Is it possible in theory to get any circuit board for any companies devices or do they restrict that?


1) I know you can send away to companies to have a circuit board made for you.
Wondering if they would make a particular companies like sony's circuit board for you.

2) in theory you could probably do the toner transfer method and make them your self but in practice I don't see this working very well.
only for the most simplest ones

 

If I were Sony, and you took one of my boards to Pioneer, and asked them to build it, I wouldn't like it!

Do you think I can bring an Ipod circuit to Samsung, and ask them to make that board?

Reverse engineering and espionage at the same time. Well, maybe not espionage but still...

Show us the circuit, and we'll guide you along the path to a brand new home made board.

 

naughy

well I would ask first

guess that was up to sony in the first place.... I was stupid for asking thanks anyway
obviously boils down to patient / laws and the willingness for a company to do it for you.

 

Not stupid at all.

It might be worth asking Sony... The worst that can happen is that they say no.

Sparky

 

Is it possible in theory to get any circuit board for any companies devices or do they restrict that?

This is more a question of practice (legal theory, perhaps). Company trading policies would normally prevent this, apart from those products which are actually sold in kit form.

1) I know you can send away to companies to have a circuit board made for you.
Wondering if they would make a particular companies like sony's circuit board for you.

When you send in your own design, this is your own "intellectual property". If you send in a design that belongs to another party, you may be infringing copyright. A legitimate board manufacturer might refuse to make such a copy for you.

2) in theory you could probably do the toner transfer method and make them your self but in practice I don't see this working very well.
only for the most simplest one.

There are two sets of issues here: one is around theoretical and practical limitations of your board copying process, and the other is whether you have the right to do so

obviously boils down to patient / laws and the willingness for a company to do it for you.

It's a matter of patent, copyright and intellectual property laws. These may be more observed in some countries than others.

 

It's also going to be a very expensive one-off, since they are usually 4 or more layer boards. Especially when you get to the iPod or Droid

 

It's also going to be a very expensive one-off, since they are usually 4 or more layer boards. Especially when you get to the iPod or Droid

Not to mention extremely difficult to build by hand, if even possible.

 

I have never send away to have a board fabricated for me yet.
But I am curious do they just do the holes and traces.
Then ship you the finished board.... or do they also put in / solder in the chips and components for you on the board?

Question 2)
is it possible to do either.... like tell them I only want the board with traces and holes.
No components (i.e empty board with no components soldered in )

is it possible for them to solder in all the components for you?

can they do both , what do they usually do?

And how much do they usually charge (normally i,e what do they base their price on to do it for you ... i.e holes , traces , components , combination)

 

I have never send away to have a board fabricated for me yet.
But I am curious do they just do the holes and traces.
Then ship you the finished board.... or do they also put in / solder in the chips and components for you on the board?

You can get anything you are willing to pay for.

Question 2)
is it possible to do either.... like tell them I only want the board with traces and holes.

No components (i.e empty board with no components soldered in )

This is the default. The only way they could build it for you is if you provide a Bill-of-Materials, and sometimes, the material itself.

is it possible for them to solder in all the components for you?
can they do both , what do they usually do?

There are some houses that do both. You'll be charged an arm and a leg for a 1-up, though.

And how much do they usually charge (normally i,e what do they base their price on to do it for you ... i.e holes , traces , components , combination)

One of the houses I use for PCB protos (board fabrication only) is 4pcb.com. They have a $33 each special (min. 3 PCBs, credit card only, 2 layer, and other limitations).

I stuff my own PCBs for short runs. I send out for 500pcs or more. So I don't have any info for you on stuffing them in small volume.

 

ok,

how automated is this stuff.
Like creating a PCB with components ....

For example when they create the xbox circuits board an components after they fab the board. Do people have to manually solder in all the components or at least place the components in the proper holes?

Or is their machines that do both making the board and putting the components in and soldering. ( know making the board they can create machines that do exactly what the toner transfer method or other methods do but the placing and soldering is where I would think it would be hard to create a one all machine for doing it)

Because I am having a hard time is how you could design a machine to beable to manual place the components into the correct holes.

I know once the components are in their is probably an easy way to have a machine solder them.

Put it is the placing in ... does that have to be manually done (I think not but I am not sure on how much person intervention is needed in making the total circuit boards for electronic devices after they have it fully done on software like eagle)

Question 2)
Is it possible to buy such a machine that can do both or are these like millions of dollars and only a few companies poses?

 

No, the board fabrication is a completely different process and machine from stuffing the boards. They use pick and place machines to do that.

You need a lot of different machines to make a PCB.
Then you need a machine that places the components.
And then you need something that solders them.

There are companies that can make simple boards by photoprocess, and others that are willing to manually place and solder the components if you can´t do it by yourself but the soldering costs a lot.

 

Yeah, they have machines which can put a few components down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nah4BQ9y8IY&feature=related

Yeah, quite fast.

 

nice video. Amazing how they have machines that will replace human intervention

But I am wondering is the chip shooter based machines only made to do specific boards or can they be used for any type of PCB /board you could make.... i.e yours , sonys, xbox ,playstation , ...radio , mobo ,...etc

Also does these machines do the soldering or just the chip laying?

 

That would be a silly solution to make a machine that can do only one type of board.. Of course it is programable, but it takes a lot of time to prepare it for a new batch of boards.

It only places the chips, the board then typicaly goes to reflow oven which melts the solder paste and solders the chips. The solder paste was on the board before it went into the placing machine.

 

The solder paste was on the board before it went into the placing machine.

What puts the solder paste on the chip layer or the PCB machines.

Because all the boards I worked with ... I had to manual put the components in and use the rosin lead free solder / with a soldering iron

Do you have any pictures/youtube links of the PCB boards making and the soldering machines.


Question 2)
So it goes PCB machine ---> chip layer machine ---> soldering machine.
Is their any human intervention between the machines or is it all self automated?

Question 3)
If the above questions answers are what I think they are then mass producing a given product would or creating a new circuit/devices to mass produce. Would be in the 90% in the time needed to reprogram/setup the machines (that is after you had the spec's i.e eagled it)
correct?

 

look here http://www.circuitsathome.com/production/on-reflow-soldering
Humans are involved in processes where it would be dificult for the other machines to do it, like placing large transformers, capacitors and soldering wires.

 

I'm curious, what kind of board do you need?

 

Nothing in particular yet... just wondering how it's all put together in a big company.

If the above questions answers are what I think they are then mass producing a given product or creating a new circuit/devices to mass produce. Would be 90% in the time needed to reprogram/setup the machines (that is after you had the spec's i.e eagled it)
correct?


I see from you picture if you use the solder paste then all you would have to do for the solder machine is have it be an oven sort of that heated the components enough to melt the solder paste to the components place on it by the chip layer.... This would probably be the most trival machine of all the ones in the line up.... where the PCB and chip layers begin very intricate .

 

I did some work experience in a company which makes circuits (nothing as big as Sony).

They had the pcbs delivered to them. After that they would load them into a machine which would would lay the paste on the boards. After this they were loaded onto the pick and place machine where the components were added. Whilst this was happening they could check each component to ensure none were missing or twisted.

After the components were laid, the boards went into a reflow oven to solder the smd parts. After this, then larger components like LEDs and capacitors would be hand soldered. One of the things I helped to produce involved soldering reed switches!

However, they also had a machine which consisted of a bath of molten solder. I can't remember what that was for... (soldering obviously, but why not solder by hand???)

In between steps everything was moved by hand in boxes. However this might be different for big companies like Sony.

Sparky.

 

I see,

but for big companies that have to mass produces thousands of circuit boards quickly
this quote would be impractical .

In between steps everything was moved by hand in boxes. However this might be different for big companies like Sony.

And soldering each boards big transformers , leds , reed switchs ,...etc by hand

So if anybody out their that worked for a big circuit board company and knows how they do this stuff quickly...please elaborate.

Or maybe you are right then they would have to have an assembly of guys that had soldering skills