Archives for Renovations

Producing a PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly) correctly, is the foundation of a successful product. Components must be correctly mounted on the board, soldered in place, and connected with wires to ensure that the PCB performs optimally.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the exacting and methodical process BESTProto uses to assemble our customers’ PCBAs.

Step One: Careful selection of components

The first step in the PCBA process is carefully selecting the correct board components. We begin by ensuring that all parts are approved parts selected by our customers and on their provided BOM. At BESTProto, we will never supply a part that is not on the customer’s BOM and/or AVL. QVL.  Once we have determined the integrity of the boards and parts kit, during production and inspection we examine the quality of components during production through to test, inspection and final shipping. 

Step Two: Placement of components

The components are then placed on the board in their correct positions, with particular attention paid to any mounting pads or other connections that may be required. We also take special care to ensure that all components are secure and don’t shift during solder reflow.

Step Three: Testing and inspection

The final step of PCB assembly is testing and inspection. Our technicians will use advanced inspection and testing equipment to ensure the PCBA works correctly and all components are placed and soldered. The board is also inspected for any signs of damage or improper assembly, such as shorts or misalignments.

Choose BESTProto for your PCB assembly needs!

BESTProto’s thorough and meticulous PCB assembly process has been developed over years of experience in the industry.

Our staff includes Master Instructors in IPC A610 and J STD-001 to ensure your products consistently meet the latest electronic industry standards.

We specialize in delivering prototype and natch quantities of quantity electronic assemblies, so contact us today to discuss your project’s needs.

The medical industry is constantly evolving and improving, and printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs also known as Circuit Card Assemblies CCAs and Printed Wiring Boards or PWBs) have been at the forefront of this revolution. They provide a reliable connection between components and allow for more efficient operation of medical devices. This article will explore five innovative ways that PCBs are revolutionizing medical technology.

1. Improved Diagnostic Tools

Printed circuit boards have enabled the development of more accurate and efficient diagnostic tools for medical professionals. By utilizing advanced sensors and microprocessors, PCB Assemblies can help detect diseases earlier and provide more accurate results than ever before. The accuracy allows doctors to make better decisions about treatment plans for their patients.

2. Wearable Devices

Wearable devices such as fitness trackers and smartwatches have become increasingly popular in recent years, and they rely heavily on printed circuit boards to function properly. These devices can be used to monitor a patient’s vital signs, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature, allowing doctors to keep track of their patients’ health without being physically present with them at all times.

3. Smart Implants

Smart implants use tiny sensors embedded in the device, which allow it to monitor a patient’s health from within their body. This data can then be transmitted wirelessly back to a doctor or other healthcare provider for further analysis and diagnosis. By incorporating flexible substrates and evolved printed circuit boards, engineers have created small, lightweight implants that can monitor vital signs without causing discomfort or irritation.

4. Robotic Surgery

Robotic surgery is common in the medical field due to its ability to reduce risk while still providing excellent results for patients undergoing procedures such as cancer removal or organ transplants. Printed circuit boards enable robotic surgeons to perform these operations more precisely, resulting in fewer complications.

5. Laser and Magnetic Therapy

Printed circuit board assemblies are also being used to develop laser and magnetic therapy devices for medical treatments. These devices use specialized electrical circuits to direct the energy from lasers or magnets to target areas of the body for therapeutic purposes. Thanks to PCBAs, doctors can provide more targeted and effective treatments with fewer side effects.

The Bottom Line

Printed circuit board assemblies are a key part of the medical revolution we are currently seeing. At BESTProto, we are proud to be part of this revolution by providing high-quality PCBs for medical devices and applications.

We can handle the medical PCB assembly and building of your medical products, so you can focus more on marketing your medical device. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.

Printed circuit board Assemblies are the brains of all of our modern electronic devices. Currently a 58 billion dollar industry, its worth is expected to grow up to 75 billion dollars by the year 2026. PCB Assemblies are so common in all of the devices we use every day that a failure causes us great inconvenience and even some personal stress.

There are times when a PCB Assembly will give some warning that it is about to experience a failure. For instance, a smartphone might display vertical lines or other distortions on the screen and a computer can give corrupt data warnings or reboot at random. The ultimate symptoms of PCB Assembly failure include overheating, smoke, an odor of burnt electronic components, and the failure of the unit to power up at all.

These are some of the most common reasons for PCB Assembly failures.

1. Manufacturing defects – Misaligned layers, crossed signals, short circuits, and exposure to electrostatic discharge (ESD) are the most likely causes of PCB Assembly failure and generally occur during the PCB assembly process.
2. Component burning – Caused by incorrect component spacing, component failures, errors made by the technician, and intense heat, repairing a burned component can mean replacing the entire PCB Assembly.
3. The surrounding environment – PCB assembly is conducted in a clean climate-controlled area in order to prevent heat and humidity from causing the boards to expand and warp. After the board has been assembled and is being used for its intended purpose, external debris including liquid, fibers, dust, and hair can adhere to the PCB Assembly and cause it to overheat.
4. Soldering errors – The consistency of the solder as it refers to its moisture content as well as application errors result in defects including excessive solder, cold joints, component shifting, and lifted pads.
5. The PCB Assemblies’ age – The average PCB Assembly can last up to 10-20 years or more. As a PCB Assembly reaches its life expectancy, the electronic components begin to break down and require repair or replacement.

Repairing or replacing the components on a PCB Assembly is delicate work requiring expert precision. The technicians at BESTProto are supervised by master instructors in IPC A610 and JSTD-001 to guarantee that all PCBs we work on will meet current electronic industry standards. BESTProto offers the following PCB repair services:

• Out of production/non-current electronic equipment and component repair
• Re-box and re-label services
• PCB troubleshooting and component level repair
• PCB testing

Please visit our website to learn more about our PCB repair services or to contact us to schedule a consultation.

The computer chip has revolutionized our daily lives in more ways than one. But it’s not just smartphones and laptops that are bringing us all closer together. Many of the machines we use on a daily basis are quickly becoming more connected with the help of cheap, printable computer chips.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) have not only become more cost effective in the last decade, but they have also become much easier to prototype and design. What was once a strenuous process for large companies, requiring vast resources, can now be done with incredible precision and speed by specialized PCB company’s like BESTProto.

This revolution in PCB assembly has allowed companies to build smart technologies into more and more devices. Our cars look more like driving computers than the simple mechanical machines our parents used to operate. Washing machines, refrigerators, and even glasses that send a signal to the bartender when sensors indicate your drink is getting low all use this progressive technology.

These current trends in smart products have driven the rapid growth of the PCB, semiconductor, and other computing chips as more and more products continue to build themselves with smart technologies. Soon you may find that maintenance on your household appliances deals more with software updates than it does hardware updates.

The machines in our lives are learning to communicate with one another. This revolution in interconnectivity has also sparked a revolution in small computer chip manufacturing. Instead of expending vast resources on the design and manufacturing of computer chips, companies like BESTProto can now quickly prototype and build PCBs that make our lives safer, easier, and less wasteful.

Technology has facilitated the evolution of nearly every major industry within the past few decades. Today, one of the main electronic components in most medical equipment is the use of PCB, or printed circuit boards. These components act as the “brain” of any given electronic medical device.

The layout in modern PCBs is optimized for the task performed by the device. For example, most medical device PCBs are intended to be highly precise and quick. Because of the tremendous complexity of a PCB Assembly, most medical equipment companies today outsource the assembly and sometimes the layout and design to highly specialized third parties. The development of PCBs from scratch is a tedious and time consuming process, but specialized third-party manufacturers can often have PCB assembly prototypes ready within weeks.

Development of these electronic components can be traced back to the early 1900s, but it was not until the latter part of the century that they became reliable enough to implement in medical equipment. Older board assemblies were large and often did not work consistently. They had to be assembled by hand, which led to failure in most instances due to human error during assembly.