1. Printed Circuit Board Reverse Engineering / Prototyping Suite (PCB-REPS)
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Avionics repair is often hindered when circuit card assemblies are no longer available from original equipment manufacturers, especially when no technical data exists. Current processes for reverse engineering and manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCBs) are time consuming and costly due to manual creation of Technical Data Packages (TDPs) and labor intensive PCB manufacturing processes.
Manually creating engineering TDPs and CAD/CAM data has historically taken 6-8 months, depending on the complexity of the PCB. The manual process is also prone to human error and must be validated prior to PCB production. Current PCB manufacturing techniques take at minimum 10 days production time to build a prototype board, not counting procurement times.
BENEFITS
Cost/Schedule
75% reduction in cost and schedule for production of TDPs and CAD/CAM data for circuit card assemblies (CCAs).
$350k in capital investment will save $488k in engineering labor over the first 8 planned projects.
Manpower
No draftsman required to produce TDP.
No procurement time for prototypes
Performance
Rapid prototyping of CCAs (2 days) for pre-production test.
Usability
Suite can be recreated and used by all branches of the military that require TDPs for previously developed CCAs.
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION
Precision removal of PCB layers using a media blaster.
Digital scanning of every layer of a PCB through the use of a high resolution scanner and computer software.
Scanner software provides a user interface to manipulate the images and create CAD/CAM data and schematics.
PCB CAD software imports CAD/CAM data to create Technical Data Packages (TDPs) which contain all data needed to recreate and manufacture the Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) and is ready for JEDMICS submission.
Additive PCB printer 3D prints prototype PCB for testing without procurement, STINFO release, or contract manufacturing delays