For those who have never seen the process of making a PCB. This shop has a fair amount of hand processing. there are completely automated shops where humans basically feed the hungry maw at one end and take panels to be stuffed or completely stuffed panels out the other end.

Not to dis the shop - they are a good example of the general process and of a shop at this general level of production. I hope they add the SMT pick&place and easy-bake oven portion soon. The limit to SMT P&P is the size of components the end effectors can pick up. The current limit is roughly 1/4 to 1/8 of a grain of rice. Majic stuff.

Post : Birth of an Arduino
URL : http://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/birth-of-an-arduino/
Posted : August 15, 2012 at 4:01 am
Author : Mike Szczys
Tags : arduino, circuit board, drill, etch, fab house, fr4, pcb
Categories : arduino hacks

http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/birth-of-an-arduino.jpg

Hey look, an Arduino without its clothes on. This one's just started its journey to becoming the ubiquitous prototyping tool. The image is from [Bunnie's] recent tour of the fab house where Arduino boards are made (http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407) .

As it says on every true Arduino board, they're made in Italy. [Bunnie's] trip to the factory happened in Scarmagno, on the outskirts of Torino. The process starts with large sheets of FR4Â copper clad material, usually about 1 by 1.5 meters in size. The first task is to send the sheets through a CNC drill. With all of the holes done it's time for some etch resist; the image above is just after the resist has been applied. A robotic system takes over from here, running the panels through the chemicals which first etch away the copper, then remove the resist and plate the remaining traces. From there it's off to another machine for solder mask and silk screen.

There are videos of each step available. But our favorite piece is the image at the end that shows a pallet with stacks of completed PCB panels which are headed off to be populated with components.

[via Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/y6xw7/where_arduinos_are_born_touring_a_pcb_factory/) ]

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