Easy Printed Circuit Board Traceability with Basler racer GigE Cameras

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are used in numerous electronic devices, like mobile phones or tablet PCs and they are getting smaller and smaller. In order to increase the throughput of small PCBs, manufacturers print a number of circuit boards onto a large panel. This process is called panelization. The panels move through various steps of the manufacturing process before the boards are separated for final testing.

Each panel and each circuit board has a unique barcode. In the past, the barcode had to be scanned manually by an individual operator; inaccuracy or failure were common. Based on its experience in the Electronics Assembly market, Microscan developed a turn-key solution to automate the process of decoding symbols on PCB panels.

The solution is PanelScan, a user-friendly and easily-integ­rated traceability solution for capturing barcode data. This integrated system replaces error-prone manual scanning with a solution that enables in-motion symbol decoding, and keeps production lines moving. This application relies of course on good cameras like the Basler racer.