Diptrace Panelization

[Erminia Scharnberg]

Ifelt it was time to take the next step and create my own PCBs. I have breadboarded a few circuits and I want to put a few into production. As a test I created my own breakout board for the 3PDT. I usually see them for $1 a board. So I did a little digging around, found some information on panelizing your layouts using a Sparkfun ULP for panelization and got to work.

The links above are to an article I found on panelizing. Use that tutorial to setup Eagle so that you can panelize your circuits. You should also go to the JLCPCB article on installing the CAM settings for them in Eagle as well.

The first thing you want to do is create a project in Eagle and create a schematic. I chose the 3PDT stomp under switches because it has the large circular holes. I also used square pads for all the pads here so that I had more metal surface to solder to. The boards I show later use the round pads.

At this point the ULP dialog will pop up. You will need to hit the browse button and choose the Sparkfun Panelizer ULP that you installed earlier. This will allow all your panels to have the same label names for components. It also tiles your layout on the panel.

The JLCPCB price for panel by customer for 5, 100mm by 100mm boards is $8 us. This design gets 20 boards per panel. I also make sure that I do the surface finish of LeadFree HASL-RoHS. And I have the confirm the production file. The total with shipping is 12.94 and takes about 2 - 3 weeks to arrive. You can get it much quicker if you want to pay $5 more for the shipping.

V-scoring, also known as V-grooving or V-cutting, is a method of separating two individual circuit boards by cutting "V"-shaped grooves on the top and bottom of a rigid board. Just like the indentations in a chocolate bar, there are grooves between different circuit boards. This will facilitate the separation and assembly of the circuit boards.

In PCB manufacturing, V-scoring is primarily used to assemble a group of PCB boards into a panel, aiming to improve the efficiency of PCB assembly. The idea behind V-scoring the circuit boards is to provide a sturdy support structure for the assembly process, allowing minimal pressure to be applied to the circuit boards when SMT machines place SMD components onto them and when separating the assembly panels. PCB panels enable PCB assembly manufacturers to load components at a faster pace since they can complete a panel at once instead of loading individual PCB boards one at a time. That is why PCB manufacturers, PCB customers, and assembly manufacturers are willing to use V-scoring for panelization.

The V-scoring process consists of two blades with arbitrary angles, such as 20, 30, 45, and 60. These blades function like wheels with many gears, and the gears are the knives used for scoring. One blade is positioned on the top, and the other on the bottom, rotating point-to-point, with a certain distance to allow the PCB board to pass through. This distance determines the remaining thickness between the two V-shaped cuts. The remaining thickness supports the subpanels or production panels that hold the PCB units together. Once the PCB board assembly process is completed, the subpanels are separated into individual PCB assembly boards.

Who wants to send their masterfully designed PCB to their fabricator, only to be told that the board is un-manufacturable? This can happen for a number of reasons, including outdated supplier data, incomplete documentation, improper panelization schemes, or a lack of fabrication documentation.

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Your manufacturer will need your bill of materials, Gerber files for artwork and stencil generation, assembly drawings, drill files, and other deliverables in standardized file formats. While there are tools online that can generate each of these deliverables on their own, a great PCB design software package allows you to generate all your manufacturing documentation at once directly from your design data.

Complete documentation means your deliverable tools have direct access to your printed circuit layout, schematics, electronic components, and all other information needed to generate manufacturing outputs. Only Altium Designer gives you access to every design, data management, component sourcing, and deliverable generation tool, and all within a single design interface. Easily design your circuit board, manage your bill of materials, fabrication outputs, and other documentation in a single program.

Altium Designer simplifies circuit board fabrication and PCB assembly tasks with an Output Job configuration tool. An Output Job acts as an organized, reusable container for all necessary design outputs, including PDF files, Excel files, Gerber files, and any other document your manufacturer will need. You can also dynamically create customized project outputs for design variants linking fabrication and assembly outputs with the latest design source files.

Since Altium Designer is able to present output data in a number of different formats, the outputs are managed using an Output Job File. This file is a preconfigured set of outputs; each output can be configured to the particular format the user wants. The Output Job file is an organized and reusable container for all outputs. You can also dynamically create customized project outputs that incorporate design variants by linking fabrication and assembly outputs with the latest design source files.

The Altium Designer CAM Editor (CAMtastic) option offers a variety of tools for viewing and editing CAM data. Once the net image and drill files have been imported, the CAM editor can receive instructions determining printed circuit layer types and stackup, at which point a netlist can be extracted and compared with an IPC netlist generated from the original PCB design. The CAM editor also offers net design rule checking, panelization modes, and NC-Routing (plus milling) tools.

The integrated manufacturing preparation tools in Altium Designer are ideal for creating deliverables to get you into manufacturing and assembly. You can create assembly and fabrication documentation directly linked to source designs with Draftsman and update all documentation at the click of a button. You can create templates for documentation that only require minimal customization across designs. In addition, you can add PCB dimensions, measurements, notes, and callouts between points of interest (datums) and design objects to customize documentation workflow.

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Altium Designer on Altium 365 delivers an unprecedented amount of integration to the electronics industry until now relegated to the world of software development, allowing designers to work from home and reach unprecedented levels of efficiency.

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Because companies stopped making the stuff for us. Wire wrap wire is getting to be difficult to find. There is china junk out there, but nothing like what I have on the huge spool of red from 1979 that I snagged a decade ago at Dayton Hamfest. The old stuff is so much higher quality than what you can buy today..

I still wire wrap a lot when it makes sense. You do have to watch if you go up past some frequency because all the little wraps and extra wires become problematic. Mr. Herd did a good piece on the technology: -wrap-101/

I am biased because I sell a product through HAD, but I like the new writing going up on the blog. They still post a ton of hacks, but now they mix in a lot of news, opinion and educational stuff that adds depth and variety to the blog. I also doubt they are losing viewers, in fact I would bet posts like these are attracting all sorts of new followers.

The new editorial voice is definitely over-opinionated and the focus away from hacks and more towards social issues rubs me the wrong way, too. Leave the worthless, smug, over-opinionated snark to the commentators!

Well, some aspects of the new writing style attracted a new viewer; ME. I had heard of HaD, but I used to read an article or two every couple of months. Now, I am subscribed to the RSS feed and check it daily a couple of times a day.

I am looking at using coating brass shim (later copper shim) stuck to Kapton tape and using my laser engraver I made to remove the coating, if it works as I expect, I should have no problem doing not only dual sided boards but multi layer boards that are also flexible, and with thin enough gaps between them to easily connect the sides together, wont be plated but still. also as an aside, I have already used it to melt solder and it does it with enough energy, that there is zero smell from the broken down rosin flux core that is normally smelt even on hotter soldering units I have, so should be no problem to solder just about anything that is not hidden behind a board, but popping them from behind through a tiny via hole should make vias even more needed than they already are :)

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