One more screwup with the Ace...

From: Marvin Johnston <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Tue Dec 10 16:15:01 2002

Ethan Dicks wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > Well, it looks like I've finally destroyed the Ace...
>
>
> Your problems were probably caused by aggressive engineering cost
> reduction. "Quality" boards are made of fiberglass and resin, have
> plated vias and a solder mask. Many low-end products are missing
> one or more of those features (mind you, a $100 TV set counts as low
> end in terms of board quality).

I once made the mistake of saying to a Motorola Plant manager something
similar to what you just said (this plant made single sided boards on
CEM material.) His comment was that they made high quality inexpensive
(not cheap) boards. Also, plated thru vias guarantee nothing; it is the
amount of copper plating in the holes that make the difference. Less
than 1 mil of copper plating can result in blowholes and unsatisfactory
reflowing of the tin-lead into solder. Etc, etc, etc :).

BTW, the circuit boards for the Atari 2600 were made of CEM and were
laid up 8 boards per panel. The process control was the same as higher
cost boards.
Received on Tue Dec 10 2002 - 16:15:01 GMT