Automotive Control PCB: Reliability Rules for Vehicle Electronics An automotive control PCB has to work in conditions that would end the life of a consumer board. It sees ambient temperatures from well below freezing to over a hundred degrees, it is mounted on a structure that vibrates continuously, it is…

DVD Player PCB: Structure, Function and Repair Guide A DVD player is one of the last mass-market products built around a mechanical system that must be controlled to microscopic precision, and the board that does the controlling is a useful case study in mixed-signal design. A DVD player PCB reads…

DVR PCB: Structure, Function and Key Components A digital video recorder is a device that must accept several camera streams at once, compress them, store them continuously and serve them back to a viewer who may be anywhere on the network. The DVR PCB is where all of that happens,…

MCPCB Thickness: How Board Thickness Affects Thermal Performance MCPCB thickness determines two things at once: how well the board removes heat from a component, and whether the assembly survives the mechanical and thermal stress of manufacturing and use. The two requirements often pull in opposite directions. A metal core printed…

OSP PCB: Organic Solderability Preservative Explained An organic solderability preservative is the least visible of the common finishes. It adds no measurable thickness, leaves no metal on the pad and costs less than any of the alternatives, yet it is the standard choice for a large share of fine pitch…

LED Strip PCB: Voltage Drop, Segments and Thermal Design An LED strip is a long, narrow circuit board with LEDs mounted at regular intervals along its length. The design looks simple, and that is the trap. Over a length of several metres the copper resistance accumulates, the voltage at the…

Air Conditioner PCB: Isolation, Relays and Inverter Drive An air conditioner contains at least two boards that talk to each other, and between them they switch mains voltage, run a variable-speed compressor and read a handful of sensors. The result is a control design with an unusual combination of constraints:…

Fiberglass PCB: The FR-4 Substrate Explained Almost every rigid circuit board in production is a fiberglass PCB, even when nobody uses that term. The familiar green or blue board is a composite of woven glass cloth and epoxy resin, with copper foil bonded to the faces, and the properties of…

94V-0 PCB: What the Flammability Rating Means A flammability rating appears on almost every fabrication drawing and is rarely understood by the people who specify it. A 94V-0 PCB is not a board that cannot burn; it is a board whose laminate, tested in a standardised way, stops burning within…

Drone PCB: A Beginner Guide to Design and Layout A drone is a flying machine that happens to contain a computer, and its circuit board is judged by different standards from a board that sits on a desk. It has to be light, it has to tolerate vibration and the…