Supplied Specifications

We make printed circuits in-house according to customer specifications. Therefore, it is important that the customer passes on as much information regarding the design as possible, as concisely as possible.

Remember, what may seem obvious to the person working on the design for days or weeks, may not be obvious to our CAM Engineers, who have maybe an hour to transcribe everything sent, into the mechanical tools and information to make a board.

Customers often ask the best way to describe features, such as slots. It is as simple as mentioning it in an email.

For example:

“Here is a simple new design that I would like you to quote on. It is a 4 layer, 1.6mm design without silkscreens. 2 x solder resists and HASL.
The data is in all the usual formats – see the Manufacturing Drawing (26-30-44-8-1_R1MD.GBR) for specifications and the read.me file for descriptions of the data and their formats.
One thing worth noting is that the 2mm pitch connector (40way) only has 18thou annular clearance on the inner plane layers from the finished hole to the copper. Usually we provide 20thou annular. Is this Ok for your processes?”

This engineer has told us what he expects on the final board, told us where to find futher information, and has drawn our attention to a feature he knows is different to their norm, and is giving us the opportunity to provide feedback on it.

Sadly, many times all we see is “Please quote on attached.” and we have to hunt for details, possibly missing a vital piece buried somewhere that renders the final board useless.  Wastes money, and wastes time on both sides.