Lauren Waslick and Kristen Aguiar discuss mentorship, visibility and the career few people know exists.
One of the PCB design community’s greatest talents is hiding in plain sight.
Ask a room full of high school students what they want to be when they grow up and you'll hear doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, maybe even influencer if we're being honest. In my own case, I wanted to be a writer. I simply failed to anticipate that the characters would be engineers.
A stencil aperture modification eliminated pogo pin tilt during reflow, maintaining alignment within customer specifications.
Pogo pins are specialized, spring-loaded electrical connectors used to establish reliable temporary or permanent connections between electronic circuits. Comprised of a plunger, barrel and spring, they provide consistent contact force – typically around 1 Newton –ensuring stability against vibration and accommodating thermal expansion in compact devices.
Moving from personal AI habits to standardized workflows can help manufacturing teams save time, improve consistency and scale practical AI use across operations.
It's 6:47 a.m., and Robert is doing what he does every morning before the production standup. He opens his AI chat, pastes in last night's shift handoff notes and types the same prompt he's typed every day for three weeks: "Summarize these production notes. Flag anything that needs immediate attention. Prioritize by customer impact."
PCB East 2026 celebrated its move to Worcester with an increase in conference classes, exhibitors and attendance.
I’ve always enjoyed attending PCB East, but this year was even better because I was there as a PCEA staff member.
As some of you may recall, I worked with Mike Buetow and Frances Stewart years ago as editor of PCD&F and conference chair for PCB East and PCB West. The show felt like Homecoming Week. It’s funny how the old “show mentality” kicked back in after I spent years away from putting on shows and conferences.
PCB East 2026 combined nonstop show-floor traffic, technical learning and after-hours networking into one of the event’s busiest and most connected years yet.
Trade shows have always had two versions of themselves.
Extending stencil cleaning intervals to 50 prints maintained consistent deposition while improving throughput and reducing downtime.
Solder paste printing is an essential part of the electronics manufacturing process. Having a solder paste that can print high solder paste volumes with high repeatability of paste volume will improve process yields. Solder paste inspection is used to validate paste printing volumes and consistency of printed paste deposition. During paste printing, under stencil cleaning is employed to ensure high printed paste volumes are maintained between board prints to reduce printing defects. The frequency of under stencil cleaning varies based on the solder paste used, the product board type, the stencil thickness and stencil aperture openings used during paste printing.
