Printed Circuit Boards

The History of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB)

A Power Supply Printed Circuit Board or PCB

Ya know, no one really thinks about how things are made or how they work anymore. With Technology becoming lighter, smaller, and less bulky everyday, it becomes more of regularity, and less of a fascination. However, Global Mechtronics thought it might be fun to give you a little history on one of the pieces of technology that really makes our lives so much easier; the Printed Circuit Board.
The Printed Circuit Board has allowed many of our favorite inventions to become much more efficient. During the year of 1936, a man named Paul Eisler was working in England on a radio. He is the man who is credited for creating the very first Printed Circuit Board, or PCB, which was then used in the U.S. on a large scale for uses in World War II. Printed Circuit Boards didn’t even really become common in the household until about the mid-1950′s when the U.S. Army created the “auto-sembly” production method.
So, what is a PCB or Printed Circuit Board? They are laminated, non-conductive substrate, typically a kind of fiberglass, used to electrically connect other electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks, or signal traces etched from copper. These boards can also be referred to as Printed Wiring Boards or PWB or etched wiring boards. A Printed Circuit Board with electronic components is called a Printed Circuit Assembly or PCA, also known as a Printed Circuit Board Assembly or PCBA. Printed circuit boards are used in everything now-a-days, such as Grade Control Sensors, Digital Readouts, Walkie Talkies, GPS devices, Servo Motors, etc.
Printed Circuit Boards are interesting and even though they can seem complex and hard to understand, they make our lives easier and less bulky, as well as allow for development of much more sophisticated technology, which helps our safety and even our health. They are worth the time and effort put into them and Global Mechtronics definitely puts time and effort into our repairs and rebuilds of any printed circuit board. We deal with all kinds of them; from input/output modules, to control panels. If you have any PCBs, PWBs, PCAs, PCBAs, that need a quick look over, we can check them out with our free evaluation, and fix them with our quick turnaround times. We even work on obsolete boards and parts, or those boards or parts that are no longer being made, so you know we know our boards!