Jlcpcb - Green mask is actually much better! (Higher resolution) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 07:30:25 pm
content: I ordered a second batch as I though I had sent the wrong gerbers - jlcpcb order failed to generate the preview so I was blind.Not willing to wait 15 days to see the result, I order another one, this time in green to save fab time.Received both the same day, I found a lot better quality in the green ones, I will be ordering them always green from now!Also the blue seems easier to remove when soldering, I don't remember it so fragile last time (2yr ago).Both suck anyways, handle like there was a unstable dude holding a gun nearby, slow and smooth.

author: ArdWar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 08:17:08 pm
content: It think it depends on which fabs your PCBs were assigned to. Their main fab feels a bit better.We can probably agree that black is the worst tho.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2023, 08:34:26 pm
content: Yes, it mostly depends on the fab or even specific piece of equipment it got assigned to. I always order green for price reasons and silkscreen quality varies from perfect to next to useless.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 01:28:21 pm
content: Yes, quality difference (resolution, adhesion) between solder mask colors is a real thing. Matte black is known as worst. I almost always order my PCBs green because that has higher chances to be the best color in any random fab, and also because I like the traditional color. Different soldermask colors were a cool thing maybe back in 2004, when blue LEDs were cool, too.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 02:22:17 pm
content: I'm pretty sure that many fabs also use a better solder mask production process on the sections of their line doing gold plated boards. I ordered a gold plated board with black soldermask once from JLC and it came back with pretty good quality. As good as for other colours (green, blue, red purple) on normal tin-lead plated boards I more usually get, never done black soldermask for normally plated board though so can't make the most direct form of comparison.One thing I've never understood is why yellow soldermask is offered though, they do it with white silkscreen so give white-on-yellow which would be barely readable.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 08:07:32 pm
content: I've ordered both from JLCPCB and the quality was superb! I'm thinking you got a bad batch.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 08:26:10 pm
content: OP, soldermask is not silkscreen. You seem to be comparing the silkscreen quality between two different coloured soldermasks I think.Most often I find low quality silkscreen printing in china PCB fabs- thick feature width, pixelated, washed out and misaligned etc.edit: It seems the silkscreen "legend inks" are 2-part mixes that are inkjet applied e.g.TaiyoSome are UV cure, others thermal cure. So a quality issue with a low-res printer, improper mixing or improper curing would be the problem.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2023, 08:48:39 pm
content: Yeah, I exactly wanted to mean silkscreen quality (Isn't obvious?), but caused by choosing a different soldermask color.I don't think they can change colors on the fly, so probably each type has different machines, fabs, processing lines, whatever.So I simply said "green mask is better".

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 01:16:07 pm
content: Quote from: DavidAlfa on July 01, 2023, 08:48:39 pmActually, looking at your picture, I thought you were talking about the solder mask. Compare the difference between your example and mine. Yes, the silkscreen quality sucks, but the solder mask is shockingly poor.

author: ArdWar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 03:00:35 pm
content: Silkscreen itself is always satisfactory for me. Maybe a few tenth of mm off registration (which sometimes enough to threw me off during visual inspection), but resolution/sharpness are on point.The soldermask however are quite varying at their susceptibility to chipping or even outright flake off with aggressive bake/rework. Black is unsurprisingly worst at durability but best at hiding small traces

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 04:45:46 pm
content: The white also hides the traces, and look is great.Sorry but the black soldermask is a no-no for me, always hated that color, call me a pcb racist

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 04:48:47 pm
content: Quote from: DavidAlfa on July 02, 2023, 04:45:46 pmTo me, that is a disaster. Black is bad for the same reason. Green and red show the traces up best and so are my preferred colours.However good the documentation, debugging a board with invisible traces is painful.

author: sparkydog
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2023, 06:33:13 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 01, 2023, 01:28:21 pm"Were"? When's the last time you saw a consumer-grade motherboard or PCAIB with green soldermask?(Edit: "Direct-marketed" might be more accurate than "consumer grade". David notes that OEM's may still use green, but that's fully consistent with the point, which is that anything where theend usersees the PCB has an extremely high chance of using not-green. Similarly, how many hobby boards use green? A few, yes, but themajorityuse other colors.)

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2023, 08:15:18 pm
content: OEM makers (IBM, HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba, etc ...) mostly use green pcbs, except for fancy gamer-oriented stuff.

author: JLCPCB Official
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 06:15:51 am
content: Quote from: DavidAlfa on June 30, 2023, 07:30:25 pmDear Sir, you can submit a quality complaint for a reasonable after-sales service. Sorry for the uncomfortable experience

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 06:41:05 am
content: Quote from: sparkydog on July 03, 2023, 06:33:13 pmI said, were a cool thing. I didn't say they are not used. But no one thinks "oh wow not green, cool!" It's just normal now. And blue LEDs became annoying. As you say, green is almost in minority now, so I think green gives the best "wow" effect in $current_year.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 09:10:47 am
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on July 01, 2023, 02:22:17 pmAt least with JLCPCB, their yellow is a quite saturated, slightly orange color, so white silkscreen is actually not too hard to read.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 12:53:18 pm
content: Quote from: JLCPCB Official on July 04, 2023, 06:15:51 amI'm not really complaining, more like a curiosity.Quality is very acceptable, specially for $4!

author: LinuxHata
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 07:46:01 pm
content: Well I also noted that silkscreening quality is dependent on PCB color with JLCPCB - white PCB always have worst silkscreen quality.P.S. I'm ordering about 10 orders per month with them, with average 5 different designs and colors in order, so this is not definitely "different batch" issue, this is a repeating observation.