Panel Requirements for Assembly

Panel Requirements For Assembly

PCB panel refers to the production of several small PCBs on a large board. It can easily separate the multiple PCBs to avoid damage to the circuit board during the panel assembly process. And the panel type depends on the shape of the single board.

To improve the efficiency of PCB manufacturing and assembly, we usually use the panel design for PCB manufacturing and assembly. The panel will also reduce assembly costs to a certain extent.

Venture Electronics can produce the circuit boards according to your penalized files. If you only have a single PCB file, we can help you with the design according to your specific requirements. If you need our help with the PCB assembly panel, please feel free to contact us directly, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We have also mentioned panel requirements for PCB assembly.

Why Do Venture Electronics Require Panel Design For PCB Assembly?

PCB penalization can help smaller circuit boards adapt to standard production processes and improve efficiency.

• Improving Fabrication Efficiency

Several PCBs are too small to meet the demands of SMT fixtures, so manufacturing them on a large board will be much easier. And the SMT process of multiple PCBs can be run in an automatic machine simultaneously, thereby improving the utilization rate of the machine and fabrication efficiency.

• Good Quality Control

Automated production is helpful for quality control and improves manufacturing yield.

• Reducing PCB assembly cost

We mainly apply the panel design for automated production lines, which can reduce labor costs. And through the panel design of some different shapes of PCB helps improve the utilization rate and reduce material waste effectively.

Types Of PCB Panel For PCB Assembly

• Single-up PCB Pane

A single-up PCB panel means that there is only one design and one PCB board in the panel. Placing more PCBs on the board helps speed up production. If this is the fastest and cheapest way to obtain PCBs for small batch or prototype orders, setting the panel as a single piece is usually ok. But when the order volume enters mass production, it is best to consider making the panel larger to improve the assembly efficiency.

If a single PCB is large, a single panel may be required regardless of the number of ordered units. For example, if a single PCB exceeds 200 mm, then it is likely to need to remain single-sided. However, if the PCB is below this and the number is sufficient, then putting more PCBs in the panel will be the first choice.

• Multi-up PCB Panel

Multi-up PCB Panel means only one design and a few boards in the panel. If the single unit of PCB is small, we can assemble some on the shorter edge, such as 3 or 4 pieces, to ensure the best PCB panel size. This multi-up PCB panel is suitable for prototype PCB assembly and mass production.

If the long side of the PCB is more prominent, we can put more PCBs on the short side. For example, if the long edge of the PCB is more extensive than 200mm, we can put more PCBs on the short side. Generally, according to the actual SMT assembly requirements, there must be  5-14mm waste tabs around the edges of the panel.

How To Create A PCB Panel?

If you need PCB mass production, it is best to make PCB panels. It would be best to understand that your PCB order is built by the PCB manufacturer using only your PCB design. The manufacturers will assemble your PCB in a large panel to get a high degree of automation and repeatability to improve efficiency.

Manufacturers always try to use both V-cut and tab-routing methods on a single unit PCB project as much as possible. The combination of this method always increases the production costs, but it helps to reduce damage and PCB assembly separation labor. The things used in the whole process can be considered as the panel requirements.

• Panel with V-CUT/V-GROOVE

There will be 0.0mm spacing between each unit for the panel with V-cut. Please check the image below for your reference.

Since V-scoring can only penetrate the entire board and cannot be stopped, V-cut cannot be used for different-sized panels.

• Panel with Tab Route

For panels with Tab-route, 2.0mm spacing is required between each unit. We provide two options for tab routing: tab routing with punch holes and tab routing with tabs.

Regarding panels with tab routes, 1.6mm space is needed between single units. There are two tab paths available for the board: tab-route with breaking holes and tab-route with tabs.

• Tab-Route with breaking holes

We require the breaking holes diameter to be between 0.3mm-1.0mm, the hole spacing ≥ 0.25mm, and the number of holes for each tab to be about 5-6. Please check the following image for an example.

• Tab-route with tabs, the width of tabs requires to be 1.0mm.
• Panel with both V-CUT and Tab Routes. Each unit’s spacing should be 2.0mm in panels with V-cut and tab routes. Please check the image below for the panel design.
• Fiducial marks and mounting holes on the panel are necessary to make. Usually, each board has three fiducial spots. The mark diameter is 1.0mm, The fiducial marks on the left of the board should be 10.0mm from the edge of the board, and the fiducial marks on the right should be 15.0mm from the right of the board. Please check the image below to get more information.

  • Mounting holes

  We recommend that the diameter of the mounting hole is set to 3.0mm, the width of the tooling strips is set to 7.0mm, and the distance from the edge of the board is at least 5.0mm. Please check the image below or contact our team to get more information.