Hi, Because it's round then you don't have much choice except a routed board outline! Vee-groove can only do straight lines and lines must go right across the panel (can't start and stop). I've done a similar board/panel (boards were 34mm diameter). Four breakout areas or "bridges". Each breakout area is two 0.8mm drilled holes (unplated) 1mm apart, leaving a 0.2mm tab to break. Holes slightly inside of the board outline. The routed outline used a 1mm router bit following the curve of the edge of the board, then turning in a little and stopping 0.2 from the 0.8mm holes, once again leaving a 0.2mm tab to break. The "turning in" of the routed edge and 0.8mm holes slightly inside of the board outline helps the tabs break off shorter and not protrude from the edge of the board. Be clear in your instructions so the manufacturer knows where the routing goes, ie. specify a line which shows the edge of the board after routing, a centre line for the router to follow and width of tool to use, or both! Other general tips for panels: - Leave room for panel to be held in assembly jig. Typically a 10mm "salvage" strip at least on top and bottom edges of panel, often on all 4 sides to increase rigidity of board. - Put a mounting hole in each corner of the board for the assembler to use. I typically use 4.1mm unplated holes and locate them on the salvage strips. - For machine assembly each board must have "fiducial" marks for the pick-n-place machine to register to. Usually 3 marks so it can't get the board round the wrong way. Fiducials are usually a round pad with solder mask relief to increase contrast. Bottom left fiducial makes a good x=0, y=0 reference for pick-n-place coordinates. If components are on both sides of the board then you need fiducials on both sides. Very fine pitch components may need their own fiducials. Also put fiducials on the panel, usually on the slavage strip. - Size the panel to best suit your assemblers requirements and PCB manufacturers capabilities. Assemblers don't like panels too big as they flex too much. - Protel/Altium Designer has a "place embedded board" function, that inserts a PCB file in a step and repeat fashion, you specify the spacing, rotation, number of x and y steps. Panel file is linked to PCB file so any updates are reflected. Eagle and other CAD programs may have something similar. Else you are stuck with copy and pasting which is time consuming, makes really big files, and can often have issues with duplication or incrementing of component designators. Hope this helps! Brent. On 12 Apr 2007 at 21:18, PicDude wrote: > I ignored v-scoring as it adds more to the cost than a row of holes. > Moving the holes a bit more into the board is fine though, as the > boards are small ~2" circles and in the current panel, they're > supported on 4 sides by "bridges" on the PCB approx 1/4" wide. And of > course a few holes on it. > > -Neil. > > On Thursday 12 April 2007 16:25, Jon Chandler wrote: > > Have you considered V-scoring the boards? USing this method, the > > boards beark apart cleanly. The down side is that you can't have > > connections across the score area. Oh yeah, the scoring must extend > > all the way across the panel, which can impose some limitations if > > you're panelizing different sized boards. > > > > Jon > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- Brent Brown, Electronic Design Solutions 16 English Street, St Andrews, Hamilton 3200, New Zealand Ph: +64 7 849 0069 Fax: +64 7 849 0071 Cell: 027 433 4069 eMail: brent.brown@clear.net.nz -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist