Electronics product design, whether for consumer or military drones, or large agricultural machinery, or embedded electronics inside automobile cabins, trend toward higher degrees of functionality and smaller footprint.
Contract EMS manufacturing for drones and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) manufacturing requires high reliability. As a result, electronics manufacturing inspection level is often IPC-A-610 Class 3, the highest standard for IPC classes, and promoted across the entire drone assembly operations.
For drone manufacturers working with the US Department of Defense (DoD) or designing and producing commercial drones with potential defense applications, an understanding of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Expert Administration Regulations (EAR) are also important for both OEM drone manufacturers and contract electronics and prime contractors, alike.
Meanwhile, drones designed to achieve higher altitudes require different components requirements.
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For example electrolytic capacitors are liquid, or gel, with a high concentration of ions and lower atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes can be problematic as electrolytic capacitors will expand and leak, causing the capacitor to fail. In addition, electrolytic capacitors also have large value tolerances.
In contract electronics SMT operations, drone manufacturing customers often require printed circuit boards (PCB) with wider route trace spacing, as a requirement for higher voltage signals, especially as arc potential increases in lower pressure environments above 20,000 feet.
Many board designers enjoy figuring out these types of challenges posed by PCB trace routing, giving drone designers opportunity to solve sometimes complicated, and unique puzzles, especially as drone board design functional complexity increases with smaller footprints.
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Drones designed to achieve varying altitudes during flight will also experience hot and cold cycles with fluctuations in temperature. Drone electronics and sub-systems with conformal coating applied on top of circuit boards and components helps guard against altitude cycling failure as conformal coating allows any trapped air beneath an IC to expand at higher altitudes.
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One method EMS manufacturers help drone manufacturers minimize this risk is applying ‘coatings’ in a low-pressure chamber. This helps remove air voids trapped beneath parts and components. Choosing proper coatings, and the application used, can be the difference between a drone or unmanned aerial system’s strong, or weak, link. More on information in our 20-page white paper, ‘Drone, UAV, UAS Program Sourcing of Contract Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) & RFQ Quote Management‘.
For drone companies considering EMS manufacturing, we also recommend trying to spend more time on the EMS production floor than in comfortable meeting rooms when touring EMS factories.
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