Talk:Printed circuit board

X-ray picture

X-ray zoom series on an old token ring network adapter card

I have removed this image from the article. It is a nice picture, but I don't quite see the relevance that it has to the article text (it was inserted into the test section). If it does have relevance, we need some text to go with it to explain. SpinningSpark 12:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Electroplating

Didn't want to risk changing this erroneously so I'll post a comment to see if anyone else can confirm.

• 

  PCB copper electroplating machine for adding copper to the in-process PCB

• 

  PCB's in process of adding copper via electroplating

The PCB substrate in these images appears to already have copper on them and a coating of what appears to be already developed photoresist - if this is the case then these boards cannot still be in the process of electroplating nor are they likely to still be in the machine designed to do so - more likely some sort of drying rack ready to be etched. Tim Bell87 (talk) 02:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Wired Chassis

I've seen the term wired chassis and wired chassis assembly used as an alternative "technology" relative to printed circuit boards. I'm not an expert; should this be clarified in this article? If not, would a knowledgeable person please find a good redirect link for these terms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.31.106.35 (talk • contribs)

This is point-to-point construction (or a version of it) already mentioned in the article. SpinningSpark 01:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Error

The sentence, "In 1949, Moe Abramson and Stanislaus F. Danko of the United States Army Signal Corps developed the Auto-Sembly process in which component leads were inserted into a copper foil interconnection pattern and dip soldered." is in error. The original designer of this process was Samuel J. Lanzalotti, an electrical engineer and inventor, who, with the two aforementioned electrical engineers, worked at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The prototype Lanzalotti designed shows the three layers within the circuit board and displays side-by-side two different methods of etching that could be used. With Lanzalotti's design notes in hand, the two others applied for the patent and received a $10,000 award from the government. This information was never disclosed to the public.--96.242.73.244 (talk) 11:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

If the information was never disclosed then it is not possible to verify and thus cannot be included in the article. See: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth HumphreyW (talk) 11:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The existence of

• SF Danko and SJ Lanzalotti, "Auto-Sembly of subminiature military equipment," Electronics, vol.27, pp.94-98; July, 1951

would seem to suggest that Lanzalotti did indeed have a lot to do with this, but I don't have access to a copy. Danko, in his publications, would also appear to be citing Lanzalotti if this search of Scholar is anything to go by. SpinningSpark 13:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

CEM-3 and FR-4

Article states "Well known prepreg materials used in the PCB industry are ... FR-4 (Woven glass and epoxy), ..., CEM-3 (Woven glass and epoxy) ..."

I read elsewhere that CEM-3 is not woven, which is its main difference from FR-4. Sorry that I do not have an authoritative reference on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zlel (talk • contribs) 04:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

general electronics assembly

Is there a more general article that compares and contrasts the many ways of electrically connecting and mechanically supporting electronics components? Or a general category to simply list these techniques? solderless breadboard, point-to-point construction, wire wrap, Project Tinkertoy, general-purpose printed circuit board: prototyping stripboard and prototyping perfboard, custom printed circuit board, etc. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 03:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

General comments

this article is full of fundamental errors, e.g.:

drilling is performed before etching, but the sequence of sections suggests otherwise

section "Exposed conductor plating and coating" sentence "PCBs[2] are plated with solder, tin, or gold over nickel as a resist for etching away the unneeded underlying copper.[3]" is nonsense

212.159.59.5 (talk) 14:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Multilayer board?

Not one mention. How about a paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.60.126 (talk • contribs) 08:26, 12 June 2011

BGA by hand

Article states that it is impossible to solder BGA by hand. This is not true. It is possible to remove, reball and replace BGA and uBGA devices using a hand held hot air rework station. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.38.32.168 (talk) 08:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You are right. I have softened the wording a little. HumphreyW (talk) 10:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Errors in materials

>Some of these dielectrics are polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon), FR-4, FR-1, CEM-1 or CEM-3.

PTFE is only used in high performance PCB for ultra high frequencies. One supplier is i.e. http://www.rogerscorp.com . Cost can be easily over US$1000 per raw sheet. Beside PTFE there are a few other exotic materials.

>FR-2 (Phenolic cotton paper), FR-3 (Cotton paper and epoxy)

XPC, FR-1, FR-2, FR-3, CEM-1 use cellulose paper, not cotton paper.

> CEM-3 (Woven glass and epoxy)

CEM-3 uses a glass felt and not woven glass. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.198.92.79 (talk) 03:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

PWB and PCB

This article talks mainly about a PCB although the technology, point to point connectivity, it technically a PWB (Printed Wiring Board). A PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is a board that has a printed RF element on it. Also, technically an assembly for these boards is a CCA (Circuit Card Assembly) or in the case of a backplane a Backplane Assembly as defined by H6 (http://www.dlis.dla.mil/H6/search.aspx). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jschwa01 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

That link is dead. I think you need to provide sources saying your definitions are widely used. As far as I am concerned PCB is the universally used term with PWB occasionally found in military specifications. The IPC may have created definitions but there is no evidence that anyone actually uses them. SpinningSpark 15:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Breakout Boards

Why does Breakout Boards redirect to here? This article does not use the term Breakout Board, which means anyone coming to the article redirected from "Breakout Board" will be confused into thinking there might be information about Breakout Boards here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.207.40 (talk) 07:02, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Multiwire section does not belong here

The Multiwire board section does not belong here; it is not a printed wiring technology. It should be mentioned in the wirewrap article. Multiwire board may deserve an article of its own.

The redirect at Multiwire should be a dab.

Glrx (talk) 15:45, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a short section on alternatives to printed wiring would be useful with links to other articles where they exist. SpinningSpark 20:24, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Reliable sources needed

<ref> (original internal documentation of inventor Seymour Golub and NOMA catalog) </ref> is not a usable citation. A citation tells you how to find the original document; this doesn't even tell us which edition of a "NOMA catalog" to look for. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Party Quiz Game

I have moved the following from the article for discussion here first:-

NOMA Electic Company, NY, NY unwittingly produced the first commercial printed circuit board in 1946 with its Party Quiz Game. It was an electrical board game with replaceable question cards and two electrodes which, when placed in the proper positions to answer a question correctly, caused a bulb to light. Initially hardwired, the game was made thinner by hot pressing aluminum foil into a shirt cardboard with the electrical contacts made into the board.^{[citation needed]}<ref> (original internal documentation of inventor Seymour Golub and NOMA catalog) </ref>

• The main question here is that aluminium foil pressed into cardboard may look superficially like a pcb, but was it produced by a printing process? Are there any reliable sources describing this as a "printed circuit"?
• The reference cited is useless. No information allowing it to be found for verification such as title, date of publication, publisher, index number such as ISBN, ISSN or OCLC, or hyperlink is provided. Even if it could be verified, company internal documents and catalogs are generally not considered reliable sources.
• I am sure NOMA Electric did not unwittingly invent this - they quite deliberately intended to manufacture exactly what was produced. It seems to me to be a later synthesis to describe this as "printed circuit.
• SpinningSpark 16:34, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggest merge

Through-hole technology mostly duplicates what is already here. It could be merged for context and coherence. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Duplication is mostly left-overs from when you already tried to merge it with one of your unattributed copy-pastes.

PCBs are a huge topic that should rightly spread several articles to give well-structured coverage. Through-hole is rightly one of those. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, all PCBs were through-hole until surface mounting came out of the niche aerospace/hybrid ICs area. Any worthwhile discussion of printed circuit board manufacture is going to spend a lot of time talking about making and plating holes, which is pretty much the whole contents of the through-hole article. PCBs are indeed a huge topic but we're not expected to cover it all in a general encyclopedia article. And as is ever true in Wikipedia electronics articles, we spend lots of space on "what" (including useful rules-of-thumb for sizing holes), but never explain *why*. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

They weren't all through-hole. Some of the very earliest (to avoid the time-consuming drilling) were more like tag strip. As you have already managed to confuse through-hole and plated-through-hole, I have to question your technical knowledge to make technical judgement calls in this field. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Through-hole technology is long enough and detailed enough to stand on its own. SpinningSpark 19:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. THT could cover a lot more than it does -- material that would bog down PCB. Glrx (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
  • It would help if you could give some examples. What should be added, that's not how-to or textbook material? --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Lead benders, insertion equipment (even manual such as DIP inserters), cinchers, wave solder (compare IR/vapor surface mount soldering). Glrx (talk) 20:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - I've added several sources to improve the Through-hole technology article. Through hole technology is significant because it almost completely replaced earlier electronics assembly techniques. Thus, as very a notable topic in its own right, it is worthy of its its own article. Northamerica1000^(talk) 06:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by nominator I find it very amusing that Wikipedia gives the impression that "through-hole techology" is somehow a separate topic from "printed circuit boards". "Through-hole technology" is a term coined for "the way every single PCB was ever made except for surface mount, and even they have holes in them" - but the Wikisages have spoken. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Multilayer boards?

Hardly any information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.150.170.241 (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Buy a book if you want infomation. The lowest-rent TAB paperback at least was written by an identifiable professional author and professional editor. Getting information from a Wikipedia article is like asking the guy sitting on the next bar stool. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)