Circuit board material uses

What else can you do with our ubiquitous PC-board material?

We’re all familiar with printed circuit board material, also called PC board or PCB. The most common type is FR-4, with glass-epoxy substrate (see here), but there are other materials available, such as low-cost, easily punchable phenolic.

FR4 is a strong, stiff, hard-to cut, tool-dulling, and very useful material which engineers use in many product roles besides its primary purpose of provide real estate and interconnect circuits, of course.

It’s a quick and effective way to build a shielded box around a sensitive sub-circuit, since you can quickly solder the edges and get very good RFI/EMI attenuation.

But the real beauty of this PCB material is its many non-circuit uses.