Conductive carbon ink is added to a finished PCB in order to provide a robust and long-lasting electrical interface with another mechanical component, such as a key or dial. It does that in two main ways: it raises the shallow copper contact above the surface of the PCB; and, it protects the PCB contact from […]
Vias are plated holes that connect signals between layers, and are typically smaller than ordinary plated holes that are used for soldering through-hole components. What also makes them special is that they’re usually not the destination of a signal, so they create a physical ‘interruption’ that sometimes makes an impact on functionality. Types of vias […]
Castellations— or castellated edges, plated holes on the board’s edge, plated half-holes — are rampart-like structures along the edges of a printed circuit board. Their main advantage is that they allow an electrical connection to another board through the side edges of the board, without additional components. Pretty neat! Castellations are manufactured by creating ordinary […]
More and more customers are ordering not only their PCBs from us, but also assembled boards. Ordering prototypes from a single source has decisive advantages: In addition to the normal data needed to manufacture your PCB we require these data files: The BOM is usually an Excel file. It contains information on the components such […]
The young engineer Paul Eisler didn’t like the tangle of wires that connected the tubes, coils and resistors in the radios of the 1930s, aptly named bird’s nests. The ingenious idea of the inventor, who had emigrated from Vienna to London, was to print a clear system of conductive paths on a single plane suitable […]
This is the sixth and final article of this series about PCB design and manufacturing topics. I hope that you’ve enjoyed it and will continue to follow up on our other publications until we return with series 2! Copper fills — or copper pours — are one of those topics that’s deceivingly simple, but their […]
This is the fifth in a series of articles where we discuss important topics in PCB design and manufacturing. Please follow us on social media and sign up to our mailing list to get our publications. Fiducials are markers that are used as a reference for placement or size; their name, interestingly, is derived from […]
In this fourth article of our series about PCB design and manufacturing issues I’ll discuss keepouts, a design tool that when used correctly can save us from making costly mistakes. Keepouts are areas of the board where we ask our design tool to enforce some restrictions on what can and cannot be contained in that […]
We’re back with a third article in a series of six on PCB design and manufacturing topics. Don’t miss our future publications by following us on social media and signing up to our newsletter. Now let’s talk about annular rings. A very common feature of PCBs is an exposed round pad with a hole at […]
We continue our series on PCB design and manufacturing topics; this is the second article of six. Please follow us on social media or sign up to our mailing list to continue getting our publications. Now for today’s topic! When designing boards we naturally first focus our attention on electrical functionality. But we also need […]
Follow the process step-by-step For the assembly of prototype PCBs it is vital to have minimum setup times when changing from one job to another and to have the shortest possible overall process time. Optimisation is key and Eurocircuits is constantly monitoring their full assembly process to ensure it has the best optimisation without compromising […]
Hello! This is the first article in a series of six where I cover PCB design and manufacturing topics: outlines, courtyards, annular rings, keepouts, fiducials, and copper fills. We will publish the series weekly as part of our ongoing Technology Thursday publications. To make sure that you don’t miss them please follow us on the […]
