Re: de-panelizing scored PCBs

On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:25:23 -0700, zwsdotcom wrote:
Walter Harley wrote:

How is separation of v-scored boards done, in commercial practice? Is there
some trick to it, such as warming the board first, or using some sort of
clamp?

The appliance is called a pizza cutter (at least our mfg eng's call it
that). For small volumes, I suggest tab-routing and use a grinder to
flatten the surface.

If working by hand, you can (at some effort) depanel with minimal
stress to the PCB by running an Exacto blade down each side of the
score repeatedly until you've thinned the material in that location
sufficiently to break easily. A Dremel also works but is MUCH harder to
control; you almost certainly won't get nice clean straight edges that
way!

I've done scoring like this with an X-acto that had the tip broken off,
so that there was a square corner on the blade, then I shoved it along
the score line, and dug material out rather than slicing it.

Cheers!
Rich


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