Preparing for Electronics Manufacture Part 2

More things to be aware of when getting your job ready for pick and place in this post.

1. Make sure you provide about 5% more components than actually needed for the number of boards. No process is 100% accurate in placement, and components get dropped by the machine head, or otherwise wasted through tape advancement or just falling into the machine. If you don’t do this, don’t be surprised if not all of your boards are fully populated at the end of the run.
2. How you design your board can affect the amount of tombstoning (components standing up due to uneven surface tension from solder during reflow – the solder melting stage). This is a greater problem for smaller components such as 0402s. Ensuring that you don’t have one side of a component connected to a large thermal mass compared to the other one, is an example of how you can minimise tombstoning. Another example is by having rounded corners on pads, which has been shown to reduce tombstoning.

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Author: Sandra Bogerd

Music: composer, singer-songwriter, recording artist, conductor. Language: author (A. L. Uitdenbogerd) of the Gnomeville comic book series for absolute beginners in French. Work: Director of R&D and assistant manufacturing engineer for Agile Electronics; RMIT associate with computer science research interests in music, language, and HCI. Business: co-director of Ad Hoc Software Pty Ltd and Agile Electronics. View all posts by Sandra Bogerd