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Is there such a PCB construction technique?

colporteur

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Is there a PCB construction that creates an area of the board that can easily be broken?

In the sketch the dotted section could be easily broken to reduce the size PCB. My design would have each breakout section containing a button(s) that wire back to a single edge connector. Breaking off pieces of the PCB reduces the number of buttons. 

I was wonder if such a technique is used and what it might be called when constructing a PCB?

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  • 0

    Isn’t this what PCB manufacturers called panelling?  You can set up panels of the PCB design and the v-cuts are added during manufacture.  If the boards are all different then it isn’t of course!   It those are your Google terms: panels, v cuts, and mouse bites.  Additionally, if the boards are all the same, JLCPCB will create 5 of them for the price of one in any case (I received 6 boards last time actually) so separating them isn’t necessary.  If they are all different, their price is so cheap for 2-layer boards, it’s easy enough to have them manufacturer them individually and ship them together in one order.

    I seem to recall Shabaz posting something not too long ago showing a design that required breaking the board.  You could perhaps attempt the near impossible and try and find it!

  • 0 in reply to Andrew J
    Andrew J said:
    panelling

    This is when you want to create multiple identical PCBs but have them all attached together as a single "large" board. This is usually done for reasons of easier automated population and soldering by manufacturing equipment when a run of boards is required. Sometimes there are defects on these panels - depending on what option is selected and paid for, either you can get perfect panels or X-out panels where bad boards have an X marked on them. Such panelled boards can be attached by mousebites or V-scoring depending on the manufacturer, and often requires a handling zone on the edge in the form of a "rail". Often PCB manufacturing houses can help by performing the necessary data processing to create panels that their systems can handle.

    From what I gather from the question, the PCB is being made to be "adaptable" in the sense that it may be made up as eight buttons and have unneeded parts snapped off. Not exactly something I would consider a panel, but more a divisible/separable PCB, so I would expect the designer to have to put this into the design, rather than the PCB manufacturer.

    - Gough

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  • 0 in reply to Andrew J
    Andrew J said:
    panelling

    This is when you want to create multiple identical PCBs but have them all attached together as a single "large" board. This is usually done for reasons of easier automated population and soldering by manufacturing equipment when a run of boards is required. Sometimes there are defects on these panels - depending on what option is selected and paid for, either you can get perfect panels or X-out panels where bad boards have an X marked on them. Such panelled boards can be attached by mousebites or V-scoring depending on the manufacturer, and often requires a handling zone on the edge in the form of a "rail". Often PCB manufacturing houses can help by performing the necessary data processing to create panels that their systems can handle.

    From what I gather from the question, the PCB is being made to be "adaptable" in the sense that it may be made up as eight buttons and have unneeded parts snapped off. Not exactly something I would consider a panel, but more a divisible/separable PCB, so I would expect the designer to have to put this into the design, rather than the PCB manufacturer.

    - Gough

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  • 0 in reply to Gough Lui

    If that is the case, it would be even more cost effective than to have them made individually with some form of edge connectors - e.g. as beacon-Dave mentions.  It’s something crazy like $1.50 per up to 100mmx100mm board design and you get 5 of them!  That means you could end up with 5 sets to sell/give away.  

    anyway, not to derail the original question, I think your answer of v-cuts is how it is done.