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Eurocircuits at Southern Manufacturing and Electronics show 2018
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Formula Electric Belgium – own electronic control unit with Eurocircuits’ PCBs
This year, our team designed our own electronic control unit.
The tasks of the ECU consist of:
- gathering the sensor data
- interpreting the data
- computing complex algorithms like torque vectoring
- controlling the peripherals with the most important one being the drives of the motor.
With high reliability and low weight demands, we started designing our board and we soon found out we had to tackle some major obstacles.
The first one was reliability. To have a reliable board it is critical that all components are placed closely to each other. Longer lines would mean more noise and more risk of failures. For some components the separation distance is een less than one millimetre.
Besides component placement, we also used some components with a very small pitch, like the gyroscope and the accelerometer. These components have a width and length of only 2mm while having 16 pins connections. Thus PCB traces were very close to each other setting high requirements for the production process.
Thanks to the high precision of the Eurocircuits production process we could translate our requirements into a working prototype, saving on size without giving in on quality. After extensive testing, no shorts were found between these critical traces, not even for the small pitch components like the gyroscope.
Thanks to Eurocircuits, we can present our first prototype (picture), the results of three months of hard work.
Formula Electric Belgium | www.formulaelectric.be Diestsesteenweg 692 | 3010 Kessel-lo | tel. +32 (0) 492.80.24.02 | thomas.meyers@formulaelectric.be
Thomas Meyers, Head of Electronics 2017 – 2018
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Looking back at 2017
Eurocircuits has shown a consistent growth in customers and orders over the last 2 decades.
2017 has been another successful year with a consolidated turnover including PCB services, PCBA services, eC-equipment and consumables totalling to around 23,5 million Euro.
This growth allows us to continue to develop new products and services for our customers. We will continue to invest in new services and new processes to keep you at the cutting edge of PCB technology, and to provide more of the tools that will help you deliver your products to market on time and on budget.
2018 will see another leap forward in PCB services and in PCB software tools.
Here let’s summarize what was new in 2017.
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PCB services |
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| Year | Customers | Orders | Sales |
| 2017 | +/- 11.700 | +/- 107.000 | +/- 22.500.000 |
| 2016 | +/- 11.000 | +/- 100.000 | +/- 20.900.000 |
| 2015 | +/- 10.000 | +/- 93.000 | +/- 19.250.000 |
| 2014 | +/- 9.000 | +/- 77.500 | +/- 16.600.000 |
| 2013 | +/- 8.000 | +/- 69.500 | +/- 15.500.000 |
| 2012 | +/- 6.900 | +/- 63.000 | +/- 15.000.000 |
All sales figures are in € and exclude transport costs and taxes.
Eurocircuits presents PCB Assembly Visualizer
Your designs are electronic applications, which you would like to build. Our goal is to help you to do this, right first time.
Virtually simulating the production, allows us both to examine future results before we physically build anything thus saving time and money.
Eurocircuits TIPS & TRICKS – PCBA Visualizer
3 months after launching PCBA Visualizer beta testing phase, we shared our experiences and some tips & tricks how to use our tool efficiently. In those 3 months we processed about 5 jobs per day for various customers which has given us the necessary info to start building a professional verified component data base and improving the tools to complete your BoM and CPL analyses. We compiled our message in a video.
Eurocircuits launch 5 working day PCB Assembly prototype service in the UK
The final extension of the PCBA Visualizer tool is of course the efficient and smooth production of assembled prototypes.
To test this flow we have launched it in the UK market which was our pilot market.
Eurocircuits’ PCBA Services – resistors and capacitors for free!
At Eurocircuits we constantly aspire to lead the market and surpass our customer expectations by offering the ultimate electronics service. After importing your BOM, we crosscheck your selected manufacturers part number for every resistor or capacitor line against our equivalent generic alternative list and where we are able to find a match then we offer that part for free!!
Eurocircuits releases eC-reflow-mate V4 ![Picture2]()
At Eurocircuits we are continuously working hard to bring Services, tools and equipment to the Electronics design market to provide for the prototype and small series electronics market.
With this in mind, Eurocircuits was very pleased to launch the long awaited eC-reflow-mate V4, the successor to our very popular Bench top reflow oven.
We have redesigned the eC-reflow-mate and the eC-reflow-pilot software based on feedback from our customers to provide the most professional Bench-top reflow oven on the market.
We organised customer seminars:
- eC-workshop – high speed design
- eC-workshop – KiCAD
We supported students with their school projects!
- Formula Electric Belgium – own electronic control unit with Eurocircuits’ PCBs
- Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering or DARE !
- Durham University Electronic Motorsport with Eurocircuits PCBs
- Road Arrow Team of the Belgrade University, Serbia
- Université de Liège – département d’Electricité, Electronique et Informatique Institut Montéfiore, Liège, Belgium
- Aristurtle Racing Team – a student project of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
- Centaurus Racing Team – a student project of the University of Thessaly, Greece
- Formula Electric Belgium – a student project from the University of Leuven, Belgium
- Aristotle Racing Team – a student project from the university of Thessaloniki, Greece
- Project MARCH – make people walk again. – a student project from the University of Delft, Holland
- Grammoon competing at Eurobot – a student project from Engineering School HELMo Gramme in Liège, B
- University of Patras Racing Team – a student project from the University of Patras, Greece
- Formula Student Team Delft – a student project from the University of Delft, Holland
- Punch Powertrain Solar Team – meets Eurocircuits – a student project from the KU Leuven, Belgium
- Linköpings University Formula Student – a student project from the University Linköping, Sweden
- Chronox – a student project from the University College PXL, Belgium
- TU Delft Solar Boat Team – a student project from the University of Delft, Holland
- STORM Eindhoven – a student project from the University of Eindhoven, Holland
- Eurocircuits’ PCBs in the most efficient urban concept hydrogen car of Green Team Twente – Twente, Holland
Drill & Slot editor – a free new PCB Visualizer tool.
October 10, 2017
Drill & Slot editor is the newest of the PCB Visualizer tools. It will bring clarity about information that got lost in transferring data from CAD to CAM. Information about:
- drill diameters
- slot definitions
- whether a drill hole is a via hole or component hole
- whether a drill hole or slot is plated or none plated
- and so on
Customers sent us nice stories and white papers.
- White paper – Reliability comparison of RJ45 and Mini I/O
- Why working together works for us both?
- Low-cost calibrator
- Application paper – Intelligent Power Switch for Raspberry Pi
- White paper – suitability of an enhanced low melting point alloy for a handheld device.
- White paper – How to Prevent Emission Problems on Board Level ?
- The Impact of Different Copper Thicknesses on the Cooling of a SMD-Voltage Regulator
We began to experiment with video communication for technical content!![ec-tv-green]()
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KiCad seminar
KiCAD is a free & open-source software suite for EDA. For a while now the layout engine of KiCAD has been more powerful than similar layout engines of some commercial EDA suites.
KiCAD is available for Windows, OSX and Linux – in binary and source code.
Apart from schematics captures and the layout editor KiCAD also offers a built-in 3D viewer that can be used to verify the layout and component placement.
There’s also support for hierarchic designs to help with design reuse.
For footprint creation KiCAD offers powerful wizards that can be used to create complex packages like BGA, QFN, QFP and several more in a few seconds.
When it comes to the layout editor KiCAD offers extremely convenient features like realtime-DRC, push & shove, length matching and a built-in transmission line calculator. Because of this KiCAD is particularly suitable for more complex designs with BGA chips and hi-speed signals.
Both the schematics as well as the layout are stored in easily readable text files. This allows for third-party scripts that can be used to easily modify the design. A simple text editor with search & replace can be used to modify coordinates, layers and a lot more.
The open data formats and the availability of the source code make KiCAD a future-proof choice when it comes to EDA software. Further development doesn’t rest on the shoulders of a single company but on a large international community. The nuclear research center CERN uses KiCAD for many of their own designs and continues to contribute new features again and again.
This workshop covers schematics capture and layouts using KiCAD.
Creating new symbols and footprints will also be explained. In the workshop, Mr. Benedikt Heinz will also shine some light on the pros and cons when comparing KiCAD to other software like Eagle. In the workshop all participants will try KiCAD and all of the important features themselves. We will also create a tiny example project. Because of this you should bring a notebook.
Participation fee : 375 € (incl. VAT)
This participation fee includes the necessary material, seminar documentation, lunch and a participation certificate.
Seminar
20-Feb-2018
Register here
Eurocircuits Aachen GmbH
Peter-Debye-Str. 4, 52499 Baesweiler, Germany
Event date and time:
February 20th
9.00 AM – 4.30 PM
Who is Mr Benedikt Heinz ?
- Studied in Augsburg, where he got a Graduate Degree in Computer Science.
- During his studies he was a firmware / electronics developer.
- Since more than 15 years, Mr Heinz focuses on microcontrollers (AVR, 8051, PIC, ARM).
- Since about 9 years also on FPGAs.
- After his studies, Mr Heinz worked at the Fraunhofer Institute in Garching. Topics there are : Embedded Systems Security, Side-channel attacks.
- Since the beginning of 2015 he is active independently in the area of Digital design HW- / SW development with a stronger focus on hi-speed boards (DDR2 RAM, HDMI, SATA, PCI Express).
- Also active as a developer of open-source tools for hi-speed designs.
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Interesting EAGLE V8 Seminar
Since EAGLE V8 Autodesk brought a lot of new functionality into EAGLE, there are some significant improvements that definitely help the design engineer to get his work done. Electronic design is no longer a stand-alone task. Most electronics is part of a complex product and this development needs interaction with for example mechanical design.
EAGLE now offers a seamless connection between ECAD and MCAD. Part of this process is the assignment of 3D models to the EAGLE packages. Schematics now can be simulated with the built-in “ngspice” simulator. Simulation results and plots are visible immediately. Export for manufacturing data is much easier and comprehensive. Including new data export options. Component libraries are now managed. You will always be up-to-date with newest libraries available from our content server.
This workshop given by Mr Richard Hammerl from Autodesk, offers you a quick start into EAGLE. You learn the basics of EAGLE so you will be able to start your own projects.
Further improvements:
- Design Blocks Editor for easy Design re-use
- New Library editor with 3D models
- Improved TOC with showing dependencies of objects
- Route command with
- Avoid Obstacles and Push Obstacles mode
- Loop Removal for redundant wire paths
- Any starting point on objects
- Option to route from the opposite direction
- Live DRC
- Live layer preview
- Flip board view
- Board contour detection
- Lock traces and vias
- Alignment tool
- BGA fanout routing
- New vector font
- Adoption of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V
Participation fee : 375 € (incl. VAT)
This participation fee includes the necessary material, seminar documentation, lunch and a participation certificate.
Seminar
21-Feb-2018
Register here
Eurocircuits Aachen GmbH
Peter-Debye-Str. 4, 52499 Baesweiler, Germany
Event date and time:
February 21th
9.00 AM – 4.30 PM
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Looking back at 2017 – You and Eurocircuits
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during office hours. We will be more than happy to help.
Supporting student projects is a top priority for Eurocircuits as students are our tomorrows customers. Learn how creative these students are and what they have accomplished.↧
Eurocircuits at Southern Electronics 2018
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Interesting Eagle V8 & KiCAD Seminars
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Eurocircuits launches – eurocircuits.tv
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Looking forward into 2018!
2018 will see another leap forward in PCB services, PCB Visualizer tools, PCBA services, PCBA Visualizer tools, investments in PCB and PCBA equipment and extra colleagues.
eurocircuits.tv is fully deployed to document these company evolutions in detail and to feature eurocircuits customers and their activities as well as the electronics market news and events.
The electronics manufacturing information channel for electronics engineers ->
PCBA Visualizer was the main development topic of last year and will remain our main topic for this year. The eC-verified component date base is growing rapidly, our tools: BOM-editor and CPL-editor are maturing and the whole process becomes more smooth and easy to handle. This makes PCBA Visualizer the tool for electronic developers for doing a full DFM of their populated board, online, before order and totally free of cost.
It is impossible to mature the PCBA Visualizer without actually doing the assembly as well thus learning to avoid all the pitfalls of the entire business flow. We started offering our PCBA Services to the UK market, which became our beta test market. After 6 months of learning we are ready to take this to other markets as well. It is impossible to make all the PCBA prototypes and small series in Europe. That is why we have a plan. Read about it here!
We will continu to develop tools for our PCB Visualizer. After our last development of the drill & Slot editor we are now heavily into the development of the solder paste editor. We believe this will upgrade the quality of PCB prototype and small series assemblies as stencils will be better adapted to the job.
PCB Services and specially our pooling services are our daily business. However there is still margin for improvement in our offer which is already the most extensive pooling offer in Europe. We are constantly looking to fine tune our technological parameters of each service as we are looking into new PCB pooling services.
eurocircuits tv presents – smart tool seminars
PCB and PCBA Visualizer have grown to a level that extra guidance and training is needed to fully benefit of all of their features. We have started to work on a series of educational video, seminars we call them, which explain our smart tools in greater details. By using eurocircuits.tv as video channel we have the opportunity to make the videos interactive and more user friendly to watch through.
Eurocircuits continues to invest in her factories
For many years now we have invested the biggest part of our profit in our factories to keep up with the new technologies for board manufacturing. 2018 is our 27th year of existence, the 25th year we run our factory in Eger Hungary, the 10th year we run our facility in Baesweiler Germany and the 19th year of our operation in India. This year we will see another +/- 4M€ of investment.
We continue to organise customer seminars:
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CAD2CAM- PCB and PCBA Visualizer
- KiCAD
- EAGLE
- High Speed Routing
- Etc …
CAD2CAM
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Looking forward to 2018 !
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PWR Racing Team of the Wroclaw University of Technology – more friends of Eurocircuits
What makes our race car unique?
During the nine years of our existence we made eight race cars (plus one project for the first season). The newest one – RT08 – is the car, which helped us achieve the most. Being equipped with an internal combustion engine resulted in competing in the most popular class of Formula Student series. That helped us in winning not only individual competitions, but even entire Formula Student events (like FSAE Italy). Our car ended the season being known as one of the fastest in the Acceleration category.
We wouldn’t be able to achieve that without our engine (which has been brought to the heights of its capabilities by our Powertrain team), aerodynamic package (so light, that our competitors had been joking about it being made from cardboard), chassis and suspension, which was designed and made almost entirely in our team garage.
During the development of the RT08, our team decided, to pay more attention to the electronics of the car. We made a completely new custom wiring harness. But the RT08 is also equipped telemetry, which massively helped us during the whole season.
After a big success with our dedicated electronics, the team decided to go even further this season. RT09 (which is currently being built) will be equipped with wireless manageable telemetry (every team member will be able to monitor data from the car from any point of the world) and even more custom solutions such as CAN bus with plug-and-play support for any sort of sensors (also connected wireless).
All of this wouldn’t be possible without partners such as Eurocircuits. Within Poland we could not find partners to manufactur such complicated and durable circuits. Every shop that we have been in touch with said that it’s impossible to make electronic boards with such a high level of accuracy.
About us
PWR Racing Team started as small and unknown Student’s Society on Wroclaw University of Technology. Now it has become one of the biggest student project on the whole campus. It is the oldest and most successful Formula Student team in Poland.
Thanks to our University administration and partners we are able to build a new car every year and compete with it on the most known tracks in Europe. Every member of our team is responsible for a certain part of the car – this approach helps us to make progress every season. Team members get to know everything about their part, resulting in continuous development of their knowledge.
Our main goal is not so much to be the fastest team on the grid. We’re always trying to be better and smarter persons. Which of course results in building faster and faster cars, but that is just the result of it.
Marcel Dudek, e-mail Marcel, wybrzeże Stanisława Wyspiańskiego 27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland
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WUSAT-3 team moving one step closer to the European space station.
WUSAT-3 team moving one step closer to the European space station.
At Eurocircuits we select carefully the requests for sponsorship and try to identify worthy projects, one group of students whom we have worked closely over the last years is the Warwick University and there pursuits to launch a cube satellite into space for the collection of data for wildlife research.
The WUSAT team produce a regular newsletter updating their sponsors on the progress and achievements of the team at various milestones.
Below we would like to share this latest newsletter with you and congratulate the whole WUSAT team on their amazing efforts and wishing them continued success.
We look forward to getting the next update in the near future.
Eurocircuits are proud to be able to help with this ground breaking and worthwhile cause.
Steve Jones
![WUSAT 1]()
WUSAT-3 Newsletter
University of Warwick Satellite Engineering Team 2017-18
WUSAT Selected to attend ESA pre-FYS Training Programme!
We are very excited to let you know that our WUSAT-3 satellite and its wildlife monitoring
mission has been selected by ESA to take part in a ‘Fly Your Satellite’ (FYS) training programme. Following a project submission by Project Director Bill Crofts and individual submissions by team members Ben Olsen, Naomi Dobson, Tony Hogan, and Ben Taylor, we recently learned that the WUSAT-3 team has been chosen to receive training in Concurrent Engineering methods of Space technology design. Three team members will travel to ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility (Redu, Belgium) on 16th January 2018 to commence training.
This programme of training has been specifically devised to prepare a satellite team to work on the FYS launch programme. WUSAT-3 is being designed for launch to the International Space Station via the FYS programme. The fact that ESA have now seen, and chosen, our WUSAT-3 satellite and mission design is a major milestone for the team, including all of our valued partners! Still a lot to do, but we’re definitely on track!
Back L-R : Prof Julia Hunter-Anderson (Co-Director/Systems Engineer), Oli Vavasour (PhD Advisor), Sean Perry (PhD Advisor}, Ben Taylor (Mech Eng), Ben Olsen (Mech Eng), Sam Croote (Elec Eng), Dr Bill Crofts (Project Director)
Front L-R : Tony Hogan (Manu/Mech Eng), Sophie Clarke (Electronic Eng), Sam Tucker Harvey (PhD Advisor), Naomi Dobson (Systems Eng), Marina Shcherbakova (Systems Eng)
In late February, an additional ESA training week, ‘Hands-on Training for Small Satellite Design and Testing’, has also been arranged to assist in FYS preparation. This programme covers most of the major topics in satellite design from Space Systems Engineering, software, communications, through to satellite operations and testing. One of our Electronics Engineers, Sam Croote, has made a submission to attend, and we hope he will be successful. This will form a substantial grounding to our FYS launch programme progress.
Report on Bio-logging Symposium BLS6
As reported in the last newsletter, Marina Shcherbakova (Systems Engineering student) and WUSAT Co-Director Julia Hunter-Anderson attended the Bio-logging Symposium BLS6 in Konstanz in September last year. They used the opportunity to meet up with key WUSAT-3
collaborator Martin Wikelski. As well as being the Symposium organiser, Martin leads the ICARUS Initiative and the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Germany. Crucially Marina and Julia were also able to talk with ICARUS CEO and lead System Engineer Walter Naumann along with key established bio-logging and tracking technology systems and tag suppliers, such as Argos and Biotrack/Sirtrack. In order to better understand the potential mission requirements of the User community, BLS6 provided an ideal opportunity. As a leading Symposium for diverse wildlife researchers (terrestrial, avian and marine) actively using tagging/logging technology to aid their research, it was apparent that it has huge untapped potential for wildlife research and would benefit from more diverse and stable system options in the future. As with users of other scientific and operational satellite data, such as climate and weather data, interoperability was a key concern going forward. Fresh efforts are being coordinated both within the BLS community and in conjunction with other biodiversity observing communities like GEOBON (part of GEOSS).
New Collaborators
As a low budget project, we are always interested in mutually beneficial collaborations. Most recently, we have been working with more collaborators that are fantastic.
Rhea Group are providing great support to implement a Concurrent Engineering (CE) process on WUSAT-3, including use of their new tool CDP4, released in November 2017. The WUSAT team will provide feedback on implementation within an academic, smallsat, multi-year project. The tool is consistent with ECSS CE standards and ties in well with the team’s training opportunities at ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility, especially useful as we build up to the ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ opportunity.
We are also pleased to be using AGI’s System ToolKit (STK) software. This is a very useful tool, both for bringing the team up to speed on topics such as Mission Analysis and the impacts on sub-system design, as well as communicating our mission to non- specialists.
3rd Year Project – Deployable Antenna Design
Ellen Daly is continuing to make good progress with her 3rd Yr Project investigating the possibility of using PCB materials to combine the structural and connectivity requirements of WUSAT-3’s deployable payload antenna arms.
Working with our collaborating partner, Steve Jones of Eurocircuits, Ellen is hoping to manufacture, test and evaluate a number of different designs this term.
WUSAT Team to Attend ESA Space Educational Activity Symposium!
WUSAT Co-Directors Bill Crofts & Julia Hunter- Anderson have had a paper abstract accepted, and the 2017-18 WUSAT Team have had a poster/paper abstract accepted for the next SEA Symposium being held at The University of Technology and Economics, Budapest this April 2018. As a result, arrangements are being made for us all to attend the Symposium to present our work. We will of course be representing the important role of our partners and collaborators in the work we do!
Space Shorts!
Very best of luck to Martin Wikelski and the ICARUS team who are fitting their antenna into the launch rocket in -20oC at Baikanor, Kazakhstan this week. The launch will deliver it to the ISS where the ICARUS computer system was delivered late last year.
We hope WUSAT-3’s complementary system will be joining you soon. Good luck!
Congratulations to the SSTL team (on the right) on the successful launch and contact on first pass of their Carbonite-2 satellite! Carbonite-2, has been successfully placed into low-Earth orbit after it and a communications spacecraft, were launched onboard the PSLV rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
I can just spot ex-WUSAT member Ben Donnellan (front middle).
Well done Guys!
Dr Bill Crofts, Director of the WUSAT Programme, w.e.crofts@warwick.ac.uk
Previous Eurocircuits BLOG on WUSAT-3
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Via Filling – Eurocircuits have invested in the ITC THP 30 machine
Via Hole Filling – new advanced PCB technology options in our calculator
Completely closed via holes can only be guaranteed by using Via Filling.
We can produce 2 types of Via Filling:
- Via Filling with Resin
- Via Filling with soldermask.
Via Filling with soldermask is a technology we have already offered for many years.
Last year we invested in the ITC THP 30 Hole Filling machine which allows us to now also fill holes with resin. The aim of that technology is to fill the vias with non-conductive material, once the via has been filled with the resin, at a later stage the via becomes capped with copper and provides a solid conductive platform for the solder pad.
This process permits designing higher PCB technology classes which saves space on the board. The biggest advantage of this process is that it offers designers the possibility of vias in pads without compromising the solder quality which always occurs when the solder leaches into the via from the component pad, compromising the electrical connection from the component to the circuit. We have seen more and more requirements for a solution as board designs become denser and tracking out from certain components, typically BGAs is becoming impractical.
Erwin Haertl, the president of ITC, wrote a nice motivation document about why to invest in Hole Filling technology and his machine. You can find the story here or click on the image showing the ITC THP 30.
The filling material is TAIYO THP-100DX1 a thermally curable permanent hole filling material. It has really low shrinkage values and so it gives a very good filling quality after final baking.
It has advantages for the assembly process as it allows soldering on SMD pads on top of via holes filled with that technology. This cross section image shows the result of the process.
Via Filling with Resin
The vias to be filled are filled with a special hole plugging resin, TAIYO THP-100DX1 a thermally curable permanent hole filling material, applied using a dedicated machine, ITC THP 30. The extra production steps needed for Resin Via Filling are performed before the 2-layer PCB production process. In case of making multi layers, this is after the pressing stage.
Overview of the extra processes:
- Drilling of only the vias that need plugging
- Cleaning: plasma and brushing
- Black Hole
- Apply dry resist
- Imaging of ONLY the via holes
![ill_printplaten-10]()
- Via hole galvanization (PTH)
- Strip dry resist
- Brushing if needed
- Baking: 150°C for 1 hour
- Via plugging with resin
- Baking: 150°C for 1.5 hours
- Brushing
After these steps the normal PCB production process continues: drilling of the other PTH holes, and the normal outer layer production processes.
Technical specifications
| Via Filling with Resin | Via Filling with Soldermask | ||
| ToolSize / EndSize (mm) | Min | 0.20 / 0.10 | 0.20 / 0.10 |
| Max | 0.60 / 0.50 | 0.60 / 0.50 | |
| Material Thickness (mm) | Min | 1.00 | 0.50 |
| Max | 2.40 | 3.20 | |
| Outer StartCopper Thickness (µm) | Min | 18 | NA |
| Max | NA | NA | |
| UL certification | No | Yes | |
| IPC-4761 via protection type | VII – Filled and Capped | VIb – Filled and Covered | |
| Via-in-Pad application | Yes | No |
- ONLY PTH holes can have Via Filling (PTH hole = hole with copper pad on TOP and BOT side).
- ONLY through hole vias can have Via Filling, so Blind vias can NOT have Via Filling.
Avoid naming confusion between Via Filling and Via Plugging
The IPC-4761 via protection type classification, clearly defines the difference between
Filling 
and Plugging 
.
In our manufacturing processes we only use Via Filling as it has considerable advantages over Via Plugging.
See our design guide lines for more detailes information.
Where can you find this new Via Filling option?
In the PCB calculator of STANDARD pool, under advanced options, you can find the technical options: Via Filling.
Default of the option is set to “No”. You may now change the selection to “Resin” for resin filled vias covered with copper or “Soldermask” for soldermask filled and soldermask covered vias.
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Formula Electric Belgium – own telemetry unit with Eurocircuits’ PCBs
This year, our team designed our own telemetry unit.
This year marks the first year that we will use a telemetry system in the car. The telemetry system is used to check the data in the car wirelessly if the car is driving. This means that we will be able to analyze the performance on the go and adapt the car using this analysis. Next to analyzing the data in real time, we also want to store the data for analysis later on. Also this had to be incorporated in the PCB. While designing the PCB a couple of factors were important: it had to be small and we should be able to mount an SD card on to it. One of the most important goals is portability. We want to be able to use the telemetry in various cars.
First of all, the wireless technology chosen is zigbee, using xbee modules. This was partly chosen because xbee has different technologies but the modules have the same footprint. Therefore we can swap technologies in the future. Since we use a CAN system in the car, we also needed this on our chip, that’s why we went for an AT90CAN128 from Atmel. This is also a big part of the portability: every car until now uses this technology so we can use the telemetry in every one of these. The AT90 is perfect for us since it has SPI, I2C and UART, which are needed for the communication with the xbee module (UART), writing to an SD-card (SPI) and eventually for using a real-time-clock (I2C).
To make the board as small as possible, we needed to place components close to each other. Thanks to the precision of Eurocircuits this was no problem and the production and the assembly of the PCB went perfect!
Formula Electric Belgium | www.formulaelectric.be Diestsesteenweg 692 | 3010 Kessel-lo | tel. +32 (0) 492.80.24.02 | thomas.meyers@formulaelectric.beThomas Meyers, Head of Electronics 2017 – 2018
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Eurocircuits supports the AmsterGramme team at Eurobot
![AmsterGramma 1]()
AmsterGramme competing at Eurobot
AmsterGramme competing at EurobotWe are a team of 13 young and dynamics students in industrial engineering at Gramme Institute. Every year, we have the possibility to participate in the international contest of robotics called “Eurobot”. For this contest, we have the objective to design a robot that will have to perform given actions. Each action properly done will bring us points that, maybe, will lead us to the international championship.
As you may already know, 75 years ago, Isaac Asimov created the 3 laws of robotics:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. 3
The rules of the contest are inspired by these laws and as the subject of this year is “Robot Cities”. They have been adapted to match an ecological purpose.
The new laws are:
- A robot must preserve its environment.
- A robot may use the natural resources available around it unless such orders conflict with the first law.
- A robot can build comfortable houses for the use of its inhabitants so long as it does not conflict with the first or second law.
In order to respect the laws, our robot must be able to:
- Feed the city with drinking water: the water to be treated will be represented by foam ball. The robot will have to collect the ball and throw them into a box.
- Build buildings: building material will be represented by wooden cubes of different colors and we will have to stack the cubes following a given combination of color.
- Power a switch.
- Forage a flower by bursting a balloon with a small mechanical robot also called “the bee”.
- To evaluate our performance during the game.
To realize those action, we need to control a lot of different module and what a better way a robot that electronic cards?
Here are some of the cards coming from Eurocircuits we actually use in our robot:
The most important one is the alimentation card. All our modules need their own energy. To power the robot, we had to realise by reverse-engineering an electronic card that could supply all the components with a classic 24V battery. This card had to be robust and effective. In other terms, the signals had to be clear, without any parasite. We sized our own symmetrical RLC filter to avoid that the ECM disturbs the command signals.
With a software, we modelled the beta version of the card.
In the final beta version, we will deleted the pulsed regulator and used a linear one. This one should emit less interferences and so permit a better quality of transmission.
Then, we have the shield for the raspberry Pi. To make data transfer from the Raspberry Pi to the different driving parts of the robot, we chose the CAN protocol. This protocol has many advantages including an incredible robustness. However, the Raspberry Pi do not handle the CAN communication on its own that’s why we had to use a shield.
The actual shield use a component called MCP2515 to translate and handle the information. We decided to design a new shield to include new functionalities so there can be a direct interaction between the robot and its user.
To achieve this purpose, we designed a PCB and asked Eurocircuits to produce it. The circuit board has been assembled and tested. We now enjoy a new shield with an LCD, buttons, LED’s and other connectors.
After a few months of work, we have just finished assembling the final robot.
The contest is now in only a few weeks, let’s cross our fingers that everything goes well.
Marie Carpentier, Engineering School HELMo Gramme in Liège, Belgium.
Grammoon was the team of last year who’s story can be found here.
Cinégramme, was the 2015 team that participated in the Eurobot competition. Their adventure can be found here.
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