mass manufacturing considerations during PCB design
gyuunyuu1989 , 08-28-2023, 02:53 PM
I reached lesson 3 of the Learn Altium Essentials. Here Robert talked about Reflow Solder and Wave Solder since these are contained in the Walsin Technology Corporation SMT Notes documents. After doing a bit of search I came across things like, "put all heavy components on top of the PCB", "put all through hole components on one side of the PCB" e.t.c.
This made me wonder, although I have learnt schematic design and some of PCB design, I am not at all aware of the mass production aspects of PCB design i.e what things the designer must take care of if the board is to be mass produced, which will usually what will happen with an electronic product. Has Robert created any video that covers this topic fully to explain what guidelines one must follow?
qdrives , 08-28-2023, 03:52 PM
What is mass production?
100 pcs/year
10k pcs/year
1M pcs/year
This varies per product / company. Also the requirement/technology varies then.
For 100pcs/year the lower component cost does not outweigh the engineering cost. However, when you make 1M pcs/year, a $0.01 difference in a component allows you a couple of day to see if that is possible.
What is the complexity of the product?
What is the price target?
All this has an influence on the production method and cost.
Lowest cost could be single sided (components) reflow only, yet we see plenty of the lowest cost products being through hole (single sided boards).
gyuunyuu1989 , 08-28-2023, 06:01 PM
Are
"put all heavy components on top of the PCB",
"put all through hole components on one side of the PCB"
True?
Are there other guidelines like this as well?
qdrives , 08-29-2023, 02:56 PM
Whenever you have through hole or heavy components on both sides, these components need to be manually place and soldered.
That is costly. For low quantities it is possible and for special, kind of "no limit cost" products too.
So not when you state "mass production", even if it is 100pcs/year.
Are there other guidelines like this as well?
There are many of such guidelines. It is a bit of a question how important things are for you (ie. cost) and how critical it is for the design.
Take the track width in one of the other questions here. Make it to small and you would need to pay $85k for 5 boards!
gyuunyuu1989 , 08-30-2023, 03:05 AM
I am only learning at the moment so there is no real design to consider at present.
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