Rigid Flex Circuit Feasiblity

Making a flexible PCB with a rigid area is no problem, this can have as many flexible arms as you like. Talk to your local manufacturer.

Being someone that used to work for a very large PCB manufacturer, I would say it can and has been done. But, usually adding more layers of conductors are more effective. 32 layer and higher PCB's are commonplace and will be much more cost effective than adding flex. Also layering boards as you have proposed can reduce convective cooling of components on the boards which is highlu undesirable.

This is possible even with multiple layers, but the more the layers the more complicated the part layout becomes and the smaller the parts need to be. The rigid part is no problem either.

The flexible parts serve as service loops to panel-mount connectors that are above and below the printed circuit board, PCB. The connectors will be lined up directly above and below each other. Can the flex portions be made sort of "L" shaped, so that the connector-attach areas are parallel to the rigid PCB's edge, but nearer & farther away [prior to flexing]? The regions where they exit the rigid board will be offset from one another. Then one layer can feed aligned parts.

Paul,

Please look at our website -- www.fit4flex.com

It will show you all the capabilities of flex circuits.

Send us the drawing so that we can review it for manufacturability.

Send it to -- sales@fit4flex.com or sue@fit4flex.com

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks,

Sue

408-635-3544

Certainly, there are a few ways to design and manufacture a solution for your application. The more details you can provide, the better, faster, lower cost solutions can be brought forward. Flex and rigid-flex circuits are greatly underutilized in the electronics industry due to the lack of familiarity with design guidelines by Design Engineers and some fear of the unknown. You can contact others on this blog or myself and we can walk you through design options, manufacturing options and pricing.

Regards- Shawn