PCB Motors

What is PCB?  
PCB is a copper laminated and non-conductive Printed Circuit Board, in which all electrical
and electronic components are connected together in one common board with physical support
for all components with base of board. When PCB is not developed, at that time all components
are connected with a wire which increases complexity and decreases reliability of the circuit, by
this way we cannot make a very large circuit like motherboard. In PCB, all components are
connected without wires, all components are connected internally, so it will reduce the
complexity of the overall circuit design. PCB is used to provide electricity and connectivity
between the components, by which it functions the way it was designed. PCBs can be
customised for any specifications to user requirements. It can be found in many electronics
devices like; TV, Mobile, Digital camera, Computers parts like; Graphic cards, Motherboard, etc.
It also used in many fields like; medical devices, industrial machinery, automotive industries,
lighting, etc.

Types of PCB:
There are several types of PCB available for the circuit. Out of these types of PCB, we have to
choose the appropriate type of PCB according to our application.

1. Single-layer PCB
2. Double-layer PCB
3. Multi-layer PCB
4. Flexible PCB
5. Aluminium backed PCB
6. Flex-rigid PCB

1) Single Layer PCB:

A single layer PCB is also known as single sided PCB. This type of PCB is simple and most
used PCB because these PCBs are easy to design and manufacture. One side of this PCB is
coated with a layer of any conducting material. Generally, copper is used as conducting material
for PCB, because copper has very good conducting characteristic. A layer of solder mask is used
to protect PCB against oxidation followed by silk screen to mark out all of the components on
the PCB. In this type of PCB, only one side of the PCB is used to connect different types of
electrical or electronics components like resistor, capacitor, inductor, etc. These components are
soldered. These PCBs are used in low cost and bulk manufacturing application like calculators,
radio, printers and the solid-state drive.
 Single Layer PCB

2) Double Layer PCB:

Double layer PCB is also known as double sided PCB. As name suggests, in this type of PCB, a
thin layer of conducting material, like copper is applied to both top and bottom sides of the
board. In PCB, on different layer of board, consist via, which has two pads in corresponding
position on different layers. These are electrically connected by a hole through the board, which
is shown in figure-2b. More flexible, relatively lower cost, and most important advantage of this
type of PCB board is its reduced size which makes circuit compact. This type of PCB is mostly
used in industrial controls, converter, UPS system, HVAC application, Phone, Amplifier and
Power monitoring systems.

Double Layer PCB

3) Multi-Layer PCB:

Multilayer PCB has more than two layers. It means that, this type of PCB has at least
three conductive layers of copper. For securing the board glue is sandwiched between the
layer of insulation which ensures that the excess heat will not damage any component of
circuit. This type PCB designing is very complex and used in very complicated and large
electrical task in very low space and compact circuit. This type of PCB is used in large
application like GPS technology, satellite system, medical equipment, file server and data
storage.
 Multi-Layer PCB

4) Flexible PCB:

Flexible PCB is also known as Flex circuit. This type of PCB used flexible plastic material like
polymide, PEEK (Polyether ether ketone) or transparent conductive polyester film. The circuit
board is generally place in folded or twisted. This is very complex type of PCB and it also
contains different range of layers like single sided flex circuit, double sided flex circuit and
multisided flex circuit. Flex circuit is used in organic light emitting diode, LCD fabrication, flex
solar cell, automotive industries, cellular telephones, camera and complex electronics devices
like laptops.

Flexible PCB
5) Rigid PCB:

Rigid PCBs are made out of solid material which don’t allow PCB from twisting. Same as flex
PCB, Rigid PCB also have different layer configuration like single layer, double layer and multi-
layer Rigid PCB. Shape of this PCB is not change after installation. This PCB cannot be bent
according to shape of base that’s why this PCB is known as RIGID PCB. Lifespan of this type of
PCB is very high, so this is used in many parts of computer like RAM, GPU and CPU. Simple
in design and most used and most manufacture PCB is single sided rigid PCB. Multi-layer rigid
PCB can more compact by containing 9-10 layers.

6) Flex-rigid PCB:

Combination of Flexible circuit and rigid circuit is most important board. Flex-rigid boards
consists of multiple layers of flexible PCB attached to a number of rigid PCB layer. Flex-rigid
board is as shown in figure. It is used in cell phones, digital cameras and automobiles etc.

Flex rigid PCB

Types of PCBs According to Mounting System

1. Through-hole PCB
2. Surface mounted PCB

1) Through-hole PCB:
In this type of PCB, we have to make hole using drill on PCB. In these holes, leads of
components are mounted and soldered to pads situated on opposite side of PCB. This technology
is most useful because it gives more mechanical support to electrical components and very
reliable technology for mounting of components but drilling in PCB make it more expensive. In
single layer PCB, this mounting technology is easy to implement, but in case of double layer and
multi-layer PCB making hole is more difficult.

Through-hole PCB

2) Surface mounted PCB:

In this type of PCB, components are small in size because these components have very small lead or
no leads are required for mounting on the board. Here, in this technology, SMD components are
directly mounted on the surface of the board and not require to make hole on board.

Surface mounted PCB

Different Parts of PCB:

Pad: Pad is nothing but a piece of copper on which lead of components are mounted and on
which soldering are done. Pad provides the mechanical support to the components.

Trace: In PCB, components are not connected with the help of wires. All components are
connected with a conducting material like copper. This copper part of PCB which is used to
connect all components that is known as trace. Trace is looks like below figure.

Layers: According to application, cost and available space of circuit, user can choose the layer
of PCB. Most simple in construction, easy to design and most useful in routine life is single layer
PCB. But for very large and complex circuit, double layer PCB or Multi-layer PCB is most
preferred compared to single layer PCB. Now a day, in multi-layer PCB, 10-12 layers can be
connected and most critical thing is to communicate between the components in different layer.
 Silk layer: Silk layer is used for printing line, text or any art on the surface of PCB. Usually, for
screen printing epoxy ink is used. Silk layer can be used in top and/or bottom layer of PCB
according to user requirement which is known as silk screen TOP and silk screen BOTTOM.

Top and bottom layer: In Top layer of PCB, all components are mounted in this layer of PCB.
Generally, this layer is green coloured. In bottom layer of PCB, all components are soldered
through the hole and lead of components is known as bottom layer of PCB. Sometime, in top
and/or bottom layer PCB is coated with green colour layer, which is known as solder mask.

Solder Mask: There is one additional layer on the top of copper layer called as Solder Mask.
This layer generally has green color but it can be of any color. This insulating layer is used for to
prevent accidental contact of pads with other conductive material on PCB.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Motor

A Printed Circuit Board or a Disc Armature motor consists of a rotor disc made of non-
magnetic and non-conducting material. The armature winding and the commutator are printed
with copper on both the sides of the disc. The disc armature is placed between two sets of
permanent magnets mounted on the ferromagnetic plates. Brushes are placed around the inner
periphery.

The arrangement of the assembly of the motor provides axial flux through the armature. The
Torque in the motor is produced by the interaction of the axial flux and the current flowing
through the armature disc.

Advantages of Printed Circuit Board Motor

The various advantages of the PCB motor are as follows:-

 The motor provides quick acceleration and retardation. As the inertia of the motor is very
low and therefore, the ratio of torque and inertia is very high.
 The rotor does not contain iron, thus the armature inductance is low.
 The lower inductance of the motor reduces sparking and as a result life of brushes is
increased.
 Cogging torque is absent because of the non-magnetic rotor.
 A PCB motor has a high overload current capacity.
 There is a negligible armature reaction and flux distortion and hence the speed torque
curve of the motor is linear.

Applications of the Printed Circuit Board Motor

The characteristics of the PCB motor, i.e. the high torque and inertia ratio makes the motor
suitable for controlling applications. The various usage of the motor is as follows:-

 Used in high-speed tape readers.

 PCB motor is used in X-Y recorders, point to point tool positioner.
 Used in robots and other servo drives.
 It is also suitable for heavy-duty drives such as lawn mowers.

As there is inbuilt optical position encoder thus it can be used in some place of the stepper motor.