8 Crucial PCB Equipment of Electronic Manufacturing

Electronic manufacturing involves long supply chain and engineering process, which should be completed by a range of PCB equipment and other devices. Now let us take look at the 8 crucial PCB equipment during electronic manufacturing phases.

1/ Acid Copper Through-hole Plating

Once the through-holes have been activated, PCB is ready for acid copper electroplating (also called “electrolytic plating”). An acid copper electroplating is a mixture of water, sulfuric acid, copper sulfate, and a trace of hydrochloric acid. To this is added a number of organic constituents that serve to regulate and distribute the delivery of copper to the surface being plated. 

This equipment decides the flatness and uniformity of copper lines on the laminate.

2/ CNC Drilling

One of the crucial phasese in a PCB manufacturing facility is the CNC Drilling Department. Holes are drilled in PCBs according to customer requirements: component mounting and to promote conductivity. Manufacturing requirements: to ensure precise registration and to help the operator ensure each drill has successfully completed the tool path.

The role of CNC Drill/Route operator requires endless measurements and adjustments, constant attention to precise registrations, calculations of tool life, equipment maintenance schedules, as well as constant adaptations for each customer’s unique requirements. To be successful, the Drilling Department requires methodical and precise operators who can appreciate the rhythm of the workflow. 

It determines electronic conduction between different layers of PCB boards.

3/ PCB Etching Machine

It is a table top unit for Tin/ Solder coating of PCB’s This coating also improves thesolder ability of the PCB. The machine is ideal for polytechnics & engineering colleges. A hand operated flywheelallows easy coating of boards.

It plays big part of creating copper circuits on the laminate.

4/ PCB Milling Machine

PCB milling-The process of removing areas of copper from a sheet of printed circuit board material to recreate the pads, signal traces and structures according to patterns from a digital circuit board plan known as a layout file. Similar to the more common and well known chemical PCB etch process, the PCB milling process is subtractive: material is removed to create the electrical isolation and ground planes required. 

5/ Surface Mount Machine

Commonly called pick-and-place machines or P&Ps, are robotic machines which are used to place surface-mount devices (SMDs) onto a printed circuit board (PCB). They are used for high speed, high precision placing of broad range of electronic components, like capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits onto the PCBs which are in turn used in computers, consumer electronics as well as industrial, medical, automotive, military and telecommunications equipment.

6/ Reflow Oven

The oven contains multiple zones, which can be individually controlled for temperature. Generally there are several heating zones followed by one or more cooling zones. The PCB moves through the oven on a conveyor belt, and is therefore subjected to a controlled time-temperature profile.

7/ Automated Optical Insepction (AOI)

AOI-is an automated visual inspection of a wide range of products, such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), LCDs, transistors, automotive parts, lids and labels on product packages or agricultural products (seed corn or fruits).

8/ Wave Soldering

Used for both through-hole printed circuit assemblies, and surface mount. In the latter case, the components are glued by the placement equipment onto the printed circuit board surface before being run through the molten solder wave.

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