Epec's Blog | Electronics Manufacturing Solutions

Discrete wire, or lead wire, is the backbone of any interconnect or cable. Within this blog post we break down for you the anatomy of the basic hookup wire and the compositions that can be used as a single unit or grouped together to produce a multi-conductor or multi-pair cable.

Heat shrink tubing, also known as heat shrink, is a shrinkable tube that shrinks radially when exposed to heat. Produced using a two-step process, heat shrink is available in a wide range of materials to suit almost any application. Heat shrink tubing has many useful applications, including to provide electrical insulation to wires, connections, joints, terminals, and splices, as well as bundling loose items such as wires and as a protective covering.

As costs of materials, freight, and labor rise it has become imperative to seek out alternative ways to save costs in the manufacturing process. With traditional means of saving no longer as viable, we now must be more creative and specific when we’re asked, “what can I do to lower the cost of my printed circuit board (PCB)?”

Printed circuit board (PCB) designers often find themselves at odds with their purchasing and marketing departments after a design goes out for bids and comes back with a larger than expected price tag. Once the source of the high cost is identified, the questions fly, the fingers point, and the nerves fray.

While gold plating is frequently used for printed circuits boards (PCBs), selecting the most useful gold PCB surface finish can be somewhat more of a mystery. Understanding the different compositions and practical uses of gold finishes such as ENIG, ENEPIG, and gold fingers can help you find the right finish to match your circuit board needs. 

The holiday season is truly an exciting time of the year for many Americans, but inadequate planning for your custom cable assembly can create some less than desirable commotion for your company. Christmas is closing in and manufacturers are already gearing up for the approaching holiday season.

Here at Epec Engineered Technologies, we believe that our customers come first. Everything we are is because of our customers. We also strive to make sure that our employees are happy. We are part of a family and we want to make sure we work as a cohesive team; in fact, throughout our facility you will often hear the phrase “One Team, One Fight”.

The process of v-scoring has been used for many years in the production of printed circuit boards (PCBs). As PCB production technology rapidly advances, it is important to understand the most current PCB scoring guidelines to follow and how they may have changed from what you previously used. 

When developing a custom battery pack, the last thing anyone wants is to hear their development hit a snag. Batteries already have a lengthy timeline going from concept to production, so staying on schedule is incredibly important. Of course, sometimes delays can just happen for reasons you have no control over, making it even more necessary to nail down the areas you can influence. Factors such as knowledge of certification requirements, manufacturing support capabilities, and prototyping processes can help keep your development on the right track.

How a battery pack becomes qualified as “smart” is, quite simply, because of software. The Smart Battery System (SBS) forum defines a smart battery as a battery pack where some level of communication occurs between the battery, the equipment, and the user. As a further technicality, their definition also requires that a smart battery must provide state-of-charge indications (i.e. fuel gauge).