MARS

Amateur Radio Society

Field day visit to PCB Manufacturing Factory

2024 Jun 22

MARS Amateur Radio Society organized a visit to M/S Electropack Electronics, a Commercial PCB manufacturing unit at Guindy on 22nd June, 2024. About 20 members including SWLs participated in the visit.

Upon arrival on the site, OM P.Thyagarajan - VU2PTR, introduced Mr.Vellaichamy - the owner of the unit to all the members and briefed the purpose of the visit. Mr. Vellaichamy welcomed the members and described in brief the kind of activities going on currently and how the scenario was in the past. The factory was enjoying monopoly in the past with regard to PCB manufacturing and almost all the industries dealing with electrical and electronic gadgets were its customers. Even today it had the support of prominent customers. The unit was busy with double side PCB manufacturing in the past and currently it is concentrating only on single side PCB manufacturing according to customer’s requirements.

The whole process of making a PCB starts from cutting the copper cladded Glass Epoxy sheets to the desired size followed by cleaning the surface. Special computer software is used to draw the required circuit tracks and a master film is produced from the software. It is then screen printed to get the tracks on the already cleaned and cut copper cladded Glass sheets thus enabling mass production of the tracks on the Glass Epoxy sheets. The unwanted copper portion of the cladded sheets is then removed by etching with Ferric Chloride (FeCl3) solution. The process is fully automatic. The sheets are then dried and holes of different sizes are drilled to enable insertion of components such as resistors, capacitors, transistors etc. The PCB is now ready.

Mr. Vellaichamy, the proprietor of the firm was so enthusiastic that he himself led the entire team to each and every section of the unit explaining in detail the processes and the machinery operations. He also patiently answered with a smiling face, all the queries from the visitors. Though the unit takes care of producing bulk quantities of PCBs for commercial firms, Mr.Vellaichamy came forward to prepare and deliver even a single PCB for the ham community thus showing his interest and involvement in promoting Ham Radio. He was ably assisted by the staff in charge of each section. The visit came to an end around 12.30 p.m

On behalf of MARS Amateur Radio Society and the SWLs, the secretary of MARS Amateur Radio Society, OM N.Deepan - VU2DPN, thanked the Proprietor Mr.Vellaichamy and his staff members for taking the pain to explain the complete processes taking place in the factory. The members too felt very happy and expressed their full satisfaction for making that day a fruitful one.