What is PCB Profile?

The PCB Profile, also known as contour or outline, represents the outer edges of a printed circuit board as well as its inner recesses like drill holes. Among other things, it is prerequisite for indicating the shape of a PCB and thus being able to string several boards together on a panel.Profiling is performed to cut a PCB out of the production panel. 

A panel outline is the contour of a customer panel and normally made during PCB separation of the panel. A breakrouted PCB separation gives a routed panel outline (contours) and V-cut separation will result into a V-cutted panel outline.

The process of PCB profile is to cut PCBs from working panel to be set or individual Pcs according to customer’s requirement, normally there are three types of PCB profile in PCB manufacturing process, the most popular one is milling, also known as routing, the second one is V-Cut, and the third one is punch.

1.Milling outline:The milling is used most widely in PCB fabrication

To use the CNC milling machine to cut the shape, it is necessary to provide the milling outline data and the corresponding pipe hole file. These data are provided by the programmer. Since the pitch of the printed circuit board is not very large, it is generally about 2mm, so the diameter of the milling cutter is generally 2mm. . First, drill the pipe hole on the milling mattress board, fix the printed circuit board and the milling mattress board with the pin, and then use the milling outline data to mill the shape;

2.V-Cut:is normally used for the PCB with regular board size. 

It’s also known as V-Scoring, the PCBs are cut by CNC V-Cut machine on both side and there will be residual thickness in the middle after V-Cut process and the shape after V-Cut looks like V slot, besides, there is no need to leave spacing between individual Pcs if consider to use V-Cut profile.

3.Punch:is usually used for simple single-sided PCB, double-sided PCB as well as aluminum PCB.

Basically Punch is one of profile with the highest efficiency. It uses the punch machine to cut the shape, the mold is needed before punch process, and the pipe position nail on the mold corresponds to the pipe hole of the printed circuit board. Generally, a hole of about φ3.0 mm is selected as the pipe hole.


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