I proclaim that the digital “on-demand” manufacturing revolution is here! It was 1999 when I first experienced quick turn, “online” PCB fabrication. Since then, PCB fabrication services have become plentiful, inexpensive, and accessible to engineers of all levels. Online automation of full turnkey assembly is the next logical step, and I see it the future of PCB assemblies. I often say it is a great time to be alive if you are in the business of embedded systems. It has never been easier to tap into global manufacturing resources to accelerate product development.
I recently ran into a scenario where we needed to quickly adapt one of our products to a new customer application. It was a situation where we needed to be agile in our response. In this scenario, I needed to plumb a particular commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) temperature sensor into our existing cellular gateway (which only had specific digital-only ports for another application). The prototype would end up being put in a “smart” cable assembly that would adapt a new sensor into our existing system to demonstrate the concept. A small “translator” PCB with some “brains” would have to be designed to link up the sensor to our existing hardware/software platform.
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