The Birth of an OpenScope

If you love electronics and you enjoy geeking out on electronics, you may love seeing the behind-the scenes of our manufacturing process for OpenScope!

OpenScope starts life as a PCB.

A merged view of the gerber files (for PCB) of the OpenScope

Once we get it from the PCB house, it goes to manufacturing.

The PCB boards go and get stenciled (when the solder paste is applied uniformly, almost like a screen print).

Stencil being applied for OpenScope
Stencil lifted off

Then, the stencil gets lifted off and sent to the pick and place machine, where parts are selected and placed over the solder paste.

Getting ready to go to the pick and place
Pick and place machine running (notice the reels of parts).
OpenScopes on the pick and place line.

It then goes to reflow (when the solder gets heated up and it grabs the part that has been placed ontop of it).

An awesome gif of reflow happening, heat is making the solder (the tin/lead) melt and grabs the components.

Bottom side of the OpenScope after reflow, the topside gets done next.

Once through the reflow, all of the solder joints are visually inspected.

Then, the OpenScope makes it to hand soldering, these are usually things like through-hole solder pins and plastic parts (that can’t go through the oven).

These are then cleaned off.

Cut apart…

And it is ready to go through firmware, test and then eventually packaging!

I hope you enjoyed a tour through the manufacturing process of the OpenScope!

Author

  • Larissa Swanland

    I'm a bit of an electronics-education evangelist. After all, Education is how we learn about the world. Electronics make the world better. Engineers change the world. So more engineers that know how to design and create electronics? That's the kind of world I want to help create.

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About Larissa Swanland

I'm a bit of an electronics-education evangelist. After all, Education is how we learn about the world. Electronics make the world better. Engineers change the world. So more engineers that know how to design and create electronics? That's the kind of world I want to help create.

View all posts by Larissa Swanland →

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