery time such as type of material used. An uncommon material or uncommon design will take more time in delivery as compared to a common material and design.

File Format for PCB Design
Generally vendors use common file format for PCB designing and if you are using any uncommon file format or other format than the vendor then you should inform the vendor beforehand as it will help the vendor getting a hold on to your requirements.

While getting online quotes you can get an approximate idea of both the cost and delivery time before placing the order and it helps a lot in long run.

Winding up
Many of the online PCB manufacturers are available after searching on Google or any search engine. The online PCB manufacturers provide easy and cheap PCBs. They also provide customer support to bring out the best for their customers. Don’t forget to clear all the doubts regarding hidden charges to avoid the hassle at the time of payment.

Understanding the importance of Prototype PCB

Circuit prototypes help to stabilize the development process, allowing electronic products to be created cheaper, faster and more productively than shotgun roll-outs.

Prototype printed circuit boards are a vital and important step in manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards (PCB).  With the help of Prototype, designers can easily understand the discrepancies in design and function of PCB.  If you want to know the significance prototype PCB, just keep reading this content.

Importance of Prototype PCB  

While designing any type of hardware, most of the producers demand a prototype of the PCB. After building one, you will understand that you need numerous prototypes for perfect designing of hardware. Here is some of the following importance of prototype PCB:
 
• A prototype will let you to understand the faults of hardware design. However it is not same in case of software. These might not be obvious when working on software. But while designing hardware, you will be able to recognize the physical limits of your design, and construction process.

• You can incorporate a Prototype PCB in your application to check its function. After that, you can make sure if it is perfectly well-matched with your hardware or not.

• Also, it will facilitate you to accept user input.
After manufacturing a prototype, you can easily understand the faults of PCB. And, this will help you to create an ideal product.   Name of first prototype is ‘crude prototype’ – it helps you to recognize the physical properties of PCB. The second prototype is ‘working prototype’ which help you to experiment the functions of hardware. After all changes are incorporated, a concluding prototype is manufactured. The design of the final PCB is based on the design of the prototype.

Read Also : High Quality PCB – A Boon of Techniques & Technology!

Things to know before ordering prototype

If you are going to order PCB, make sure that the manufacturer is able to meet your hope. The manufacturer should have most up-to-date technology and can build one PCB in 24-48 hours. Today, there are many companies which produce prototype PCB; with the help of internet you can find such companies in your city and get in touch with the professionals.

Understanding The Overall Process Of PCB Manufacturing

The PCB manufacturing process is very crucial for a person involved in the electronics industry. Printed circuit boards are widely used as the base for electronic circuits. It is used to provide the motorized basis on which the circuit can be built. Hence all circuits use PCB and they are designed and used in millions of numbers.

Although PCBs form the base of almost all electronic circuits, hence they are likely to be taken for granted. However technology in this area of electronics is moving ahead. Track sizes are diminishing, numbers of layers in the boards is escalating to put up the increased connectivity required, and the design rules are being enhanced to make sure that smaller SMT devices can be handled and the soldering processes used in manufacturing can be accommodated.

The PCB production process can be achieved in several ways and there are a number of alternatives. Despite the many small differences, the main stages in the PCB manufacturing process remain same.

PCB components

Printed circuit boards can be made from a range of substances. The most widely used is in a form of glass fiber based board which is known as FR4. This provides a rational degree of constancy under temperature disparity and is does not collapse badly, while not being extremely expensive. Other low cost materials are available for the PCBs.

In order to make a PCB with tracks for the mechanism, copper clad board is obtained. This consists of the substrate fabric, typically FR4, with copper cladding usually on both sides. This copper cladding consists of a slight layer of copper sheet connected to the board. This bonding is generally very good for FR4, but the nature of PTFE makes this more difficult, and this adds complexity to the processing of PTFE PCBs.

Basic PCB manufacturing procedure

With the bare PCB boards selected and accessible the next step is to create the needed tracks on the board and remove the surplus copper. The manufacturing of the PCBs is usually obtained using a chemical etching process. The most ordinary type of etch used with PCBs is ferric chloride.

To gain the right pattern of tracks, a photographic procedure is used. Usually the copper on the uncovered printed circuit boards is enclosed with a thin layer of photo-resist. It is then exposed to light through a photographic film. In this way the reflection of the tracks is passed onto the photo-resist. With this process, the photo-resist is positioned in a developer so that only those areas of the board where tracks are required are covered in the resist.

Read More : Importance of Professionally Manufactured PCB

The next phase in the process is to put the printed circuit boards into the ferric chloride to engrave the areas where no track or copper is needed. Knowing the attentiveness of the ferric chloride and the thickness of the copper, it is placed into the etch froth.

Although, most of the PCB boards are manufacturing using photographic process, but other methods are also available. One is to use a specific highly accurate milling machine. The machine is then controlled to mill away the copper in unnecessary areas. The control is clearly automated and driven from files created by the PCB design software. This type of PCB manufacture is not suitable for large quantity but it is an ideal option where very small quantity of PCB prototype is needed.

Printed Circuit Board – A Brief Note About It

What Is A Printed Circuit Board?
A printed circuit board is basically an electronic board used for placing the different elements that conform to an electrical circuit which contains an electrical interconnection among all of them. They are characteristically made of plastic laminates with soldered chips, components, metal circuits, cables and sockets.

Types Of Printed Circuit Board:
The simplest PCB is the one that contains copper tracks or interconnects only on any one of its surfaces. This sort of circuit board is known as 1 layer PCB but the most common type is the one that contains 2 layers, as it facilitates you to find interconnections in both the surfaces of the board. However, depending on the complexity of the layout of the PCB, it can also be manufactured of 8 more layers.

In today’s time almost all of the electronic devices contain PCBs so as to provide the consumers an interactive and intelligent service. It can easily be found in a TV, computers, mobiles, washing machines, refrigerators, coffee makers and many more.

Printed Circuit Board Service:
Though the single vital factor in developing an electronic circuit is the concept and design only, without getting right printed board circuit board services your goods can never go further than the planning phase. Finally, if you don’t want to keep needless limits on the design of your PCB, custom printed circuit board service is the right way to go for.

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

Custom Printed Circuit Board Services:
Just imagine that your company has designed something that will bring revolution in the world of consumer electronics. Once this revolutionary design is prototyped and properly promoted, it will more likely generate billions of dollars in revenue. The only problem is that the circuit may be too complicated to fit on a “Standard” pin-through PCB. Thereby, there are some renowned web portals that have a team of highly experienced and trained professionals who work together to manufacture custom printed circuit board layout that can fit perfectly with all the purpose of the circuit.

Summing Up:
At the end of the blog, the only thing that matters is ultimately the job got done right or not. When you rely on any relevant website in terms of serving your purpose, you can rest assured that the job will always be done right.

Prototype Printed Circuit Board - Vital Factors To Consider

If you are thinking of producing a prototype PCB, you have two choices; either you can manufacture it yourself or get it outsourced by a vendor who is well specialized in printed circuit board prototype assembly. Though there are two choices before you, but producing it yourself would require an assembly facility and an in-house PCB fabrication, which can never be a cost effective arrangements by any means if your requirement is only a prototype PCB. It not only sounds good but also makes better business sense to subcontract a Prototype PCB manufacturer who specializes in the particular field with an experience of long years.

Let’s have a look at the primary guidelines for choosing a vendor to outsource this electric device:

• Online Quote Convenience: Manufacturers who possess an Online Quote Convenience can save your time. The online system is simple to use that allows you to enter the salient details of the product’s design needs such as production specifications, thickness and the type of material. The ultimate purpose of the quote system is the cost control.
• Lower the Costs: It is typically less expensive to manufacture a huge quantity of circuit board than a small quantity. Though prototype is usually produced in small quantities as the design of circuit is still being refined. A vendor that has been in this production knows how to keep your cost low because it has the potential to distribute the cost of production and minimize the costs of assembly set up by spreading the production job among various clients so as to maintain the total cost.
• Package Types: You need to have a close look at the extent of package types that the prototype printed circuit board manufacturer accept for production. The quality vendor lists this crucial information on his or her website. By contacting technical support team of these manufacturers in order to verify their capabilities to assemble the prototype PCBs, you can steer clear of problems prior to the initiation of production.

Read Also: https://standardpcb.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/a-valuable-guide-about-prototype-printed-circuit-board/

These are the 3 main factors a PCB designer needs to mull over while outsourcing their designs to a Prototype PCB manufacturer.

Printed Circuit Board Products and Its types of Finishes

PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board which is responsible for physically supporting the circuits and wiring of any electronic goodies. It has a print of circuits embedded on it which are done by a conducting material, so it seems that it is printed but the board is highly conductive and helps in making an electronic gadget work.

The sole purpose of PCB’s are to provide a solid base so that the wiring can sit on it perfectly and in the same manner it can be put inside a machine. Every electronic device from parts of a computer like graphic cards, mother boards, to home appliances like washing machines, microwaves, fridges and television are wired on a printed circuit board.

These are called “printed” because they have circuit marks, conductive traces and vias on them. A “via” (Latin for path or way) is an electrical connection between layers in a physical electronic circuit that goes through the plane of one or more adjacent layers. A “via” is a small opening in an insulating oxide layer that allows a conductive connection between different layers.

There are different types of PCB factory which provides PCB on the basis of different conductive material used:
• Silver PCB: it is used as silver is highly conductive and the coats the copper from getting oxidized.

• Electroless Nickel immersion gold PCB: It has two layer of metallic coating over catalyzed copper. Gold protects the nickel from oxidation during storage and provides low contact resistance.

• Organic Solderability Preservative PCB: protects copper from oxidizing before assembly and is very thin at the range of (100-4000 Angstroms).

• Sn/Pb Hot Air Solder Level (HASL) with SN100CL alloy PCB: contains 63% tin and 37 % lead. The common thickness ranges from .00003” - .0015” (30-1500 µ”) and the melting temperature is 183 degrees C.

• Lead-Free HASL:  same process as the previous one, common alloys used are Sn/Cu/Co, Sn/Cu/Ni/Ge. It is slightly more uniform than the sn/pb one and has a higher melting temperature of 228 degrees C and thickness ranges from .0003”-.001” (300-1000 µ”).

• Immersion (White) Tin: it is formed with the intermetallic joint of copper/tin best used for backplane panels.

• Immersion Silver: it has the metallic solderability preservative with 8-15 micro inch of sheer silver and has an excellent solderability and can be easily bonded with aluminum wire.

• Electroless Nickel Electroless Palladium Immersion Gold (ENEPIG):  layer from 120 – 240 µ” of nickel is deposited on copper and is the fastest growing surface finish as it forms solder joints with SAC solders.

Read also: Support of a Printed Circuit Board