Electrical Test of PCB?

Community PCB Design
1

Hi everyone,

Once you assembled your board and got it working, then you know that it is working. But before assebling components on the board, you just got the boards from the fab and want to know if it is what you designed, you need to do some testing, I think some fabs do it and I believe it is called electrical testing. What exactly it is and how it is done. Thanks

Regards

2

They use probes to check for shorts between tracks. It’s done automatically with a special machine using the Gerber files for input.

It’s an optional extra with most PCB suppliers.

Leon

3

Not only do they test for shorts, they also test for open circuits.

I find that opens happen much more because of through hole plating. If a through hole is not plated well…your via that takes a circuit from one layer to another will cause an open.

It is important to check this if the assembler does not do pre-assembly electrical checks, such as us.

James L

4

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your responses. I have some more questions about it.

  1. Is there any equipment I need to buy to be able to do that test? If yes what it called and what range of prices do they come?

  2. At this time, I do mostly simple circuits one 1 or 2 layer. Should I still be concerned about it or it is a problem with multilayer boards? Thanks

Regards

5

A multimeter or Ohm meter would be the item to use to check the eletrical paths. (reading the ohm value or resistance of the path, which should be close to zero …while checking for continuity, and extremely high or infinite ohms for a short check.).

This can be a problem with any board with more than one layer. I would also check a single layer board for shorts.

With multilayer boards (more than 2 layers) , most of the board makers (including Batch PCB) do these checks for you.

James L