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So this is something I've been involved with for the past few years. This is _not_ the first PCB with full-color graphics. A company out of Shenzhen called Make
by wanderingjew 7y ago
So this is something I've been involved with for the past few years. This is _not_ the first PCB with full-color graphics. A company out of Shenzhen called Makernet was doing something similar to this, and produced some interesting boards for me [1] and Maker Faires in China.
Additionally, others have gotten very, very good at putting alternative coatings on PCB. You can do remarkable work with spray paint and a vinyl stencil. Others have done multiple colors of soldermask on the same board. You can get very good results with black and white silkscreen, and using the standard complement of soldermask colors, something any board house can do very easily.
The problem with _all_ of these solutions is that these coatings do not work in a reflow oven. The issue with UV printing is that you can not put it through a reflow oven. This is important, because you do not want to put the coating/image on after you populate and solder -- parts would get in the way, etc.
The solution I've found is pad printing [2]. This is a process that is similar to silkscreening t-shirts, but instead of pushing ink through a screen, a design is picked up by a silicone pad and deposited on a PCB. I've done this with 'blockchain token Tide Pods' (I made a blockchain of Tide Pods), and various designs for other 'artistic' PCBs. Pad printing also has the advantage in that every city has a shop that does pad printing, and provided the design you want to print is small enough, this is very easy to contract out. Pad printing is highly geared towards mass-production, whereas UV printing is low-volume on the order of dozens or hundreds of units.
This isn't to diminish how cool this is. There's an entire community of people building artistic PCBs out there that would love this capability. Only wish there was a bit more information about obtaining, setting up, and producing UV color PCBs
[1]https://imgur.com/wgmO1jK https://imgur.com/wgmO1jK
[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rTrSIKjpNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rTrSIKjpNY
- schappim 7y agoHi, I'm Marcus from Little Bird. >> Makernet I believe they were only doing pad printing/silk printing. >> The problem with _all_ of these solutions is that these coatings do not work in a reflow oven. PCBs can be printed on before population with parts (although not always required depending on the design). We bake our PCBs, specifically in reflow ovens. We adjust our colours so that they match the target colour after heating cycle completes. >> The solution I've found is pad printing We looked into pad printing, but it was too limiting in terms of setup time and graphics. It also lacked the ability to for mass customisation of products.
- wanderingjew 7y agoMakernet was a little cagey about their process, but my samples show shading in the color. They were using a full-color process where any (or all) colors could be produced in a single pass. You are right that pad/silk printing would be too limiting if your goal would be to print anything. The goal of pad printing is just to put _a_ color on a board, and then modify your design to that (or two colors, with the tide pod). There are definite tradeoffs. Good work.
- justinclift 7y agoInteresting. What's the maximum size you're currently equipped to handle? I'm thinking "printing on an existing ~ATX motherboard". ;)
- schappim 7y agoOur existing machine is around an A3 paper-size (297 x 420 mm / 11.7 x 16.5 in), but you can scale it up even bigger.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cmroanirgo 7y agoMarcus, Great that you're doing so well! I used to buy some components off you when LB was still a part time thing for you... many many moons ago. Love that you're still exploring and pushing your own boundaries!
- schappim 7y agoThanks Craig! The real credit should go to Maddy who consistently does the drudge work day in, day out. This frees me to explore things with the amazing JP Liew.
- xondono 7y agoIs this type of technology ready for mass production? What kind of price breaks are we talking about? I’ve worked a lot with exposed pcbs or pcbs that are shown on business fairs or shows, so it’s very interesting.
- dang 7y agoOk, we've taken first-everness out of the title above. We tend to do that anyway, because such claims are a bit baity and a lot unverifiable.