Pick, Place, Podcast

Welcome to the new year! This episode is a continuation of our conversation with Eli Hughes of Tzero .  If you haven't checked out the first part , we recommend you do so first before listening to this episode. Show notes: - Without first building relationships, trust can't be established. -Even though engineers are dealing with highly technical problems, most have underpinning problems...

On this episode, we chat with a CircuitHub customer, Eli Hughes.  He tells about how his work at the Penn State Applied Research Laboratory and background in acoustics led to the founding of Tzero Labs. We also have a great conversation with him about the importance of building strong relationships with both your teammates and suppliers. The trust that comes out of it will ultimately help everyone...

In this episode we delve into the process of Automated Optical Inspection (AOI). We cover what  details of the circuit board AOI looks at,  what kinds of defects can be checked during AOI, and the differences and benefits of 2D AOI vs 3D AOI.  Chris also goes into some misconceptions regarding AOI and how you can design your CircuitHub to make it go through the AOI process more seamlessly.  pickpl...

Even though we talk a lot about PCB assembly on this show, one aspect of the process still remains a bit of a mystery to Chris and Melissa - the ins and out of the PCB fabrication process. On this episode are joined by Dave Wilcox, a CAM engineer at CircuitHub who has been working with PCBs for 32 years. Dave gives us a 10,000 ft level overview of the PCB fab process, using a simple, standard 1.6m...

Welcome to another week! This episode Chris and Melissa discuss reflow soldering - the high volume soldering method that melts all of the solder at the same time and sets it to the circuit board. Even though it's a relatively simple process, it's a step that is really important to get right. We go over the following: -What is reflow soldering? -Why is it important and why are we dedicati...

Welcome to our 10th episode of the podcast! Not only is this our 10th full episode, but we also have recently surpassed 1,000 episode downloads. As a thank you to all our listeners we're giving away $100 of credit to ten people that can be used on PCB assembly of any future CircuitHub order. Rules: Send us a tweet (or a LinkedIn post if you don't have Twitter) letting us know something t...

We think one of the best ways to understand what goes into PCB assembly is to speak to the experts themselves, those who spend day in and day out building your stuff! On this week's episode we speak to Beata Laskowski, a quality control inspector at Worthington. Originally from Poland, Beata has been working in the electronics manufacturing industry for over thirteen years, seven and a half o...

What happens to your bag of trash after you throw it in the dumpster? Most of us probably don't want to think in depth about this, but it's a problem that is constantly on the mind of this week's guest. We had the pleasure of chatting with Matthew Laderer, Director of Engineering and Product Development at Loci Controls. Loci Controls' automated landfill gas collection platform...

On this week's episode we talk about something that at first glance might seem mundane, but is actually one of the most important steps and literally the foundation in pcb assembly: past printing. In fact, approximately 65% of all assembly defects come from this process. Chris breaks down all of the components that are a part of the often misunderstood process and provides some design tips on...

This week we are joined by Dugan Karnazes, CEO of design firm Velocity Research and Nadim Conti, System & Electronic Designer at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Collaboration Member at CERN to talk about about their involvement with the Open Source Ventilator (OSV) Project. We discuss how COVID-19 disrupted their normal work lives, how OSV evolved, the importance of the...

On this week's episode we talk about the pick and place assembly process (which also served as the inspiration for our show name) - the process of placing parts onto circuit boards using automated machines.  We recap on how we've been adjusting in the factory amidst the continuing pandemic and how we're dealing with some of the growing pains as business starts to boom again. We disc...

In part 2 of our episode about parts purchasing with Brett and Magnus from Worthington, we talk about things we think customers should know about the process of purchasing parts and also the topic of parts consignments. If you’re just tuning it, make sure to listen to part 1 first! In part 1 we discussed what Magnus and Brett do for Worthington and CircuitHub, questions customers frequently ask us...

This week we are joined by Brett and Magnus from Worthington to talk about parts and parts purchasing. They answer frequent questions customers ask us about parts and provide a few part related recommendations. Intro Brett and Magnus give us a brief overview of what they do at Worthington and what they did before joining Worthington. We reflect on a twelve pound circuit board we are making and som...

On episode 2 of the Pick, Place, Podcast, Chris Denney gives us an overview of the pcb assembly process - everything that happens after you place an order until when your boards are shipped. Show outline: We discuss the difference between placing an order at Worthington vs CircuitHub . The three first steps happen in conjunction: Gerber data is submitted to begin board fab, the BOM is verified and...

Join hosts Chris Denney and Melissa Hough as they discuss their involvement with CircuitHub and Worthington. Find out what you can expect to learn on the Pick, Place, Podcast. pickplacepodcast.com