Mike Harrison wrote:
> Fine as long as you can afford it.
> Look inside almost any consumer product and you will see the lengths
> they go to to avoid using a double sided PCB - loads of wire-links,
> ink-printed tracks etc. I'd agree that SS PCBs are nowhere near as
> rugged, especially with heavy components, but for a huge number of
> applications they are fine, IF carefully designed.


Of course, with the market and price competition for low cost products, it
is amazing how they can produce a PC mouse with switches, electronics,
sensors, rotators, shafts, keys, case, wire, connector, package, etc, for
less than $1.50 at the Taiwan plant.
From the manufacturer cost up to the consumer price, you can think about at
least 600 to 800% price increase. Any 15 cents in cost can means up to 1 or
more dollars at the consumer price, and this can means the product staying
in the market or not.

For this kind of market, one single cent saved from using double side
boards or jumpers on a single side board, will make them go for the single
sided board.  Nobody will complain if a mouse is dropped to the floor and
stop working, it is only a $8 piece of junk anyway, and everyone knows that
dropping electronics to the floor means a high risk to have it not working.

But you will not find single sided boards in expensive products, where
quality and reliability is a must.
Of course you can find single sided boards into cheap $5 multimeters, but
you will not find them on $80 Fluke units.

Suppose you need to produce a 3x4 board, 50 units, just to sell the device
for your friends, or just to start a small gadgets business.  A double
sided PCB will never cost the double of a single side, and in most cases
the board cost is not more than 10% of the whole product, so, suppose you
produce 50 boars for $4 each (single sided), final product cost around $35,
if you move to double sided board, it will increase $2 at the cost, final
product still be possible to be sold by original price without much impact
in profit, but with much better quality.  For low quantity production
without worldwide "dog-eat-dog" competition, I really don't see any strong
reason to not produce in double sided boards.

Even we did it in the past, soon to realize it doesn't make any sense.

VV46NER

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