ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Final Inspection Once routed out and dusted and cleaned the boards then come up for final inspection prior to packing, wrapping and delivery.

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Routing The final process in the board manufacture is to rout out the boards to size on a CNC Routing Machine which can be programmed from the original CAD data or manually with a video camera and joystick. The boards can either be left in a panel or routed out as singles, lots of companies prefer left in a panel because it aids assembly especially if…

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Bare Board Test The boards on the panel can then be bare board tested in house using a four headed flying probe bare board tester. The probes on either side of the panel, two on each side, rapidly check every connection compared to the original CAD data supplied rather than comparing one board to another so there is no chance of any errors or shorts creeping…

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Screen Print The screen print process is very similar to screen printing t-shirts. A screen is exposed and developed on a very fine mesh nylon screen, the image is then lined up with the panel on a bed with micro adjustments to position perfectly and ink is applied by screen printing technique which forces ink through the exposed areas on the screen through onto the board…

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Molten Solder Once the solder resist ink is cured the panels are then either hot air solder levelled, which involves emersing the whole panel in a liquid bath of molten solder, and as the panel is withdrawn from the bath, a blast of hot air blows out all the excess solder leaving the holes perfectly smooth and clean and all the surface mount pads perfectly flat…

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Solder Resist Ink The panels are then flooded with a photo image PCB manufacture solder resist ink and partly cured to be touch dry and they are then, using the same tooling process used earlier, the solder resist photography is laid over the tooling pins and exposed and then developed using the same process as earlier, and to give the solder resist pattern on the board.…

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Removing Tin Once etched the panels are dried and inspected and are passed through a tin stripping machine containing nitric acid which removes all of the protected tin that is on the copper tracks leaving the panel, bare fibre glass with the copper tracks that will be the final board.

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Etching Machine The panels are then passed through a conveyorised PCB Manufacture etching machine which contains an amonicon edge solution which sprays the panel to remove all of the copper areas that are not protected by tin, leaving bare fibre glass and the tracks that you want keep protected by the tin coating.

ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Tin Plating The next process along the plating line is to protect all the copper areas that you want to keep, which is the copper you can see, with tin. This is not the tin that is going to be on the board at the end of the process, it is there purely to protect the copper tracks from the etching process later on. So once…