Question about designing a rigid-flex PCB in Fusion 360

[xxl1331]

I am currently working on a project that need to design a rigid-flex PCB. I have already designed the whole layout of the board and put all the elements on it (both 2D and 3D PCB). Now I need to design the layers of the rigid and flexible parts (which are different) separately and I don't want them designed in separate boards and then assembled. However, I cannot find anyway to do so in the layer stack manager. Does anybody have some advice?

Thank you!

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hello @xxl1331,

I hope you're doing well. The layer stack manager doesn't currently support rigid-flex PCBs. With that said, you can work around it. 

The easiest way to do it is to use the normal default layers for the rigid parts and then use custom layers to define the flex areas. So whatever is meant to be flex you'll have to change to customer layers.

So for example for the flex outline you can create a custom layer. For flex copper you can use some of the special invertible layer pairs and so on.  For every flex feature you use a different layer. When you generate the gerbers, generate gerbers for those layers as well.

It a good idea to speak with the manufacturer to understand how they would like the data for the flex presented.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[xxl1331]

Hi Jorge,

Thank you so much for your reply and hope you're doing well. As for your advice in designing rigid-flex PCBs with fusion 360, I still have something unclear.

First, with adding custom layers for the flex areas as you said, how can I connect the copper route across the two parts, that is, connect the flex copper with the rigid one?

Secondly, is it possible to apply a material to a certain area instead of the whole board, For example FR4 to the rigid part and polyimide to the flex part? If so, how can I achieve that?

Thank you for your time again and look forward to your reply.

Best regards,
Xiangru

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hello @xxl1331,

I hope you're doing well. So as I mentioned before this is all a workaround so you have to keep track of what each of your user layers represents. So for connecting copper across two parts you might use one of those user layers to connect to the rigid copper through perhaps a via.

You can't assign materials to any part of the board. Again through the use of custom layers you can separate what features need to be on the flex part and what goes on the rigid part.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[ryanW2YZ6]

Hey there, 

I hope all are well, I am curios if there have been any updates to fusion with regards to flex PCBs? I have one in the works and would like to use JLCPCB as the manufacturer. Any 

input would be greatly appreciated.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @ryanW2YZ6 ,

I hope you are well. My message above yours is still the current state unfortunately. I'll bump the thread again.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,