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24 FLEX007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2018 Feature by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Increasingly, companies are moving to flex- ible circuits for a variety of reasons. Medical device company Cadwell Industries is ramp- ing up their use of flex circuits for their added reliability. I asked Jarrod Schulte, an engineer- ing support specialist at Cadwell, to discuss the ins and outs of designing flex for medical equipment, the importance of communicating with fabricators early in the design process, and some of the differences and similarities between rigid and flex design techniques. Andy Shaughnessy: Jarrod, tell us about your job at Cadwell Industries and your work with flex circuits. Jarrod Schulte: I started with Cadwell as a ser- vice technician and was doing that for almost four years. Then the engineering department had an open position for a PCB designer, which at the time I had zero experience as; however, I knew all about our product catalog, so I had a leg up there. I got my foot in the door and started learn- ing the trade from a guy by the name of Shawn Windom, our senior PCB designer. He has been designing boards since the days of tape on mylar. He was and continues to be an awesome teacher and he pushed for me to go for CID training with IPC. Once I got settled into the engineering department, I just started diving into anything I could get my hands on. I built a 3D printer kit at home, enjoyed it a great deal and I'm now our 3D printing guru. I design the flex boards, do a bunch of rigid design, and I've dipped my toes into the process of injec - tion molding. Basically, if there's anything that needs to be done, I just try to do it. Shaughnessy: You're their utility player. Schulte: That's me. Shaughnessy: How did Cadwell first get involved with flex? Schulte: Well, it's actually a pretty recent addi- tion to our toolkit. We had done some flex boards quite a while ago, before I was with the