PCB Traceability Risks: What Could Go Wrong Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB traceability risks from the perspective of a PCBA factory floor, covering managing…

PCB Traceability Sample: Checking a Small Piece Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB traceability sample from the perspective of a PCBA factory floor, covering sampling…

PCB Traceability Maintenance: Keeping It Working Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB traceability maintenance from the perspective of a PCBA factory floor, covering maintaining traceability…

PCB Traceability Data: What the Numbers Say Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB traceability data gives you a practical advantage when you choose…

Thermal Relief Design Rules for Plane Connections A pad connected directly to a copper plane is thermally welded to it. That is excellent for current capacity and for heat spreading, and it is a problem for soldering, because the plane draws energy away from the joint faster than any soldering…

Supplier Scorecard and Review A supplier scorecard is a small set of measures that describes how a supplier is performing, and a review meeting is where those measures are discussed with the supplier. Done well, the pair changes behaviour, because the supplier can see the trend, understands how it is…

Product Changeover Verification Changeover is the period when a line stops being tooled for one product and starts building another, and it is statistically the most dangerous time in the shift. Parts from the previous product, settings from the previous recipe and assumptions from the previous build all persist for…

Depanelising and Routing Quality Depanelising is the last mechanical operation before a board becomes a product, and it is one of the few remaining processes where a good board can be destroyed by technique. Routers, v-score breakers, tab cutters and laser systems all separate panels, and each of them introduces…

Incoming Inspection: Incoming Material Inspection Planning Incoming inspection exists to catch problems before they enter the production line, and it works best when it is designed around risk rather than around a habit of checking everything. No factory can inspect every characteristic of every part it buys, and attempting to…

Paste Flux Residue Removal Materials and Methods Guide Flux residue removal is a decision that is made by the product rather than by preference. A consumer board inside a sealed enclosure may tolerate a no clean residue for its whole life, while a board that will be conformally coated, operated…