Note that in the early days of electronics, PCBs did not have soldermask, because it wasn't necessary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_SMS_card_circuit_side...
And the PCBs were tan or natural.
Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
21–30 of 73 posts
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#22> 1. Green can relieve visual fatigue and aid in inspections
> In the early days, due to technological restrictions, quality inspections relied on workers manually checking the boards with their bare eyes. Squinting at tiny circuits all days is tiring work, but neurologists and psychologists agree that the wavelength of green light has relaxing effects on the body and can reduce fatigue. Additionally, they have found that the sensors in human eyes, or cones, are most sensitive to green light. Therefore, the contrast is greater between the circuit traces, pads, silkscreen printing and empty spaces. Just by observing the boards from the outside, one can easily identify defects in the outer layers. Compare the below images of green boards to other colors such as blue, yellow or even black and white. With higher contrast, errors are easier to spot.
Perhaps an IDE theme with a green background would be similarly helpful for programmers. Any particular suggestions?
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#23Apple PCBs are all black nowadays. They probably went all they to make the black pigmened oil as good as green.
I suspect it's a deliberate choice both as a fashion statement and to discourage repair.
It's interesting to see a similar phenomenon with desktop PC motherboards: "gamer" or otherwise "enthusiast" boards are often a non-green colour and come with superfluous design elements (like plastic covers over the actual components, which sort of remind me of the engine covers on newer cars...), while both the ultra-cheap prebuilt and ultra-expensive server boards remain green and free of fluff.
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#24Apple PCBs are all black nowadays. They probably went all they to make the black pigmened oil as good as green.
I think that’s because they want the bits you can’t see to look as good as the bits you can. I rather like poking around inside apple kit. Always have a smile on when I have to.
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#25Note that in the early days of electronics, PCBs did not have soldermask, because it wasn't necessary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_SMS_card_circuit_side...
Also lots of boards had transparent solder mask after that (Tektronix did this) which was great for debugging! Examples here: http://golddredgervideo.com/kc0wox/tek/7504/detailedpictures... Whole scope is a work of art!
Wow, gold everywhere. Even the ICs have gold-plated pins... that's not something I've seen before.
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#26Somewhere in the early 3D video card years, I took one out of the box and the PCB was red! Blew my mind. I want to say it was a Diamond card but I'm not 100% sure.
I have a GeForce 2 which is red, I think it's the earliest non-green card in my collection (2000-ish).
All Gravis Ultrasound cards were red (>1992ish). [1]
It was partly a marketing choice, to make them stand out from conventional Sound Blaster cards.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravis_Ultrasound#Versions
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#27Note that in the early days of electronics, PCBs did not have soldermask, because it wasn't necessary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_SMS_card_circuit_side...
Advanced Circuits (4pcb) still offers a "BareBones" service that will give you a 2 layer board without soldermask or silkscreen in 1 day.
I haven't used that service since maybe 2007, OshPark Super Swift and Chinese vendors have made it obsolete.
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#28One of my startups was purchased by QLogic, which made PCI cards in bulk. One of their corporate standards is that prototypes have red PCBs, to prevent them ever being mixed together with production parts. These days I have some friends who have a particular debit card that's the same color of red. Every time I see it, I twitch.
I wonder if this is also why a lot of boards from eg sparkfun are red.
Sparkfun does the red for branding. Their early stuff was green. They also use black for their SparkX experimental boards. Adafruit is know for their blue boards and oshpark for plurple it’s all branding.
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also lots of boards had transparent solder mask after that (Tektronix did this) which was great for debugging! Examples here: http://golddredgervideo.com/kc0wox/tek/7504/detailedpictures... Whole scope is a work of art!
Wow, gold everywhere. Even the ICs have gold-plated pins... that's not something I've seen before.
I’ve only seen one such circuit before and it was some kind of radiation hardened thing. It looked cool though!
Re: Why Are Printed Circuit Boards Usually Green? (2017)
#30> 1. Green can relieve visual fatigue and aid in inspections > In the early days, due to technological restrictions, quality inspections relied on workers manually checking the boards with their bare eyes. Squinting at tiny circuits all days is tiring work, but neurologists and psychologists agree that the wavelength of green light has relaxing effects on the body and can reduce fatigue. Additionally, they have found…
This research is why we were sold computers with green-colored phosphor monitors back in the 80s.
I'm not going back, but if you're into it, maybe try: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=gerane.T...