Is single layer PCB really worse reliability than double lay

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

To answer your question, no, I've not studied it. But I've never heard anyone claim 1 layer PCBs were inherently unreliable. Back in the day I've seen many low cost products with single layer PCBs and never saw a problem from that.

Do you really mean the soldering joint cracked? Or do you mean the traces come off the board? A properly soldered pin should not come loose from the pad. But if someone is cutting such corners that they use single sided boards, they may not be too particular with the soldering as well.

--

Rick C.

- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[George Herold]

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

George H.

 

[John Robertson]

On 2019/05/10 6:38 p.m., George Herold wrote:

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

George H.

In our field (arcade games/coin operated amusements) Single Sided PCBs
(SS PCBs) are a serious pain! These boards are all old school (1970s
through 1990s) with through hole parts, not SMD so take the following
with a grain of salt.

When you have parts mounted on the non-copper side and using the leads
to hold said parts in place then the part in question must be FIRMLY
mounted down to the PCB or you will get cracks developing in the solder
connections over time due to vibration or other stresses. The old Molex
0.100 or 0.125 pin connections on single sided boards often developed
cracks over time leading to all sorts of intermittents. So experienced
techs in the game field always touch up solder joints on SS-PCBs when
they run into them.

If your board components are all SMD and the connections are soldered
just to one side and are properly anchored I see no reason not to go
with SS-PCB, but if you are using and holes to mount connectors or leads
through then you will have trouble down stream.

John :-#)#
--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

John Robertson <spam@flippers.com> wrote in
news:y-OdnWiPHtpUwkvBnZ2dnUU7-a3NnZ2d@giganews.com:

On 2019/05/10 6:38 p.m., George Herold wrote:
On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous
path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB
will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up.
Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

George H.


In our field (arcade games/coin operated amusements) Single Sided
PCBs (SS PCBs) are a serious pain! These boards are all old school
(1970s through 1990s) with through hole parts, not SMD so take the
following with a grain of salt.

When you have parts mounted on the non-copper side and using the
leads to hold said parts in place then the part in question must
be FIRMLY mounted down to the PCB or you will get cracks
developing in the solder connections over time due to vibration or
other stresses. The old Molex 0.100 or 0.125 pin connections on
single sided boards often developed cracks over time leading to
all sorts of intermittents. So experienced techs in the game
field always touch up solder joints on SS-PCBs when they run into
them.

If your board components are all SMD and the connections are
soldered just to one side and are properly anchored I see no
reason not to go with SS-PCB, but if you are using and holes to
mount connectors or leads through then you will have trouble down
stream.

John :-#)#

Any game you can name (other than most of the clones) has likely
been emulated.

Here are photos of all the PCB assemblies used on many of the
arcade games we played.

http://www.progettosnaps.net/PCB/

 

>Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Not really but think about it. When plated through holes, if say the both top and bottom were exactly the same, that would be extreme reliability. But nobody is going to do that.

With anything FR-4 or better you don't have to worry much about delineation. With cheap boards environmental condition could cause the substance to expand, absorbing something because it is porous and when it expands it breaks the vias.

I still am into the K I S S theory.

 

[Piglet]

On 11/05/2019 08:23, klaus.kragelund@gmail.com wrote:

From what I can tell, the big cost difference is in them not needing to plate the holes, but anyway, since you brought it up, I will try to quote "single layer, with plated holes"

+1 Plating holes adds a great number of demanding process steps.

piglet

 

On Saturday, 11 May 2019 07:38:25 UTC+2, John Robertson wrote:

On 2019/05/10 6:38 p.m., George Herold wrote:
On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

George H.


In our field (arcade games/coin operated amusements) Single Sided PCBs
(SS PCBs) are a serious pain! These boards are all old school (1970s
through 1990s) with through hole parts, not SMD so take the following
with a grain of salt.

When you have parts mounted on the non-copper side and using the leads
to hold said parts in place then the part in question must be FIRMLY
mounted down to the PCB or you will get cracks developing in the solder
connections over time due to vibration or other stresses.

That's the same I was told, that temperature cycles will create small cracks

It can be mitigated somewhat by clinching the pins

The old Molex
0.100 or 0.125 pin connections on single sided boards often developed
cracks over time leading to all sorts of intermittents. So experienced
techs in the game field always touch up solder joints on SS-PCBs when
they run into them.

If your board components are all SMD and the connections are soldered
just to one side and are properly anchored I see no reason not to go
with SS-PCB, but if you are using and holes to mount connectors or leads
through then you will have trouble down stream.

Yes, I am talking about problems with THT components, SMD should be same reliability as 2 layer PCB

From 4 to 2 layer PCB, there is a gain in reliability, since delamination occurs on layer 2 and 3, and it difficult to inspect. That problem is gone in 2 layer PCB

Cheers

Klaus

 

[Piglet]

On 10/05/2019 23:28, klaus.kragelund@gmail.com wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

As others have noted the problem is not so much the number of layers as
the absence of a plated hole. Without the strength of the plated hole
you become reliant on the weak adhesive glueing the copper to the
substrate. So make the pads around holes as large as possible. Staking
and clinching also help. IME it is better to use right angle connectors
instead of vertical pin headers. With careful design and build quality
single sided reliability is good.

piglet

 

On Saturday, 11 May 2019 03:38:16 UTC+2, George Herold wrote:

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

I am looking at only copper on a single layer, with no plated holes. From what I can tell, the big cost difference is in them not needing to plate the holes, but anyway, since you brought it up, I will try to quote "single layer, with plated holes"

Regards

Klaus

 

[Tim Williams]

<klaus.kragelund@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8304e012-41b5-4471-866e-6e6eead57a57@googlegroups.com...

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of
trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have
lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and
gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Yes, solder joints are much thinner (a little web, not a full barrel), so
they fatigue from much less stress or strain.

Studied, no, I'd be a little surprised if there was ever enough money in the
subject to "study" it. Maybe Sony has some locked away, they made 1-layer
power supplies and consumer goods in the hundreds of millions. Good luck
asking them though. )

But, to be fair, most of that is shown in IPC-2221, at least in terms of
recommended process, if not with studies.

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electrical Engineering Consultation and Design
Website: https://www.seventransistorlabs.com/

 

jurb6006@gmail.com wrote in
news:ee68bf79-06e9-4574-96e4-facc001c0e9c@googlegroups.com:

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Not really but think about it. When plated through holes, if say
the both top and bottom were exactly the same, that would be
extreme reliability. But nobody is going to do that.

With anything FR-4 or better you don't have to worry much about
delineation. With cheap boards environmental condition could cause
the substance to expand, absorbing something because it is porous
and when it expands it breaks the vias.

I still am into the K I S S theory.

Old TVs were pushed through the wave solder machines so fast that
they had huge solder joint failure issues. If your TV went south
many times the problem was a broken via, but usually a fractured
solder joint.

However, HAND Soldered with good old 63/37 with proper active flux
makes a solder joint that will not be fracturing. An unset part
could rip a trace free from the board though on single sided pcbs.


BTW, you must be talking about old juke box, pinball, and arcade
games, because most arcade games and pinballs are multi-layer.(not
you, the OP) Except for the really old jobs.

 

On Fri, 10 May 2019 15:28:44 -0700 (PDT), klaus.kragelund@gmail.com
wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Regarding total system cost and EMC issues:

Single sided boards can quite easily have EMC issues, requiring a
metallic enclosure. OTOH, a double sided board with a ground plane on
the other side is much better in EMC sense, so you might be able to
use a plastic enclosure.

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 11.05.19 um 08:37 schrieb jurb6006@gmail.com:

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Not really but think about it. When plated through holes, if say the both top and bottom were exactly the same, that would be extreme reliability. But nobody is going to do that.

With anything FR-4 or better you don't have to worry much about delineation. With cheap boards environmental condition could cause the substance to expand, absorbing something because it is porous and when it expands it breaks the vias.

I still am into the K I S S theory.

We once did a pipeline pig system, i.e. a torpedo-shaped device, usually
more than one torpedo in a gang that pull an ultrasonics array behind
them. That is used to check the pipeline from inside for cracks and
corrosion. Our ultrasonics array had 1024 channels, each with
transmitter, analog receiver and digitizer/FPGA/PowerPC/network for
each group of 16. Enough stuff for a bad failure statistic.

The pig is pumped through the pipeline together with the oil.
They reduce the flow rate somewhat but it is still 5 or 10 meters per
second, so hard shock and vibration are to be expected.
And hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons are soaked up by FR4 and the vias etc may crack open
from that. So it was decided that something better than FR-4 had to
be used. We decided to go with Kapton / Polyimide.

It turned out that we got delamination in unheard-of severity, right
after vapor phase soldering.

The Kapton prepregs have a _very_ short shelf life and the board
producers are constantly tempted to stretch that for a week and not
to throw it away. Also temperature for baking is higher than for fr-4.

There are not many companies who do that at all.
Our production department had lots of fun with this.

regards, Gerhard

 

On Saturday, 11 May 2019 10:24:30 UTC+2, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Fri, 10 May 2019 15:28:44 -0700 (PDT), klaus.kragelund@gmail.com
wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Regarding total system cost and EMC issues:

Single sided boards can quite easily have EMC issues, requiring a
metallic enclosure. OTOH, a double sided board with a ground plane on
the other side is much better in EMC sense, so you might be able to
use a plastic enclosure.

In my case, it's a RFI filter, so there is no need for a ground plane, in fact a ground plane just makes matters worse (shorting the CM coil function)

Cheers

Klaus

 

[bitrex]

On 5/11/19 3:23 AM, Piglet wrote:

On 10/05/2019 23:28, klaus.kragelund@gmail.com wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path
of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will
have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of
pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

As others have noted the problem is not so much the number of layers as
the absence of a plated hole. Without the strength of the plated hole
you become reliant on the weak adhesive glueing the copper to the
substrate. So make the pads around holes as large as possible. Staking
and clinching also help. IME it is better to use right angle connectors
instead of vertical pin headers. With careful design and build quality
single sided reliability is good.

piglet

The reliability of the single-layer non-plated-thru PCBs of e.g.
synthesizer manufacturers like Roland and Oberheim products from the
1980s is not good. Well I mean it's probably OK until you actually want
to repair something else on the board. they're brittle and fragile and
the pads want to drop and lift at the slightest amount of heat from an iron

 

[Adrian Tuddenham]

John Robertson <spam@flippers.com> wrote:

... The old Molex
0.100 or 0.125 pin connections on single sided boards often developed
cracks over time leading to all sorts of intermittents.

It happend on transformers and other large components too. Large solder
blobs holding heavy components often develop circular cracks at about
half the diameter of the whole blob. This was the last bit of solder to
solidify and the cracks were probably initiated by vibration on the
production conveyor causing movement as the joint set.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

 

On Friday, 10 May 2019 23:28:50 UTC+1, klaus.k...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

2 layer boards have much more mechanical strength of solder joints than single layer, where the soldering penetrates, so of course single layer is more vibration vulnerable.

Zero layer is even worse


NT

 

[John Robertson]

On 2019/05/10 11:04 p.m., DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

John Robertson <spam@flippers.com> wrote in
news:y-OdnWiPHtpUwkvBnZ2dnUU7-a3NnZ2d@giganews.com:

On 2019/05/10 6:38 p.m., George Herold wrote:
On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:28:50 PM UTC-4, klaus.k...@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous
path of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB
will have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up.
Clinching of pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

No idea.. but I could imagine that the plated through holes
are going to be worse with only one side... with bigger copper
area you are probably OK.... I've seen single layer
pcb's. :^)

George H.


In our field (arcade games/coin operated amusements) Single Sided
PCBs (SS PCBs) are a serious pain! These boards are all old school
(1970s through 1990s) with through hole parts, not SMD so take the
following with a grain of salt.

When you have parts mounted on the non-copper side and using the
leads to hold said parts in place then the part in question must
be FIRMLY mounted down to the PCB or you will get cracks
developing in the solder connections over time due to vibration or
other stresses. The old Molex 0.100 or 0.125 pin connections on
single sided boards often developed cracks over time leading to
all sorts of intermittents. So experienced techs in the game
field always touch up solder joints on SS-PCBs when they run into
them.

If your board components are all SMD and the connections are
soldered just to one side and are properly anchored I see no
reason not to go with SS-PCB, but if you are using and holes to
mount connectors or leads through then you will have trouble down
stream.

John :-#)#

Any game you can name (other than most of the clones) has likely
been emulated.

MAME, PinMAME...

Like sex and most everything else, it just ain't the same as the real
thing!

Here are photos of all the PCB assemblies used on many of the
arcade games we played.

http://www.progettosnaps.net/PCB/

You haven't been in my shop's storage area - I have a thousand or so
vintage PCBs...

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

[Piglet]

On 11/05/2019 15:28, bitrex wrote:

On 5/11/19 3:23 AM, Piglet wrote:
On 10/05/2019 23:28, klaus.kragelund@gmail.com wrote:
Hi

So, trying to save money as always has led me down a treacherous path
of trying to do a design on 1 layer PCB

I have been told, by reasonable people, that single layer PCB will
have lower reliability due to the soldering giving up. Clinching of
pins, and gluing can mitigate this somewhat

Anyone studied 1 layer vs 2 layer reliability issues?

Cheers

Klaus

As others have noted the problem is not so much the number of layers
as the absence of a plated hole. Without the strength of the plated
hole you become reliant on the weak adhesive glueing the copper to the
substrate. So make the pads around holes as large as possible. Staking
and clinching also help. IME it is better to use right angle
connectors instead of vertical pin headers. With careful design and
build quality single sided reliability is good.

piglet


The reliability of the single-layer non-plated-thru PCBs of e.g.
synthesizer manufacturers like Roland and Oberheim products from the
1980s is not good. Well I mean it's probably OK until you actually want
to repair something else on the board. they're brittle and fragile and
the pads want to drop and lift at the slightest amount of heat from an iron

Plenty of hi-rel aerospace stuff in the 1950s and 1960s used single
sided before plated holes became mainstream.

You are right about the adhesive being the weak link. You see that
nowadays with smd rework too.

piglet