Tips & Tricks

In the world of PCB making there are many areas that aren't so much a science as an art. Experience teaches many lessons. Some rule of thumbs in terms of design:

If you can live with monolayer substrates due to limitations on power distribution by all means, it will make your life easier and will be easier to manufacture although the routing can come at a cost.

If you have to create layers, make sure to include ground planes. Also make sure to include adhesion holes or else your board will fail very early.

Try to balance the amount of copper you include on both areas as disbalances will generally will result in bad coplanarity which in turn will make difficult attaching components.

Some manufacturing tricks:

By far drilling is the most costly operation, if you can minimize drilling by surface routing that's better and it will make for a quicker turnaround.

All things equal, it's better to use thicker starting laminates. That makes for stiffer boards which can take more abuse and handling.

The cleaner the environment, the better the quality for the boards. Try and use gloves, caps and masks to prevent contamination while exposing to UV. This will minimize shorts due to leakage plating solution.

Plating solutions do get lean. Understand how to measure concentration and how to compensate for spent solutions.

Manual probing is a good idea if care is taken not to put much pressure on traces, this will cause hairline cracks that eventually will lead to opens.

Surface mount:

This process is simple. Remember to use clean paste and utensils so not to contaminate it.