PCB - an Overview

A PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is the base of any circuit that is used to provide mechanical support to components of the circuit and make electrical connections between them. It has tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also called as printed wiring board (PWB) or Etched wiring board

PCBs are inexpensive and more reliable than the bread boards. They provide the stability to the circuit. Although, they require much more layout efforts and higher initial costs than either wire wrap or point-to-point construction, but Printed Circuit Boards are much cheaper and faster for high-volume production. The production and soldering of PCBs can be done by totally automated equipment. Much of the electronics industry's PCB design, assembly, and quality control needs are set by standards that are published by the IPC organization

The Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing Process

The design process of a printed circuit board includes several steps. They are manufactured on home by hands as well as by automated machines in industries. On the large scale there are all automatic machines that do everything. But if you are an electronic hobbyist and need to design a PCB for your small project, you can do it yourself at home with just little stuff required.

These are the steps that need to follow while making a PCB:

    ·        Patterning | Etching

    ·        Photoengraving

    ·        Lamination

    ·        Drilling.

    ·        Solder Plating | Solder Resist

    ·        Silk Screen

    ·        Testing

Mechatronics - An Overview

Mechatronics is an integration of different engineering systems including mechanics, electronics and computer science. Mechatronics is widely applied in everyday life for solutions ranging from optical telecommunication to transportation and biomedical engineering.

Mechatronics-enabled systems are efficient and reliable, and have microcontrollers to ensure smooth functioning and higher dependability. These systems have sensors to absorb signals from the surroundings, and use appropriate processing to generate acquired output signals. The principles of mechatronics are regularly applied to robots, automated guided vehicles, digitally controlled combust engines, aircraft flight control and navigation systems, and smart home appliances.

A mechatronics system includes a measurement and actutation module, a communication module, a CPU, an output signal conditioning module, and a feedback module.

A measurement and actutation module comprises of actuators and sensors to receive and reply to signals.

A communication module comprises of circuits and bus communication in order to generate signals by measuring the relative position of actuators and sensors. These singals are then transferred to the CPU. 

The CPU recieves the signal and performs logical and arithmetic operations with a processor and software.

An output signal conditioning module includes amplifiers to drive plotter, audio-visual indicators, ADC/DAC’s and displays. The output signal is forwarded to feedback module. 

The feedback module generates signal proportional to the output signal which is finally forwarded to the measurement and actuation module. 

The main focus of research in the mechatronics domain is the application of electronics, controls, communications and computational intelligence to manufacturing systems and processes. A typical mechatronics system would a device designed to improve the physical interaction between humans and machines. This makes it easier for an operator to interact with the system with little physical effort. 

Currently, researchers are using mechatronics to improve quality of machines in the following spheres: body implants to improve physiological condition, robotics, military robotics, 3d manufacturing, and unmanned robots for oceanographic exploration.

PLCC Technology - Introduction

PLCC (Power Line Carrier Communication) is a network technology mostly used in Telecommunication.

It uses power lines (electricity network supply) as a carrier to transmit signal from one host to another. PLC networks are both electrical supply networks and communication channels at a time. So it has emerged as an economic solution for communication channel and strongly competing WLAN and other network technologies.

Basic principle behind Power Line Carrier Communication is amplitude modulation. At the transmission point a high-frequency (1.6 to 30mhz), low-amplitude signal is superimposed on a low-frequency (50hz), high amplitude AC signal. Power devices do not care about the added noise as filtering devices extract the high frequency signal without low frequency component at the receiver point. In Telecommunication, before transmission of audio signals through the technology audio signals are compressed in the 300 to 4khz range and then modulated with the electrical signals and then filtered and amplified.
These are the devices that used in PLCC Technology:-
1. modem
2. speech interface module
3. data interface unit
4. power supply unit
5. amplifier
6. line filter

An information channel is used in home same like electricity connections as it required one phase and neutral and we can use three different network channels with a three phase electricity infrastructure.. We can also connect these networks using a coupler.

In Brief, PLCC is a handy technique to create a network on an pre existing channel using the concept of amplitude modulation.