One of the most fun parts of creating a real electronic circuit is (in my opinion) designing the Printed Circuit Board or PCB layout, and as anything in engineering, there are PCB Layout Design Best Practices.
This is the point where our abstract circuit schematic made by symbols and lines, becomes a real circuit that can be manufactured, assembled and used. (more…)
Most of us have come across PCB Technology and FPCB in our day to day usage of electronic devices. However, few of us have ever taken time to think about how PCBs and PCBA are made. So we keep wondering how the PCBs that drive our appliances including computers and microwaves are actually made. In this article, we delve into what PCBs are, the materials used in making them, the cost and the process of manufacturing them. (more…)
In this article, we will discuss the issue of PCB recycling, if it’s possible at all, how it is done and what can we do as electronics design engineers to create more recyclable PCBs. Note that with PCB we mean the PCB without any components.
If you think about it, almost all electronic devices found out there have their components sitting in a nice looking Printed Circuit Board or PCB. No one sells a device with their electronics stuck on a breadboard and hold by electrical tape (or I hope not).
Since electronic devices are booming, PCBs are everywhere. Making sure their materials can be collected and reused instead of just throwing them into a landfill would potentially be a smart and environmentally sensible move if performed properly.
No, I am not talking about jumping into the wilderness, visiting an old European city or using Google Maps to get to your destination.
Actually, the correct analogy would be more like going to a giant mall and having a map showing where the different shops, staircases and lifts interconnect the different floors.
What I am referring to is a very powerful and simple tool which is normally overlooked by more analytical and less visual people, I am talking about our device map or more commonly known as a circuit block diagram. (more…)