PCBGOGO

PCB manufacture,PCB assembly,PCB prototype

[pcbgogolouisdong]

DIY Arduino Power Supply Shield with 3.3v, 5v and 12v Output Options 

It looks great,  Thanks for fabricating the PCB for Arduino Power Supply Shield in PCBGOGO.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

Customer’s project in PCBGOGO-AC HA Airconditioner Home Automation

“This project is targeted at providing a wifi access to Toshiba split system A/Cs. The board hides completely inside the Hi-Wall unit and allows web access as well as home automation server to control the climate. The board price is great for the prototype and the quality was as good as a lot of the more expensive PCB houses around. “  

[pcbgogolouisdong]

How to Distinguish Between Immersion Gold And Gold Plating?

There are some normal treating process in PCB surface: bare board( not treating in the surface), flux, OSP(organic solderability preservative, it’s better than flux), HASL( hot air leveling, lead free HASL, lead HASL), plating gold, immersion gold and so on. However, immersion gold and gold plating are the technologies often used in PCB surface finish, there is a confusion about what is the difference between immersion gold and gold plating. Now PCBGOGO will explain for you.

What is immersion gold?

Immersion gold is a process that applies a very thin layer of gold with displacement of the surface atoms. It means the coating is not very thick, and it can be used for extending the shelf life of parts waiting for soldering operations because of corrosion resistance.

Immersion gold has been applied in aluminum and gold wire bonding and PCB fabrication. But it can’t be used to take place electrolytic gold plating because its thickness and adhesion are limited compared to a standard electroplated gold.

What is gold plating?

Gold plating, also known as electroplated, which is depositing a thin layer of gold on the surface over another metal through plating way. And gold particles are mainly attached to the circuit board because of the strong adhesion of gold plating, so it also called hard gold. As well as the memory of gold finger is hard gold with high hardness and wear-resistant.

The difference between immersion gold and gold plating

Gold is using for surface finish of PCB, such as key board and gold finger and so on, as the gold has a great conduction, strong oxidation resistance, long life. However, it is essential difference between plating gold and plating gold that plating gold is hard gold as well to resistance, but immersion gold is flexible gold which is on the contrary.

There are some differences between immersion gold and gold plating as follows:

1. Gold thickness in immersion gold board is more than that in a gold plating board. Immersion gold board is more yellow than a gold-plating board, that’ because gold-plating board has the color of nickel.

2. Their crystal structures are different. Comparatively speaking, immersion gold is easier to be soldered with less poor solder issues. Immersion gold board is easier to control the stress, which is benefit for the bonding products. At the same time, immersion gold has a poor anti - abrasion when doing gold finger as immersion gold is more flexible than plating gold.

3. Nickel is only used on immersion gold board’s pad, thus the signal transmission in the skin effect does not affect the signal at the copper layer.

4. The crystal structure of immersion gold is much denser than that in gold plating board, thus it is not easy to produce oxidation.

5. With the strict requirements for higher precision in PCB fabrication process, line width and spacing have below 0.1mm. Gold-plating board is easier to produce short circuit than immersion gold board.

6. Nickel is only used on immersion gold board’s pad, therefore solder resist on the circuit is solidly combined with the copper layer.

7.The flatness and service life of immersion gold board is better than the gold plating board.

Why use immersion gold?

When it comes to immersion gold and gold plating, a lot of PCB manufacturers is fabricated your circuit boards with immersion gold, because there is a poor solderability in plating gold.

However there are some advantages for immersion gold process in the printed circuit surface,such as stable deposition color, good brightness, measured plating, immersion gold plating with great solderability. There are four stage: pretreatment (cleaning, etching, activating, after dipping), immersion Ni, immersion gold, reprocessing (waste gold rinsing, DI rinse, drying). And the thickness of immersion gold is about 0.025-0.1μm.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

Guy, thanks for your support and approval, your satisfaction is our goal in PCBGOGO. 

[pcbgogolouisdong]

PCBGOGO wishes you everything is OK and to be healthy on Dragon Boat Festival .

[pcbgogolouisdong]

High speed flying probe test in PCBGOGO factory. 

[pcbgogolouisdong]

PCBGOGO can’t visit the electronic exhibition due to COVID-19, and you guys can’t go to visit our PCB factories, we wish you well and miss you so much.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

What is PCB stencil

The sole purpose of an SMT stencil is to transfer solder paste to a bare circuit board. A stainless steel foil is laser cut creating an opening for every surface mount device on the board. Once the stencil is properly aligned on top of the board, solder paste is applied over the openings (making a single pass, using a metal squeegee blade). When the stainless steel foil is separated from the board, solder paste will remain, ready for placement of the SMD. This process, as opposed to hand soldering methods, ensures consistency and saves time.

   Now you can add a stencil to any PCB fabrication order. Simply place your PCB order as usual, and choose from a variety of stencil types and sizes, one to fit each of your stencil requirements.

   Need to order a replacement stencil for boards previously manufactured by PCBGOGO? No problem! Just access the board order via your account order history at any time, and order a stencil directly from your history.

   There is some sizes and valid area of PCB stencil from PCBGOGO. See the below for more details on the stencils available.

In addition, PCBGOGO can provide the SMD stencil free of charge for PCB Assembly Order.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

What is tenting via, and why is it important in PCB fabrication?

With the development of electronic products and applications of finer pitch devices, vias play an important role in the interconnection between layers in a PCB. and vias are almost in every PCB design, there are many electronic designers considering them as a fairly simple, straightforward aspect of PCB. However, vias may look innocuous, making it complex to fabricate your PCB even to the PCB assembly process in certain circumstances.

There are many PCB manufacturer preferring the tenting method when placing vias, covering vias with different material allows them to conduct an electrical signal while dissipating any produced heat. Though tenting is not the only method, it’s common for PCB designers.

What is tenting via?

Needless to say, tenting via is the most popular and mature process in PCB fabrication, and tenting vias mean to cover the annular ring and via hole with solder mask, which is mainly in covering the annular ring to prevent exposure to the elements and reduce accidental shorting or contact with the the circuit. No special steps are taken to ensure the hole opening remains closed. Sometimes tenting vias will lead to the hole remaining covered but there is no guarantee, and smaller diameter vias (12mil diameter or less) have the best chance of remaining closed. However it will make an effect on the PCB fabrication process if there is not solder mask ink in the vias. With the introduction of dry film solder mask, tenting via is more easier. Tenting vias is useful wherever SMT pads are placed in close proximity to vias. It is particularly useful within BGA areas, where reworking shorts underneath the component is difficult and time-consuming.

Tips: If you make use of the tenting vias in your design, do a fabrication note either in a readme.txt file or Gerber fab drawing so that we can know you have intention to remove the mask clearances from some of your vias. Otherwise we may place the order on an engineering hold to verify your intention.

What does it mean to tent a via?

The vias are the holes in your PCB that allows signals to transmit from one side of the board to the other or from one layer of the board to another. In general, the vias are copper plated as the material is quite conductive, according to PCB designer, it may expose or cover the holes. So while the manufacturer covers the hole completely, it’s called either a masked or filled via, if the annual ring is merely covered over with the solder mask, it is called tenting the via.

Why is PCB tenting via important?

PCB tenting vias is a common practice to protect printed circuit boards. It is often preferred over mask plugging or epoxy filling due to cost. Tenting a via with liquid photoimageable solder mask is the most cost-effective method of tenting. If you are concerned about the tenting being loose and exposing the annular ring, you can choose the more expensive resin filling.

The main goal of tenting via is to leave fewer conductive pads that are exposed on the surface of the board. Conversely, it means that there are fewer shorts during solder bridging in assembly. What’s more, tenting via also can reduce the paste migration from SMT pads, which will take place while drilling the vias on standard BGA “dog-bone”patterns or while the vias are on the edges of SMT pads. As well as tenting vias can make sure that the via won’t be damaged by exposure to the elements.

In general, tenting is more effective with small vias (diameter of 12 mil or less), so you need to consider closing the via instead with some kind of fill if you have larger vias that you need to protect. Obviously, it will not make an effect on conductivity with filling the vias because electrical travel through the copper plating is unimpeded.

Your PCB fabrication with tenting via in PCBGOGO

With over 10 years as an industry leader, PCBGOGO is one of the most experienced PCB and PCB assembly manufacturer in China. highly specialized not only in quick-turn PCB prototype and PCB assembly, but also medium and small volume PCB fabrication. Our engineers and production facility are equipped to deal with the intricacy this technique requirements with high accuracy. We use the technology of tenting via for many years, and we know how to make sure a reliable and safe production process.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

DIY Arduino Power Supply Shield with 3.3v, 5v and 12v Output Options

Get the soldering kit and start placing all the components in the right pads of the PCB Board. The soldering is easy to finish as there is not much components used in this project.When the soldering is finished your board should look like below.When developing electronic projects, the power supply is one of the most important part of whole project and there is always need of multiple output voltage power supply. This is because different sensors need different input voltage and current to run efficiently. In this scenario, a power supply which can output multiple voltages becomes very important. There are options that an engineer can use for external power supply like RPS (regulated power supply) or AC adaptors but then multiple power supplies will be needed and the whole system will become bulky.

So today we will be designing a Multipurpose Power Supply. The Power Supply will be an Arduino UNO Power Supply Shield which will output multiple voltage range such as 3.3V, 5V and 12V. The Shield will be a typical Arduino UNO shield with all pins of Arduino UNO can be used along with extra pins for 3.3V, 5V, 12V and GND. Here the PCB is designed on the EasyEDA PCB Designer and manufactured by PCBgogo.

Components Required

LM317 – 1 Unit

LM7805 – 1 Unit

LED(Any Color) – 1 Unit

12V DC Barrel Jack – Unit

220Ω Resistor – 1 Unit

560Ω Resistor – 2 Units

1uF Capacitor – 2 Units

0.1uF Capacitor – 1 Unit

Burg Pins(20 mm) – 52 Units

Fabricating the PCB for Arduino Power Supply Shield

After making the circuit ready, it’s the time to go ahead with designing our PCB using the PCB design software. As stated earlier we are using EasyEDA PCB Designer, so we just need to convert the schematic to a PCB Board. When you convert the schematic into board, you also need to place the components in the places according to the design. After converting the schematic above to board my PCB looked like below.

Assembling the PCB

After the board was ordered, it reached me after some days though courier in a neatly labelled well-packed box and like always the quality of the PCB was awesome.

Get the soldering kit and start placing all the components in the right pads of the PCB Board. The soldering is easy to finish as there is not much components used in this project.

When the soldering is finished your board should look like below.

In this Power Shield the burg pins used is of male to male 20 mm connectors. You can use Male to Female Burg pins depending upon the availability. The 20mm burg pins are suitable for Arduino Shield and fits well for on Arduino UNO.

Testing the Power Supply Arduino Shield

It is really easy to test the Arduino shield. Just place the shield on to the Arduino UNO and give it a 12V supply from the input barrel jack. The shield can take input voltage of maximum up to 34V without damaging the components.

You can check all the output voltage i.e. 3.3V, 5V and 12V using a digital multimeter. If all went good including designing and soldering of the components then you will be able to note down the exact output voltage at the output pins.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

Some PCBs with red, purple and black solder mask are manufactured by PCBGOGO.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

It is to control smart home devices by a single button press,but you could use it to control any iot device which has at least a wifi connection.This version of my dashbutton consists of a five way switch which can be interpret as different button actions to act differently.. main procedure is that by clicking a button the microcontroller will awake from deepsleep, connects to wifi and publishes a mqtt message.

PCBGOGO are mainly engaged in PCB prototyping and assembly manufacturing services for more than 10 years.In addition, new users can get a $20 coupon when they sign up.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

PCBGOGO-Project sponsorship.It is to control smart home devices by a single button press, but you could use it to control any iot device which has at least a wifi connection. this version of my dashbutton consists of a five way switch which can be interpret as different button actions to act differently.. main procedure is that by clicking a button the microcontroller will awake from deepsleep, connects to wifi and publishes a mqtt message.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

PCBGOGO customer PCB prototype special design.

PCBGOGO-Manufacture high-quality PCBs and PCB assembly.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

PCB from PCBGOGO is to control smart home devices.

PCBGOGO-Manufacture high-quality PCBs and PCB assembly.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

Customer Feedback ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ This was the first PCB version of an innovative 2 stage DC-DC converter, intended to allow 180v LED arrays to operate from a 12v DC (nominal) supply. - The PCBgogo boards were, as usual, of exemplary quality and the first build (on these boards) has proceeded with no problems.

[pcbgogolouisdong]

Quick-turn pcb prototype

PCBGOGO with over 10 years as an industry leader, PCBGOGO is one of the most experienced PCB and PCB assembly manufacturer in China.