WHEN TO USE FLEX CIRCUIT VS RIGID CIRCUIT BOARD

WHEN TO USE FLEX CIRCUIT VS RIGID CIRCUIT BOARD

No Compromise Between Power and Volume
Medical devices and implants.
Inner-engine automobile sensors.
Measurement sensors for the oil and gas industry.

Consumer electronics.
Flexible circuitry may be preferable to rigid circuitry in situations where space or weight is limited.

Size and Weight Reduction Bene  ts to Flexible Circuitry ，

Generally,  fexible circuitry is the go-to solution for manufacturers who need:

Wiring solutions that  t where rigid boards cannot.

Thin, lightweight products that are nonetheless durable.

Miniaturized versions of existing technologies.

Three-dimensional packaging geometry.

A low number of device interconnects.

Shock and vibration resistance.

These benets point to  exible circuitry options as an ideal solution for mobile consumer electronics. Enterprising circuit board amateurs who take apart their smart phones or laptop computers will  nd a wealth of  exible circuitry inside any modern device on the market.
n the case of mobile devices, the use of rigid circuitry would result in a device too large, too heavy, and too fragile to conveniently carry around. This was the case with the Osborne I, the  rst fully powered mobile computer, which weighed in at an intimidating 24.5 pounds.

Size and weight reduction represent only one half of the  exible circuit story, however. They are also ideal for high temperature and high-density applications.

High Temperature and High-Density Applications

In many cases,  ex circuits are made of polyimide or a similar polymer. This material dissipates heat better than most rigid circuit board materials. For this reason,  exible circuits can be placed in inconvenient locations where heat would impact the performance of a rigid circuit board.

Flexible circuit boards can be designed to withstand extreme temperatures – between -200° C and 400° C – which explains why they are so desirable for borehole measurements in the oil and gas industry.

In fact, because of these conditions, and the need for small, unobtrusive devices in most industrial environments,  exible circuits represent the  rst choice for engineering design in most industrial sensor technologies.

High temperature resistance comes usually comes with good chemical resistance and excellent resistance to radiation and UV exposure as well. Combined with the ability to control impedances in high density circuit board designs,  exible circuit designs o er many bene ts to manufacturers.

Why Not Make All Circuit Boards Flexible?

Flexible circuit boards are certainly useful, but they are not going to replace rigid circuit boards for all applications. Cost e ciency is the main obstacle to implementing an exclusively  exible circuit board design in a consumer product. Rigid circuit boards are less expensive to manufacture and install in a typical automated high-volume fabricating facility.

Typically, the ideal solution for an innovative product is one that incorporates  exible circuitry when necessary, and employs solid, reliable rigid circuit boards where possible to keep manufacturing and assembly costs down.

Some manufacturers even use hybrid rigid- ex printed circuit boards expressly for this purpose. This is common in laptop computers and medical devices, where rigid circuit boards can be connected to one other using ribbon-like  exible circuits. These boards can be compounded and designed to meet any number of engineering needs by focusing on the respective strengths of each circuit board base technology.

Frequently asked questions for Placement Machine

Frequently asked questions for Placement Machine


We've been using contractors for circuit board prototyping and assembly. What makes you so sure we can do these tasks in-house with no previous experience?

Many companies have seen a major decrease in PCB production expenses by bringing their circuit board prototyping and assembly in-house. Quicker turn-around, better quality control and faster test and implementation of engineering changes are added advantages.

Can anticipated savings from building boards in-house be realistically calculated? If so, how?

If you are presently outsourcing PCB assembly, your invoices should reveal cost-per-board assembly. In-house production costs can be estimated by totaling costs of materials (raw boards), components and labor. For a truer perspective, utilities and two-year equipment amortization should also be factored in.

Where can we get a quick education on circuit board assembly?

The basic technology is not all that complicated. Access this link for a 5-minute presentation on the basics of circuit board assembly. You'll easily grasp the role of each machine in the assembly process.

How much dedicated floor space is required for a pick and place machine?
The dimensions of each machine are usually found in manufacturers' specifications. 

Just total the combined square footage of all machines, plus figure at least an additional 3 sq. ft. width around the entire perimeter of your assembly line to allow for feeders and operator access. If future equipment purchases are contemplated, it would be wise to also allocate this space at startup.

What do you figure our upfront costs—including equipment—will be?

Our Buyers Guide will be of major help in determining costs of pick and place machine. For stencil printer and reflow oven estimates, we recommend accessing websites of reliable equipment providers, such as www.joysmt.com.

Will this move increase our manufacturing payroll?

Possibly not, since an existing non-experienced employee or two can be trained to program and operate PCB production equipment. Your equipment vendor should provide onsite training and stay until your people are at ease with his machines.

How long will it take us to be up and running?

Once the equipment is installed and operators trained, it should take no more than two or three weeks to be in production. You will need this additional time to acquire bare boards, stencil(s) and component inventory.

Other than price, what criteria should be used for selecting an equipment supplier?
First, ask for and do contact a few of the prospective vendor's customers. Find out their experience with the machine(s) and if the location is convenient to you, arrange a visit so you can see the equipment in operation. Above all, be certain the machines you are considering will build your product effectively. Allow room for growth to protect your product investment. This is especially important if your product and component mix will change or production targets expand.

What's the price of the SMT placement machine?

What's the price of the SMT placement machine?

PCB Placement machine is the most important equipment in SMT line, the SMT machine 's cost is the total 70% production lines, to achieve high speed and precision automatic placement of components of the equipment, is the most important and complex equipment of the production of SMT. The automatic placement machine is the main equipment in the SMT production line. The automatic placement machine has been developed from the early low speed mechanical Mounter to the high-speed optical alignment
Placement machine, and to multi-functional, flexible connection modular development. At present, foreign SMT machine has SONY, SONY (Japan),
Assembleon Anbiang, Siemens SIEMENS (Germany), Panasonic (Japan), Matsushita (Japan), FUJI Fuji YAMAHA YAMAHA (Japan), JUKI (Japan), MIRAE (Korea), SAMSUNG Samsung (Korea),  global UNIVERSAL (United States)


Other brands, from looking at the past 10 years, SMT abroad continued to control the market and voice of high-end machine absolutely, the price has been high, Japan has been considerable advantages in the field of machine technology, this is because the Japanese have a very good industrial base and technical accumulation, especially servo motor, high precision guide screw, excellent quality is complete, the short term Chinese domestic manufacturers is difficult to have a big breakthrough, many manufacturers will buy new original machine, including Fuji, Matsushita, SIEMENS's most expensive, ultra high speed machine more than 1 million very common, but for some small and medium-sized circuit board manufacturers, large one-time investment is risky, some of the original second-hand machine can meet the requirements, to provide these small manufacturers a very high price solution Resolution!
High cost secondary placement machine has the following brands (prices according to the number of years and maintenance changes, some brands for reference):
Samsung Samsung Mounter: Samsung CP45:USD12000, CP45FV-NEO price: USD14000, SM421 price: USD30000, SM411 price: USD35000;
YS12 price of YAMAHA YAMAHA, Japan: USD50000-80000;
Japan heavy machine JUKI:2070 price: USD30000-50000; 2080 price: USD40000-90000;
The price of the mobile placement machine is also different according to their application, and the price difference is also compared
In addition, the automatic placement machine is the earliest to foreign automatic placement machine based. The price differentials of these brands are also relatively large. In recent years, the domestic placement machine development is relatively fast, the domestic automatic placement machine brand is also
More, the price difference is also relatively large. Automatic placement machine how much money? The following will be explained by the Beijing British science and technology mounter
The amount of automatic Mounter depends mainly on the following factors.

1, automatic placement machine, how much money to distinguish between domestic or imported mounter?.
Automatic placement machine prices on the whole, imports of automatic placement machine and domestic automatic placement machine has several times the gap, the low-end domestic automatic placement machine in general
About one hundred thousand, high-speed domestic automatic placement machine is generally less than six hundred thousand. Imported automatic placement machine is low-end automatic placement machine, also more automatic than domestic high-speed paste
The price of the film machine is much higher, if it is a high-speed machine, usually USD150000-USD250000.

2, the quality of the automatic placement machine also determines the price of the automatic placement machine:
The quality of the product is closely related to the price, whether it is an automatic placement machine or an automatic placement machine imported
Materials and accessories are made of high quality materials, in addition to quality assurance, then its price is naturally more expensive.


3, automatic placement machine operating mode is different, price differentiation is also relatively large:
Automatic placement machine operation mode can generally be divided into high-speed automatic placement machine, automatic placement machine at the middle speed, multi-function automatic placement machine (commonly known as pan machine) and so on,
According to the automatic placement machine operation mode, its price also has some differences. For example, high-speed SMT machines are generally more automatic than middle speed
The price of the film machine is a little higher.

4, the automatic placement machine is also determined by the number of automatic placement machine brand:
The import of those brands of automatic placement machine, each price is not the same, as well as domestic automatic placement machine brand different prices are not the same.