Printed Circuit Board Loading
Small Volumes Accepted
PCB’s designed for production are generally cheaper to manufacture than boards requiring excessive manual intervention. If unsure about production ready PCBs then please contact us for general advice.
PCB Loading Methods
- Surface Mount placement is the most common design used today. This involves placing reels of components on a Pick and Place Machine and configuring that machine to place the component in its designated spot.
- Through Hole placement generally involves the pre-preparation of the component for insertion into the PCB. Typical preparation involves lead forming and bending the component.
- Finally there is the Custom Component. Today components are becoming varied and complex, with specialized placement techniques. These components generally require manufacturer’s special instructions for placement.
Soldering Methods
- Surface Mount components are placed onto solder paste deposited on the PCB and then sent though an oven with an individual soldering profile.
- Through Hole components are typically soldered on a wave soldering machine but are also hand soldered if they are in a difficult position on the PCB.
- Custom components may use either of the above techniques or be press-fitted or use some other special technique.
Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI)
Inspects Solder Joints & Component Identification
PCB’s designed for production are generally cheaper to manufacture than boards requiring excessive manual intervention. If unsure about production ready PCBs then please contact us for general advice.
PCB Loading Methods
- Surface Mount placement is the most common design used today. This involves placing reels of components on a Pick and Place Machine and configuring that machine to place the component in its designated spot.
- Through Hole placement generally involves the pre-preparation of the component for insertion into the PCB. Typical preparation involves lead forming and bending the component.
- Finally there is the Custom Component. Today components are becoming varied and complex, with specialized placement techniques. These components generally require manufacturer’s special instructions for placement.
Soldering Methods
- Surface Mount components are placed onto solder paste deposited on the PCB and then sent though an oven with an individual soldering profile.
- Through Hole components are typically soldered on a wave soldering machine but are also hand soldered if they are in a difficult position on the PCB.
- Custom components may use either of the above techniques or be press-fitted or use some other special technique.
PCB Board Testing
Full ICT / MDA Service
After testing is performed and the board is electrically sound, the next stage involves loading firmware into various components thus bringing the assembly to life. Once concluded, the ICT can start to perform live test on many parts of the assembly.
ICT must be designed in
- ICT must be considered at the start of design
- Test points must be accessible by probes
- Consider test points for functional live test
- Test jigs can measure colour & intensity of LEDs
- Many tests are possible on our ICT machine
Conformal Coating
Selective and Accurate
This is where our conformal coating machine becomes a more versatile option. Software is used to select sections of a PCB to be sprayed. The spraying is then with special spray heads at extremely low PSI settings, this eliminates any overspray to neighbouring components.
Considerations
- There are different types of Conformal Coat for varied applications
- Consider which product is suitable for your application
- Consider which parts of your PCB need to be protected
- Thicker applications are achieved by multiple spray passes
- Some conformal coats contain a UV tracer for application verification
Ultrasonic Welding
Product Welding
Our Equipment
- We use a Branson 2000 Ultrasonic Welder at our Ringwood factory
- The process requires a custom product ‘nest’
- The ‘nest’ is then attached to the machine
- Custom machine settings are then set for each individual ‘nest’
- The welding operation takes less than a second
- The finished product becomes tamper proof
Low Melt Overmoulding
Electronics Encapsulation
The process is related to injection moulding where heated hot-melt adhesive is injected into a tool. The thin molten mass will flow around filigree components at low pressure unlike the high pressure required for conventional plastic injection moulding. The low pressure makes the entire process economical, as both the machine and the tool can be designed for these low loads, allowing the use of inexpensive aluminium tooling.
Advantages
- Low temperatures will not affect electronic components
- Encapsulation is both waterproof and tamperproof
- Electronic Circuits can be encapsulated into a single cable
- Inexpensive tooling makes low volume possible