Very good thread !!! Also, don't forget that when placing your PCB onto a panel to ensure you don't have connectors which overhand the edge of the panel. Ensure that the PCB's are rotated such that the connector overhang is toward the inside of the panel OR ensure that the connectors ( right angle of course ) don't sit over the edge of the panel. Ensure that the edge of the physical connector becomes the absolute edge of the PCB within the panel. Regards TDK -----Original Message----- From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brooks,Bill Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 10:00 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [DC] Standard panel size?... Great discussion... I was talking with one of our board manufacturing vendors and he told me that they use 18 x 24 and 21 x 24 for quick turns and 20 x 26; 24 x 24 and 24 x 28 in higher volume production for standard lead times. I still don't exactly understand why but I can speculate that it may be related to their having a dual approach to supporting their customers needs... The normal production higher volume work may travel through the plant in a different way using separate equipment that can handle the larger panels and the quick turn work may take a path through their equipment that is optimized for those sizes and processes not commingling with the higher volume work... hard to say for sure... For some unknown reason long before I came here we settled on a standard assembly panel size of 10 X 12 inches and we have been designing our boards into them like that for the past 5 years that I have been here... It's not the most efficient use of a 18 X 24 manufacturing panel to be sure... That's why I am looking at redesigning the panel configuration to be more cost effective and still compatible with our assembly floor's capabilities... Higher yields... lower cost per board. Our solder paste screening machine has a limited depth of about 9.5 inches of travel and that limits the number of individual boards I can put on the assembly panel in either axis. Most of the other equipment, pick and place, washing, wave solder, axial and radial inserters, test equipment, hand stuffing second op workstations, etc...can handle larger dimensions. The screening station in our case is the limiting factor. Having a longer panel than 12 inches here does me no good. Some folks are making their panels 8.2 X 11.2 inches and fitting them 'four up' in an 18 x 24 panel with a .75 inch border around the perimeter and a .100 inch routed separation between them. Using V-scoring would gain an extra .050 on each edge of the panels if they weren't routed. This is quite doable since our assembly panels are always rectangular and with straight edges. We always orient the boards in our panels in the same direction so the programming for pick and place is easier and screening and reflow or wave soldering are consistent from board to board... Some vendors want more space between the individual assembly panels on their manufacturing panel and prefer an inch border and .4 between assembly panels for their tooling, fixtures, holders and test coupons. Making sure the panel size we end up with is efficient for ANY vendor we use is really my goal... and that does take a little research to find out what limiting factors are common among the vendors. So far it looks like the 8 X 11 size is pretty close to workable for most any shop and is fairly efficient use of the manufacturing panels they have... especially the 18 x 24 size... Then when we do our assembly panel designs we will have to package them into the 8 X 11 size (or whatever size we finally settle on) with all the needed fiducials, tooling holes etc...with clearances for machine holders, rails and such for our assembly equipment designed into them. Then my challenge will be to get the most efficient use of the space on our assembly panels... Thanks for the great comments Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 Datron World Communications, Inc. _______________________________________ San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/ http://pcbwizards.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. 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