Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design SMT Electronics Assembly Manufacturing Forum

Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design Forum

SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


TH to SMT conversion

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Ben

#51541

TH to SMT conversion | 24 August, 2007

I'm currently looking for a tool to be able to convert TH components to SMT. Looking at each datasheet is to time consuming, we will be needing to convert TH to SMT for a customer. Their bards have approx. 3000 parts TH. We've got the Arrow to find the RoHs compliant parts, but we cannot seem to find any tool to help us ease the conversion of TH to SMT.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

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Clark K.

#51542

TH to SMT conversion | 24 August, 2007

Ben, I'm not aware of any 'automatic' method to convert PTH footprints to SMT. Typically, many of the components are passives, and there may be a way in your CAD software to change the passives of a common size to a different footprint. That will convert most of the components. The pcb will still need a new layout, as the connections to the passives will be lost when the pads move. I'm sure a pcb design shop will be happy to quote doing the conversion for you, if you don't have access to CAD software or the time to do it.

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Ben

#51543

TH to SMT conversion | 24 August, 2007

Hi Clark,

Thanks for the response.

Ben

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#51544

TH to SMT conversion | 24 August, 2007

What kind of boards are they? Unless they are very simple boards, you won't be able to just replace every TH component with a SM equivalent. The inherent LCR characteristics of the board will change

I think the normal way would be not to change the TH to SMT but rather to do the board layout from scratch and add the new values to your library.

When you say 3000 parts, do you mean differnt types of components or 3000 placements?

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Ben

#51545

TH to SMT conversion | 24 August, 2007

Stephen,

This is a board designed for medical apparatus and we're needing to change 3000 placements, it's about 2000 different parts. Some boards have about 90 parts and some have greater amount. Impedence of the board happens to be a great issue, regarding the fact that this goes into medical equipement. We will probably try scratch-building this board. I've been trying to search for a tool for about 2 months and nothing seems to work.

Thanks

Ben

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