Up..Upp..and awayyy.....

[Zig]

Well it has taken some time and effort ..and finaly we are running.. prototyping pcb's on a commercial level..

some sample photos.. no solder mask..yet.. working on it still..
boards are plated thru hole.. silver flash.. so far six layer multi layer capable.. i can see more headaches


note ruler shows 1 cm clearances 0.008"

[harryn]

Hi Zig - nice work. How do you like that silver flash for soldering compared to other copper toppings? It seems like a really good idea - I guess you first silver flash the whole board, then mill it out?

Excellent work.

As far as solder mask is concerned, my understanding is that one version of it comes in a roll (like a thin plastic sheet). I wonder if it could be bonded on top and then the openings made with a router?

Harry

[Zig]

Thanks Harry,

Solder flash is there to stop the premature tarnishing of bare copper.
The other option we could consider is OSP, an organic surface protection compound, to minimise tarnishing and maintain solderability.

Silver flash affords the extended shelf life and a flat surface needed by fine pitch high pin count components; surface planarity is hard to obtain in conventional HASL ( hot air solder leveling) process.

I am now looking at liiquid photo imageablesolder mask and an articulated UV source to develop it.

[samco]

wow - very nice. Are these milled? etched? how are you plating the holes?



thanks
sam

[Zig]

All milled.

Plating activation in a pladium process copper electroplated in copper acid.

[harryn]

Hi,

I noticed that Zig was much too modest to post his firm's name, in spite of its excellent work and capabilities. I hope he does not mind me linking it here.

www.circut.com.au

[Jesse B]

Very nice looking boards. Sorry for the novice question, but I can't help my curiosity . How do you manage to do more than 2 layers?

[harryn]

Very nice looking boards. Sorry for the novice question, but I can't help my curiosity . How do you manage to do more than 2 layers?

Hi Jesse B - I am not sure if Zig saw your post, but I will try to answer on his behalf.

The way all multi layer boards are done is they basically make each layer up individually, and do a sort of high tech, highly aligned, glue up of the layers.

It is sort of like making plywood, but with a little more precision. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that it actually works, but it is done by the millions in PCB houses all over the world.

[Jesse B]

Ahh alright, that makes sense now Thanks

[Zig]

Hello Jesse,

as already explained by Harry I use a modified version of industry standard technique.

Slotted holes and flatted pins ona tooling plate to align the cores of a multilayer "book".

In fact i have had to develop a vacuum tooling system to enahance the laminating process.
The book is layed up on the tooling plate and is then nserted in a hot and cold press where the layers of prereg ( adhesive saturated fireglass sheets) are heated up to the glass transition temperature (Tg ) and held at that temperature for a while and then cooled down to room temp under pressure.

The net outcome is a laminated board which ought to come out of the press flat and ready for further processing.


If You have a specialised requirement for lamnated materials say metal backed PCB material I can laminate it for You or if you have a design which calls for a multilayer board submit Your gerbers and i shall be happy to quote for the manufacturing of the board.

[Jesse B]

Thanks for the explanation, that's a pretty cool method

If You have a specialised requirement for lamnated materials say metal backed PCB material I can laminate it for You or if you have a design which calls for a multilayer board submit Your gerbers and i shall be happy to quote for the manufacturing of the board.

I don't at this point in time, but if I do I'll be sure to contact you.

[harryn]

Hi, I just thought I would mention that I had some proto boards produced by zig. He was able to pull of things that other firms turned down, and at very reasonable prices.

It is a mix of holes and SMT, smallest feature being 0.5 mm pads, but using heavy copper. There is another aspect to the boards that I am not ready to share, but let me just say that their ability to actually build up the board layers, and creative thinking, was key to the project success.

At one time, I considered buying / building a pcb router, but at this performance / price point, I won't bother. It is so nice to have access to modest qty's of quality boards at reasonable prices.

Harry