Colorado PCB Assembly: 5 steps to assemble Printed Circuit Board

How to connect PCB components on circuit board?

Electronics is an important part of every machinery in our daily life. They cover the major part of our daily usage applications. These include the mobile phone applications to the circuits used in the automobiles. The prominent component in the electronics is printed circuit board (PCB).

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the electronic components that contain the metallic core for the purpose of conduction. These are actually green chips having small electronic components mounted on them. They have the linings of the copper or other metals. Moreover, they have the insulation of epoxy or other materials.

What is printed circuit board assembly?

The soldering of the PCBs is the process that gives the green color to the chip. These boards have the electronic components mounted on them. Therefore, the PCB having the components mounted on it has the name of assembled PCB. While the process of mounting the components on the board is Colorado PCB assembly. The short name for the PCB assembly is PCBA.

There are some PCB boards that have the electronic components on the board in a solidified way. This is not the decoration of the PCB board. This is actually the process of mounting the electronic components on the PCB board. This process varies for the different boards according to the type of the application in the industry.

The design of the PCB assembly can be simpler as well as complex depending upon the type of the use and application. The assembly process helps to mount the maximum electronic components on a small chip or board. Therefore, the size of the printed circuit board is less than that of a thumb but applications are vast.

How do you assemble a PCB board?

The process of mounting the electronic components on the printed circuit board is Colorado PCB assembly. There are certain steps in the assembly of a printed circuit board. The important steps in the PCB assembly are following:

·         Step 1: Solder Paste Stenciling

The first step of the PCB assembly is the process of soldering a paste on the board. In the most cases, there is a core of stainless steel as a stencil on the printed circuit board. During this process, the manufacturer solders only specific parts of the PCB. These specific parts of PCB are the sites where the manufacturers mount the components.

·         Step 2: Pick and Place

After the soldering of the PCB board, the assembly process moves to the picking and placing of the components. The pick and place device put the surface mount components on the board. The name for this device is surface mount device. While the components that it places are the surface mount components.

The mounting of the components on the board can be of the two types. This process can be manual as well as automatic through the devices. In the manual process, the manufacturers have to pick the components and then place it on the board by hand. This is a relatively slow process and can encounter errors and faults.

However, in the automatic process, the surface mount device does this work. The surface mount device picks and places the components on the board. The technology for the surface mounting of the components on the board is called surface mount technology (SMT).

·         Step 3: Reflow Soldering

After the process of soldering the paste on the board and mounting the components on the board, reflow soldering is the next task. The reason is that the solder paste has to solidify on the board in order to stick the components on the board. The reflow process helps in this step of the Colorado PCB assembly.

·         Step 4: Inspection and Quality Control

Once the components of PCB are in place on the board, we have to check the functionality of the PCB board. Whether the components and connections are in the working state or not, the inspection and quality control will tell us.

·         Step 5: Through-Hole Component Insertion

However, depending on the type of the PCB assembly, the boards can have different types of the components inserted on them. The most useful process for this purpose is the through hole component insertion. The through hole is the hole that the component uses for the transmission of the signal from one part to another.

In this case, the soldering paste has no useful role. The reason is that it would run straight through the hole and will do nothing for the insertion of the components. Through hole soldering is of the two types. It is the manual through hole soldering and wave through hole insertion of the components.

·         Step 6: Final Inspection and Functional Test

When the soldering and assembling process of the Colorado PCB assembly is complete, the manufacturers go for the final inspection and functional test. This test checks the functioning of the PCB. It checks the connections and components working in an effective way. The soldering process and reflow soldering may cause some shorts in the circuits. That is why, the final inspection and functional test is essential.

How do PCB boards work?

The basic function of a PCB board is the transmission of the signal with the help of the electrical components. The PCB uses the small electronic components in the design and connects it with the help of the signals. The connection between these electrical components is with the help of the trace signals, conductive pathways or the definite tracks.

The conductive pathways on the PCB board arise due to the sheet of the copper. This copper metal sheet has the lamination over the non-conductive part of the PCB board.  If the Colorado PCB assembly has the lamination of the copper and lack other electrical components like capacitors and inductors. Then it has a specific name referred as printed wiring board (PWB).

How do I connect PCB components?

For the purpose of connecting the electrical components on the Colorado PCB assembly, we have to follow some instructions. These instructions are following.

• First of turn on the soldering iron and hold it for a few minutes to warm up. When the soldering iron is warm up, tin its tip with the help of a sponge. Then take some solder melt with the help of the soldering iron.
• Look at the schematic diagram of the PCB design and check the position of the electrical components on the board in the correct order.
• Insert some capacitor and inductors with the help of the soldering iron. Keep checking the orientation of the components in the process.
• Take a standard wire of copper and melt it in the form of a solder. Take this solder on the board for the signals, power or testing.
• At the end, allocate place the integrated circuits (ICs) on the board by checking the orientation. With this step, the process of connecting the components is complete.

Conclusion

The Colorado PCB assembly has the distinction from the printed circuit board (PCB) as it lacks the mounted components. The components mounted on the printed circuit board (PCB) are not present in the printed wiring board. However, for many people, the term PWB has such general meaning that they don’t understand the difference between PCB and PWB.