PCB colour and glare

Hi all,

Recently our company made a decision to use different colour PCB's to easily identify what kind of equipment they go into. Simple enough, red PCB's go in equipment X, and green PCB's go in equipment Y etc. We currently have 4 different colours, green, yellow, red and blue boards.

Seemed like an easy decision to make, with little to no consequences, however I had a coworker come to me today - who does assembly soldering for us - asking why we had changed the colours, and said she was having problems with glare off them. We hand populate/solder a large quantity of boards in house.

Initially I laughed it off, but on further thought she may have a point. Green with white silkscreen provides great contrast, but some other colours less so. Red with white silkscreen probably being the worse. I deliberately stay away from black, as its impossible to see where tracks go on them.

Have any of you had similar experiences and have any input?

I find the pads cause way more glare than the PCB. But no way around that. But I can see why yellow might be bright. Dim the worklight a bit?

I'm surprised white on red has the least contrast. I would have guessed yellow.

How about the smell of a pcb?
I used fiberglass Veroboard from England for years then it became difficult to buy in Canada. So I bought high quality stripboard made in China. The stink was so bad I threw it away. It was probably made of compressed Chinese sewage.

audioguru said:

How about the smell of a pcb?
I used fiberglass Veroboard from England for years then it became difficult to buy in Canada. So I bought high quality stripboard made in China. The stink was so bad I threw it away. It was probably made of compressed Chinese sewage.

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I use Busboard. Mouser or solarbotics,

From back in my TV days, only 11% of the color receptors in the eye are for blue light. That is why anything on a blue background looks fuzzy (compared to a green background).

To mitigate glare, change the lighting. Obvious - change the incident angle. Less obvious - Depending on the surface temperature of the light fixtures, as an experiment you can cover the lights with cheese cloth and see what happens.

ak

audioguru said:

How about the smell of a pcb?
I used fiberglass Veroboard from England for years then it became difficult to buy in Canada. So I bought high quality stripboard made in China. The stink was so bad I threw it away. It was probably made of compressed Chinese sewage.

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Why do you turn every thread into a racist rant against the Chinese?

Mike.

Channeling Colin ?

ebay [often means] Chinese. I didn't say Chinese people are bad, instead I say the junk [a lot of them] sell on ebay is bad.
I didn't make the video of a Chinese 18650 Li-ion battery sold on ebay that is shown to be full of rice flour.
I am Not racist.

<Mod edit: Changed wording in [] to remove generic stereotypes>

Yellow boards come with black silkscreen, which to me is much harder to read than white. Maybe it's the different process used, but the text appears less dense.

I use black soldermask. Hate it but use it where I don't want somebody to trace out my board. My client reverse-engineered a schematic from a black board (claimed it had to be in the documentation, although I an selling them a "thing", not a design) - I hope he cussed me out with every trace!

audioguru said:

I am Not racist.

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I dare say one of the big signs of being a racist is making a statement that you are not a racist.

You just said everyone on ebay is Chinese and everyone on ebay is a crook. Do the math.

Both of your statements are untrue. I and many other people here have told you they buy quality products on ebay, including those from Chinese vendors.

Pommie said:

Why do you turn every thread into a racist rant against the Chinese?

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Maybe he had a Chinese nanny who dropped him on his head when he was a baby?

JimB

You, know...I don't think anyone would have cared if it came up in a thread about the smell of PCBs or PCB quality. Except that in this thread, the smell of PCBs has nothing to do with anything.

JonSea said:

I hope he cussed me out with every trace!

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As someone who's had to do that... believe me, he will have done!