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Single Sided PCB's in Consumer-level VCR's

I

Ian Farquhar

Jan 1, 1970
0
Recently, I had the need to fix a VCR at home (or rather, to
remove a toddler-inserted food item from said VCR. :)

The VCR in question was a fairly new model, having been produced
in the past couple of years. It therefore struck me as quite
surprising that the main PCB was single-sided, and featured a
huge number of wire links. Thinking back, I couldn't remember
seeing a single consumer VCR which had a double-sided PCB.

Surely the cost of soldering the wire links - even if mechanically
inserted - would far exceed the cost of a double sided PCB? Or is
there some other reason that single-sided PCB's are preferable in
this application?

Ian.
 
B

BEVERNON

Jan 1, 1970
0
Subject: Single Sided PCB's in Consumer-level VCR's
From: "Ian Farquhar" [email protected]
Date: 12/20/04 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>

Recently, I had the need to fix a VCR at home (or rather, to
remove a toddler-inserted food item from said VCR. :)

The VCR in question was a fairly new model, having been produced
in the past couple of years. It therefore struck me as quite
surprising that the main PCB was single-sided, and featured a
huge number of wire links. Thinking back, I couldn't remember
seeing a single consumer VCR which had a double-sided PCB.

Surely the cost of soldering the wire links - even if mechanically
inserted - would far exceed the cost of a double sided PCB? Or is
there some other reason that single-sided PCB's are preferable in
this application?

Ian.

Because it is less expensive to put the links in than to lay out a double sided
board. The interconnections are very straightforward for a device like that.
I sold a lot of software to people who wanted to do single/double sided boards
because of the economics involved......
Brad
 
P

Peter Bennett

Jan 1, 1970
0
Recently, I had the need to fix a VCR at home (or rather, to
remove a toddler-inserted food item from said VCR. :)

The VCR in question was a fairly new model, having been produced
in the past couple of years. It therefore struck me as quite
surprising that the main PCB was single-sided, and featured a
huge number of wire links. Thinking back, I couldn't remember
seeing a single consumer VCR which had a double-sided PCB.

Surely the cost of soldering the wire links - even if mechanically
inserted - would far exceed the cost of a double sided PCB? Or is
there some other reason that single-sided PCB's are preferable in
this application?

Ian.

On a production line, a through-hole PC board would be "wave-soldered"
- once all components (including wire links) are placed in the board,
the assembly is passed over a wave or fountain of solder, so
everything is soldered in one pass. The only extra cost of the wire
jumpers is the machine's labour in inserting the links, and that is
presumably less than the extra cost of a two-layer board.




--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
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