6 Simple and Practical Methods for PCB cooling

      For electronic equipment, certain heat will be generated during operation, so that the internal temperature of the equipment will rise rapidly. If the heat is not dissipated in time, the equipment will continue to heat up, the components will become invalid due to overheating, and the reliability of electronic equipment will decline.

 Therefore, it is very important to conduct a good heat dissipation treatment on the circuit board. The heat dissipation of PCB is a very important link:

1. At present, PCB boards widely used for heat dissipation through PCB boards are copper clad/epoxy glass cloth substrate or phenolic resin glass cloth substrate, and there are a few paper based copper clad boards.

2. Heat sink and heat conduction plate are added to high heating components. When there are a few components in the PCB with large heat generation (less than 3), heat sink or heat conduction tube can be added to the heating components. When the temperature cannot be reduced, heat sink with fan can be used to enhance the heat dissipation effect.

3. For equipment cooled by free convection air, it is better to arrange the integrated circuit (or other devices) in longitudinal or transverse direction.

4. The reasonable routing design is adopted to realize heat dissipation. Because the resin in the plate has poor thermal conductivity, and the copper foil lines and holes are good conductors of heat, improving the residual rate of copper foil and increasing the thermal conductivity holes are the main means of heat dissipation. To evaluate the heat dissipation capability of PCB, it is necessary to evaluate the composite materials composed of various materials with different thermal conductivity.

5. The components on the same printed board shall be arranged in zones as far as possible according to their calorific value and heat dissipation degree. The components with low calorific value or poor heat resistance (such as small signal transistors, small-scale integrated circuits, electrolytic capacitors, etc.) shall be placed at the top (entrance) of the cooling air flow, and the components with high calorific value or good heat resistance (such as power transistors, large-scale integrated circuits, etc.) shall be placed at the bottom of the cooling air flow.

6. The devices with the highest power consumption and heat generation are arranged near the best heat dissipation position. Do not place the components with high heat generation on the corners and surrounding edges of the printed board, unless there is a heat sink near it. In the design of power resistance, select a larger device as far as possible, and make it have enough heat dissipation space when adjusting the layout of the printed circuit board.

    If conditions permit, it is necessary to conduct thermal efficiency analysis of printed circuit. The thermal efficiency index analysis software module added to some professional PCB design software can help designers optimize circuit design.