Patent Application
20060250149
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a complex printed circuit board testing tool, and more particularly to an integration of a dedicated tool and a pressure contact rubber type tool (PCR tool) that uses a dedicated testing machine for a test, and the tool uses pressure contact rubbers and protrusions to substitute the probe used in traditional dedicated testing machines and tools, so as to prevent damages to the probe or producing probe points remained on a testing printed circuit board, break through the limited testing areas and testing points, and greatly reduce the cost of the tools.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, a printed circuit board (PCB) is tested by a testing procedure after its manufacture to see if the circuit of the printed circuit board is good. In general, the testing tools used by printed circuit board manufacturers is divided into a dedicated testing machine, a universal testing machine and a pressure contact rubber (PCR) testing machine. Referring to
On the other hand, the universal testing machine is expensive, but the probe of the universal testing machine is cheaper than that of a regular long-probe tool. After the testing printed circuit board passes the test and starts its mass production, a dedicated testing machine is used for testing the requirements for a mass production, but the dedicated testing machine still has the shortcomings of requiring expensive tools and frequently replacing the precise elastic probes.
In summation of the description above, using the traditional dedicated testing tools or PCR tools for testing printed circuit boards has the following drawbacks:
1. The dedicated tool incurs a higher cost. Although the dedicated tool can test a circuit board with a higher level of difficulty, the consumption and cost of the probes are much higher.
2. The PCR tool leaves no probe marks after the test, and such result cannot be accomplished by other types of tools. The PCR tool can test the printed circuit board with a level of difficulty even higher than the dedicated tool. However, the testing area and the testing points are limited and cannot be used in a large scale. Furthermore, the cost of this kind of testing machine is high.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks, manufacturers have made some improvements including the R.O.C. Patent Publication No. 367961 entitled “Conversion board for PCB dedicated testing machines and universal testing machines and tools” and R.O.C. Patent Publication No. 378756 entitled “Improved probe structure for complex tools”, these patents still have the following shortcomings:
The complex tool integrating the dedicated testing machine and the universal testing machine has a much lower cost than that of the dedicated testing tool, but the problem of having probe marks remained after the testing still exists. Such complex tool requires a complicated process to overcome the shortcomings for the manufacture.
In view of the foregoing prior arts, the inventor of the present invention focused on the problems and started improving the prior art in hope of finding a feasible solution by conducting extensive researches and experiments and finally invented the complex printed circuit board testing tool in accordance with the present invention.
Therefore, it is a primary objective of the present invention to provide a complex printed circuit board testing tool, which comprises a base coupled with a testing machine and having a probe connected to a dedicated testing machine, and a conversion board disposed between the bases. The conversion board has a testing protrusion disposed thereon and corresponding to the testing printed circuit board, and a probe testing point corresponding to the probe. A pressure contact rubber is covered on the surface of the conversion board, so that the pressure contact rubber and the protrusion substitute the probe used for traditional dedicated testing machine and tools during a test, so as to prevent the probe from being damaged easily and any probe point remained on the testing printed circuit board. Such arrangement also breaks through the limitation of testing areas and testing points, and thus greatly reducing the cost of the tool.
To make it easier for our examiner to understand the technical measures taken to achieve the foregoing objective and its performance, we use a preferred embodiment together with the attached drawings for the detailed description of the invention.
Referring to
The base 20 has a conversion board 30, and one side of the conversion board 30 has a protrusion 31 corresponding to a testing point of a testing printed circuit board 50. The protrusion 31 is a copper pillar used in this embodiment, but those skilled in the art also can use other conductive materials for it. Another side of the conversion board 30 has a probe testing point 32 corresponding to the probe 22 of the base 20, and the probe testing point 32 is connected to the protrusion 21 through the electrically connected circuit 33. The electrically connected circuit 33 is a copper tinsel wire and is manufactured in the same way as the general printed circuit board. The conversion board 30 has a pressure contact rubber 40 covering a side of the conversion board 30 having the protrusion 31, and the pressure contact rubber 40 is electrically conductive along the vertically up and down direction but not along the left and right sideway direction. The pressure contact rubber 40 is disposed on a testing printed circuit board 50.
Referring to
In view of the above description, the invention has the following advantages:
1. Using a dedicated testing machine for the testing is cheap and fast.
2. For the printed circuit board used for mobile phones is very small in area, and the density of the probe testing points is high. It is necessary to have a very fine probe for the test to avoid short circuits. On the other hand, the present invention adopts a conversion board 30 of the adaptation, so that it is not necessary to directly contact the probe 22 with the testing printed circuit board 50. The probe 22 does not require a special specification, and thus greatly saving costs.
3. Since the protrusions 31 on the conversion board 30 can be made very tiny as needed, the testing areas and quantity of testing points per unit area can be increased.
4. Since the conversion board 30 is covered with a pressure contact rubber 40, it is not necessary to directly contact the testing printed circuit board 50 with the protrusions 31 on the conversion board 30, so as to prevent probed or pressed marks and further prevent the testing printed circuit board 50 from being damaged.
In summation of the above description, the complex printed circuit board testing tool of the present invention has a simple structure and fits the 4-wire micro-ohm (Ω) testing and can further save cost and improve performance, and thus the present invention complies with the patent application requirements and is submitted to the Patent and Trademark Office for review and granting of the commensurate patent rights.
