Nobody’s perfect, and we should understand that this phrase also applies to printed circuit board designers. It’s generally acceptable for anyone to make a mistake if he learns from it, but apparently, some don’t. Nevertheless, it’s a bit uncommon for such mistakes to happen, especially in PCB designing, and below are just a few examples of how some PCB’s become faulty.
One of the most important parts of PCB assembly is planning. Apparently, some designers were not very keen on the details of their design. The right components should be chosen so that the design would be successful. Nowadays, there is a low of user-friendly and powerful EDA (electronic design automation) software packages made available specifically for designers. Each of these packages offers varying capabilities and advantages, as well as limitations. You have to keep in mind that there is no perfect software, which means there is a possible component issue that you can encounter at a certain point. No single tool may meet your exact needs, which is why you have to be relentless in keeping an eye for the best option suitable for you.
Poor communication may also result in a badly-designed printed circuit board, and this problem can occur when you’re outsourcing your PCB design. Although there’s no argument in this option being cost-effective, this may not be what you would want if you’re thinking of a complex design for your PCB. You’ll need to focus on reliability and performance, so if your design is as complex as it can be, you need to increase the time you’re communicating. This will guarantee that component routing and placement are perfectly done. This also reduces the chances of costly reworks.
It’s very important that you keep in touch with the manufacturer of the PCB in the early stages of your design process.
The manufacturer will be able to give feedback regarding your design, which optimizes efficiency depending on their procedures. This helps a lot in saving you money and time in due course. It’s imperative that you always keep the manufacturer aware of the objectives of your design prior to production to lessen your time to market.
With a prototype board, you’d be able to prove how your design could work based on your specifications. Through prototype testing, you can validate how functional the printed circuit board is and how well it will perform before it will be mass-produced. In order for prototype testing to be successful, it should require a good amount of experience and time. However, if you begin with a strong test plan, along with a clear objective set, you can minimize the process of evaluation. There will also be a high likelihood of reducing mistakes caused by production issues.
Should an issue be detected during testing, a secondary iteration on a printed circuit board that’s reconfigured will be carried out. If you incorporate elements that have high risks during the early stages of your design process, you can take advantage of multiple iterations, which would allow you to determine any possible problems as soon as possible. This decreases risks while making sure there’s no delay with project completion.
One of the many overlooked mistakes is having to forget creating a backup of their work, which is certainly essential in printed circuit board designing. You should always create a backup your project, particularly those files that are very difficult and time-consuming to replace. You can expect most companies performing backups of their data on a daily basis, but this is not always the case for others, especially smaller ones. With the help of the Cloud, you’ll find the task of backing up your data extremely easy and convenient, without you having to worry about theft or even local disasters.