Solder Mask

[tjm46]

I'm about to fabricate a number of boards and I'm having trouble actually finding any solder mask that won't take at least a month to get to the US from China. I'm going to be reflow soldering for a bunch of SMTs and I need something to keep the copper clad from oxidizing. I originally planned on getting some UV solder paste repair and a spin coater to coat the board, but finding any solder mask sold in the US proving more trouble than I'd originally though. I don't particularly want to use the dry film or any of the temporary peel off stuff. Anyone have any ideas where I could get some solder mask or something else I could use that result in a somewhat professional looking mask.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

How about: **broken link removed**

 

[Mikebits]

Are you making the boards yourself? Seems like it would be easier to have a PCB house do that for you. From what I hear from this forum, it is often cheaper to have boards made than DIY. Maybe I am mistaken though.

 

[tjm46]

I'm doing design and fab work for an engineering team at my university and I've had some boards made before and from what I understand, they typically go around $50 for a medium sized board, although I could be wrong. I'm doing a couple different stages of design from prototyping and development then a hopefully a finished project. Although we have a decent amount of funds, most of the work is more mechanical in nature and mechanical engineers make up the majority of our team and our adviser is a ME as well so I have a hell of a time scrounging for funds to go towards anything electrical. Plus, we have a decent machine shop and a number of prototyping labs so doing stuff myself isn't that hard. I just need to save all the my I can for when one of the other guys can't get some control system to work or something dumb and just decide to tear everything electrical out and tell me to fix it later.

 

[renzen]

I use high temperature paint as a solder mask, but the result not like professional mask. Apply the paint using screen printing process.
Below 1-2mm, using screen printing process is very hard and often fail. I think must use UV curing process. High temperature UV curing paint/ink/resin might work.

 

[jpanhalt]

By "medium" size board, do you mean something about 5 cm on a side? What board thickness do you need? How many layers is the board? Does the board have vias and plated through holes? What is minimum track width and separation?

John

 

[Mikebits]

**broken link removed** Check these prices out.