Factors to Keep in Mind When Designing Silk Screen for Your PCBĭo you know the silkscreen contributes to 12-15% of the total PCB costs? The text design includes character width, height, thickness, spacing, and positioning. The acrylic link is not suited for the PCBs that may have silver finishes. The ink is applied to the PCB using the CAD software. During this process, inkjet projector and acrylic inks are used. This is one of the most expensive processes among the other three. The setup time for this type of printing is high. LPI uses white color, and it requires more ink than the other two types of silk screen printing. This method ensures higher accuracy than manual screen printing. The board is cured and developed after it. However, in this method, the laminate is coated with epoxy, and then it is brought under the UV light. The process of LPI is almost the same as the solder mask application. This method is used for screen printing the lines that are greater than 4 mil. This is one of the easiest ways of creating a silkscreen layer and it supports large text size, too. Next, the ink is cured in the baking oven. The ink is directed through the stencil on to the layer or laminate. Manual screen printing is performed using a stencil comprising text and traces. This is done for PCBs when the registration tolerance is 0.005" or line widths are greater than 0.007". The silkscreen is applied on the PCB in three ways: 1. Identify manufacturer marks, version numbers, and so on Identify the numbers that are unique to the printed circuit board. Locate the parts through reference designators What Information Does a Silkscreen Provide?Ī silkscreen may not have any role in the functioning of a PCB however, it is valued for the information that it delivers. There are certain standard fonts used by PCB software for silkscreen printing however, you can also use custom fonts. Most times, silk screen printing is performed using colors of yellow, white, and black. This ink has a different formulation than the regular printing inks. Typically, non-conductive epoxy ink is used for silk screen printing. The silkscreen printing helps both – the manufacturer and the engineer to identify different parts easily. Nowadays, it is also applied to the soldering part. Mostly, the silkscreen is applied to the component part of the PCB. If you see, a PCB comprises two parts – components and soldering. The silkscreen is a layer of ink trace used to identify the PCB components, marks, logos, symbols, and so on. This post will provide you the importance of silkscreen printing on printed circuit boards. Now you may think how is information printed in a small area? This is where silkscreen printing comes to rescue. Although a printed circuit board may feature several components required to make a connection, they may also bear information. Today, they appear as a chip on opening the electronic device. Over the years, owing to advancements in technologies, their size has reduced drastically. ![]()
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