A Design System for 3D Bending Shape of Flexible Printed Circuit in Electronics Devices

ABSTRACTFlexible Printed Circuits (FPCs) are often used in electronics devices. It is made on a thin elastic film which is bent in the devices and mounted on circuit boards. In this paper, a system to estimate the 3D bending shape of the FPC is proposed. A 3D path of the central curve of the FPC is first designed to connect the end connectors and then its surface is generated from this curve and the 2D diagram of the FPC. We propose a method based on rectifying developable surfaces to generate the surface. A new method for preserving the curve length is also described. The prototype software is developed to demonstrate some simple design examples.