Challenge:

　　Maintaining Fast Turn-around Times while Adhering to Environmental Regulations

　　Government agencies have long relied on in-house prototyping for circuit board design. Producing proto-types in-house allows organizations to turn projects around quickly and maintain confidentiality. Unfortu-nately, environmental laws limiting the use of hazard-ous chemicals typically used for etching printed circuit boards (PCBs) have forced many agencies to out-source their prototypes to third party production houses.

　　For one agency involved in rocket engineering, out-sourcing PCB prototypes significantly hampered pro-duction schedules, making it difficult to complete new designs in a timely fashion. This led the agency to look for alternative solutions for in-house prototyping that could increase efficiency and create faster turn-around times without violating environmental regulations.

　　Solution:

　　LPKF Mechanical Milling Prototyping Equip-ment

　　In order to maintain compliance with environmental laws, the agency turned to LPKF® mechanical milling equipment to produce in-house PCB prototypes for rocket engineering. LPKF’s state-of-the art PCB milling technology produces fully functional board prototypes in just a few hours, without the aid of hazardous chemicals. Laws regulating the use of etching chemi-cals have resulted in an increased use of mechanical milling systems over the last few years. Because of their complete lack of toxic chemicals, LPKF’s PCB plotting systems have become a popular alternative to outsourcing.

　　Results:

　　Environmentally Friendly Success for Project Timelines

　　The agency now uses LPFK equipment to speed pro-ject turn-around times in many areas of rocket engi-neering, including pre-production testing and refining of circuit designs.

　　As one of the agency’s technicians states,

　　“The type of rocket we build includes multiple sub-systems. I think I have used our LPKF ma-chine to support research and development or to furnish ground support equipment for just about every system on the rocket.”

　　LPKF equipment allows technicians to produce board prototypes quickly and efficiently, eliminating time spent waiting for shipments of outsourced boards to arrive. Since LPKF’s equipment is completely chemi-cal-free, the agency is able to keep their prototyping of circuit boards in-house, without having to worry about adhering to strict environmental laws.

　　Most importantly, according to agency employees, the time saved by using LPKF equipment has translated into considerable cost savings for the agency.

                                                                                       LPKF ProtoMat S62milling head