Hi George- Back in the day (Delco) we fabbed gazillions of our own single-sided boards on CEM1 and CEM3; punch only. We always purchased our doublesided/multilayer PCBS, but usually with punched non-plated features (still true today for the most part). Having been sold and sold again, and with the changes in a typical board and all, we got out of the fab side of things. Most of our new stuff is at chinese shops but to my knowlede they are not offering punched plated holes. If I ever see any I'll try to get us some pics. Someone said something about punching holes one at a time here.... our punches were huge (the cutting tools at least were made by Wand Tool - great people) and punched an entire array in two steps max. So maybe 600-800 holes plus very intricate board outlines which also featured intricate breakaway tab configs. Most of the boards were shaped like porkchops or little frisbee's after the dog has gnawed it for a while... We did holes down to about 0.9MM (maybe 0.8?) and slots with the small dim about 0.7 min. I'm interested in these 4-6 layer punched/plated boards too. If anyone has info regarding pricing, quality, etc... or just contact info for a shop that does it, I'd love to hear about it. BR, -Chris George Patrick <[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] EK.COM> cc: Sent by: TechNet Subject: Re: [TN] Die Punching PWBs as opposed to drilling <[log in to unmask]> and NC routing 03/20/2006 04:36 PM Please respond to TechNet E-Mail Forum; Please respond to george.h.patrick Whew... That sounds a lot different from the punching I have seen :) Back when I was designing automotive boards (10+ years ago) we used to do a LOT of punching. We typically only punched single-sided CEM-1 unless there were specific reasons NOT to, FR4 wore out the punches MUCH more quickly and the downtime and maintenance cost was an issue with high production counts (our typical product had runs in the millions). Also, punched FR4 always looked like a bumpy field after mowing, all kinds of stuff sticking out of the hole walls and board edges. Plated holes were not tried because the hole walls were usually MUCH too rough to give a reliable barrel. Things obviously change in 10 years, but I would think that if the shops in China are doing it, they must have to do a LOT of maintenance to keep the punches to tight tolerances and give a sufficiently smooth hole for the plating, especially if they are using glass laminate material... I would love to see some cross-section pictures of the plating of a punched hole near the _end_ of a production run :) -- George Patrick Tektronix, Inc. Central Engineering, Engineering Design Services P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-512 Beaverton, OR 97077-0001 * 503-627-5272 (voice) * 503-627-5587 (fax) http://www.tektronix.com http://www.pcb-designer.com "Off-Grid and Proud of it!" -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lee parker Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 12:58 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Die Punching PWBs as opposed to drilling and NC routing Gerald Punching double sided boards is typical in China. I have also seen punched four layer and am told that six layer boards are also sometimes punched. I found it beyond belief that anyone would punch multilayer, but the hole walls I have seen are not that bad and the damage to the board (delamination) did not seem to be an issue. I am still uncomfortable with the concept, but it is probably my personal history at Bell Laboratories. Best regards Lee J. Lee Parker, Ph.D. JLP Consultants LLC 804 779 3389 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Gagnon" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 10:57 AM Subject: Re: [TN] Die Punching PWBs as opposed to drilling and NC routing > Joe, > > Thanks. > > I hope there will be more comments particularly from producers and users > of > punched PWBs. Coming from the mainstream, punching seems to be a lost art. > > I am concerned about punching multilayers particularly with the newer > materials that we use today which might not have been evaluated or > formulated for punching. > > Thanks, > > Gerry > > > From: Joe Fjelstad <[log in to unmask]> > Reply-To: TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [TN] Die Punching PWBs as opposed to drilling and NC routing > Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:00:16 EST > > NC drills are highly versatile and stacking panels provides some economy > and > so it will be hard to displace them. > > Punching can be fast (all holes at once) but is one at a time and > depending > on approach, hole count and feature size the tooling might be costly and > must > be amortized over a number of panels to pay for the tool. > > Hole quality is not as good making plating more of a challenge if you plan > on doing double sided PCBs. I have not heard of MLBs being punched > (except > when the drills got too dull ;-) > > There should also be some concerned about punching small holes on fine > pitch > in glass fabric as there would be a higher risk of CAF, however for > polymer > films it is not so much of an issue. > > I expect there will be other comments coming. > > Joe > > --------------------------------------------------- > Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e > To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in > the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet > To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to > [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) > To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to > [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest > Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives > Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 > for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or > 847-615-7100 ext.2815 > ----------------------------------------------------- > > _________________________________________________________________ > Don't just search. 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