ENGINEERING NOTES

Engineering notes

Working notes on handling, storage and depaneling PCBs: what the standards ask for, what we measure, and the decisions that show up as yield.

Nov 2, 2026 Where should the PCB depaneler go in your line? Depaneling after test lets one fixture test a whole panel, but nothing electrical checks the boards after separation, and some flex cracks in ceramic... Read the note Oct 28, 2026 How to clean ESD PCB racks without ruining them Flux, depaneling dust, solder balls and fingerprints all collect in PCB racks, and all of it rides onto the next board. Brush and vacuum... Read the note Oct 26, 2026 Blade change intervals on a benchtop V-cut depaneler A blade change run on failure is a blade change scheduled by your worst board. Count cycles as boards times scores, set an inspection... Read the note Oct 22, 2026 Which magazine rack feeds a 50-board lot through the SMT loader without a width re-tool? The B0103GN-80C B0103GN-80C is a 50-slot ESD magazine rack for SMT loaders and unloaders. Its gear track sets the board width in seconds, and that's why... Read the note Oct 21, 2026 What a rack's temperature rating actually promises (80 to 300 C) The temperature rating on a PCB rack promises one thing: that the rack itself survives your process heat with its shape and its ESD... Read the note Oct 20, 2026 Which ESD tray holds heavy boards steady on a cart? The RA-18C, slotted on both edges RA-18C is a 25-slot ESD PCB tray with slots on both edges and a carry handle at each end. It's the rack we send... Read the note Oct 19, 2026 Why carbide V-cut blades dull, and what a dull blade does to your edge Glass fiber in FR-4 is an abrasive, and every cut grinds a little of the carbide edge away. A dull blade pushes instead of... Read the note Oct 14, 2026 What a PCB rack slot touches on your board edge A PCB rack touches a board only along one strip at its edge, and whatever sits in that strip gets rubbed on every load... Read the note Oct 12, 2026 V-score, router or punch: where depaneling stress starts V-scored, routed and punched panels put separation stress into boards in three different ways, and inside the V-score family alone, the technique decides how... Read the note Oct 7, 2026 How to store prototype and pilot PCBs without mixing up revisions A pilot build might be nine boards across four revisions, two of them reworked, and all of them look alike. Give each revision its... Read the note Oct 5, 2026 Will your panel fit a V-cut depaneler? Measure these three things Three measurements settle most of the fit question for a benchtop V-cut depaneler: the longest score line, the board thickness at the score, and... Read the note Sep 30, 2026 How to prevent PCB corrosion in long-term storage Bare boards don't come with an expiration date, so they get left on the shelf. What wears out is the surface finish, and it... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Storing boards through a shutdown A shutdown is the longest continuous period boards spend unattended, in a building where the climate control has usually been turned down. Most of... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Five questions a rack supplier should ask before quoting A quote that comes back immediately with no questions is a guess wearing a price. Five things decide whether a rack fits, and a... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 When a turntable beats a rack A rack and a turntable solve different halves of the same problem. One holds boards you are not working on. The other holds the... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Loading a magazine rack without a jam A loader that jams gets blamed on the machine. Most of the time the machine is doing exactly what it was told and the... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Does an ESD rack wear out A rack that looks fine can have stopped being an ESD rack. The properties that matter are not visible, they degrade slowly, and nothing... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Floor life, baking and the rack in between Floor life is a clock that starts the moment a moisture barrier bag is opened, and it does not stop because the boards went... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Stackable storage: when one rack stops being enough The first instinct when a rack fills up is to buy a bigger one. Going upward is usually cheaper and always uses less floor,... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 What 300 C means for a rack, in Fahrenheit High temperature racks are rated in Celsius, and a lot of US floors work in Fahrenheit. 200 C is 392 F. 300 C is... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Measuring your board in inches for a rack specified in millimetres US boards get specified in inches. Most rack dimensions are published in millimetres. The conversion is arithmetic, but rounding it the wrong way is... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 How many slots do you actually need Slot count usually gets chosen by eye, which produces two failures: racks that overflow within a month, and racks that are two thirds air... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Rack, holder, magazine or cassette: four names for the same shelf Four words, frequently one product. The confusion is not academic: a quote written against the wrong word can arrive as the wrong hardware, and... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Conductive, dissipative or insulative: what the rack under your boards actually is Conductive, dissipative and insulative aren't grades of one thing. They're three materials that behave three different ways. For a rack holding boards between operations,... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Test pallets through a bake without warping the rack The boards have a moisture spec and the rack has a temperature rating. Only one shows up in the work instruction, which is why... Read the note Sep 23, 2026 Labelling and tracing boards in a rack The expensive storage failure is not a damaged board, it is the wrong board going back to the line. Numbered slots, what belongs on... Read the note Sep 18, 2026 Magazine racks for carriers, pallets and fixtures Racks get bought for bare boards, then end up holding carriers, test pallets and fixtures. Four numbers decide whether that works: slot width, payload,... Read the note Sep 16, 2026 Can extreme temperatures damage stored boards? Storage temperature and process temperature are different questions. What the room needs, what the rack needs, and why margin on the rating is the... Read the note Sep 9, 2026 Storing boards of different sizes in one rack Most floors run a mix of board sizes, not one. Why fixed-pitch racks fail a mixed shop, what adjustable actually means, and the one... Read the note Sep 2, 2026 Bags, trays or racks: what each one actually protects against Bags, totes and racks are treated as alternatives. They are not. Each protects against a different failure, and most production floors need at least... Read the note Aug 24, 2026 Seven ways boards get damaged in storage Storage damage shows up at test, not on the shelf. The seven failures we see most often, from stacking populated boards to letting the... Read the note

Further reading

IPC and ESD standards referenceWhat each standard requires for handling, storage and depaneling, and how limits tighten by IPC class.
Baking MSD boards per J-STD-033Why a rack's temperature rating decides whether boards change containers for the bake.
What “ESD safe” actually meansSurface resistance, the three ESD classes, and how to read a test report.
Sizing a rack to your boardsThe four measurements that decide fit, including component envelope against slot pitch.
Gear, screw or belt adjustmentWhich mechanism suits your changeover pattern, and what wears out.
Will the rack fit my SMT loader?Chassis height, slot pitch and footprint, plus custom-fixture checks.
Choosing a depaneling methodV-cut, router or manual break: where the strain goes and what each method costs.
Blade life and when to changeWhat 100,000 cycles means and the symptoms that appear before scrap.

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