Three EMS companies show why additive manufacturing isn’t just the provenance of the fab shop.

The printed circuit board industry isn’t historically known for sudden innovation and change, but 3-D printing technology has been successfully adopted by many along the PCB supply chain. While there are those in the industry pushing for adoption of full 3-D printed circuit boards, capability and demand remain extremely niche. On the other hand, demand is quietly growing on the PCB assembly side for 3-D printing of fixtures for solder application, assembly and testing.

Three PCB assembly operations I recently visited are using 3-D printers to solve manufacturing and testing issues. The ability to quickly build a test fixture, assembly fixture or even custom shielding components for conformal coating means these facilities can deliver assembled boards with custom solutions traditionally reserved for high-volume production. This results in faster time to market because the assemblers are no longer waiting for a third party to fabricate a molded plastic or piece of metal for their application. In many cases, the metal material and fabrication costs aren’t economical, but a resin 3-D printed solution is, bringing up potential solutions that were previously easily dismissed.

I was graciously given a tour of Fusion EMS and appreciated seeing engineers on the manufacturing floor. What caught my eye in the corner where functional tests were performed was a table set up with two 3-D printers. The engineers shared that their facility could assemble and test a large order with a very tight deadline for delivery because they had been tinkering with a 3-D printer. On behalf of the customer, they were performing quality testing, which meant connecting power and testing the functionality of the assembled board. A near-impossible task to do individually and manually, but through experimentation with the 3-D printer on the manufacturing floor coupled with their engineering resources, they were able to quickly spin up custom test fixtures. As the success of that shipment was due to the quick thinking of the engineering manager and use of the 3-D printer, they proudly showed me an even nicer second 3-D printer they specified because management saw its worth.

Similarly, PCB Assembly Express also has a 3-D printer, laser etcher and aluminum CNC machine. With almost instant access to its in-house engineered custom fixturing and stencils, it can quickly adapt to modern challenges on the manufacturing floor. PCB Assembly Express leverages one of its sister companies, Pentalogix, to provide a development team capable of making custom software solutions to improve data processing, communication with equipment and DfA/DfM checking – another example of utilizing resources traditionally beyond the scope of a standard PCB assembler.

In November, Axiom Electronics hosted our local in-person PCEA chapter meeting, and I was able to speak with Rob Rowland about Axiom's use of 3-D printing. Axiom uses 3-D printing at several different stages of the assembly process, with solutions being created and used by its various types of engineers to solve problems in tooling, process and test. It was pointed out that even things as simple as customized trays for parts and components add to the company's efficiency and quality.

While it wasn’t the case with all these assemblers, several members of their respective teams started with 3-D printing as hobbyists, then leveraged that self-gained knowledge into their professional work. Those pushing the industry forward, it seems, aren’t all coming from traditional places. Mechanical engineers interested in 3-D printing and metal fabrication probably wouldn’t think of a PCB assembly as an environment to do such things, but here we are.

In these cases, it was more than just the existence of the 3-D printers; it was also a company culture of supporting engineers with engineering tools on the manufacturing floor. This enabled these engineers to proactively address situations with a creative and cross-disciplined problem-solving mindset. Modern PCB assembly operations are pulling in engineering resources beyond process engineering to create and adopt engineered solutions through 3-D printing and CNC machining to be faster, more accurate and of higher quality. What other interdisciplinary technologies and capabilities can we incorporate into the PCB industry to be better tomorrow? Feel free to share your thoughts with me.

Geoffrey Hazelett is a contributing editor to PCD&F/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY. He is a technical sales specialist with more than 10 years’ experience in software quality engineering and sales of signal integrity software. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..