As many of you know (I hope - else I'm not doing a very good job of advertising myself) I sell awesome circuit boards on Tindie. They're great, and you all should totally buy some. And by some I mean lots.
But anyway, I'm reordering, and I'm buying enough of one of the boards that it wouldn't cost me much more to go for ENIG surface treatment. I gather a lot of people like ENIG. I've never felt like it was any better to work with, though. So I'd like to ask the people of this forum which surface treatment you prefer. I'm mostly wondering if there's a sub-population of makers who dislike ENIG and would be less likely to buy a PCB with ENIG, as opposed to my normal surface treatment (lead-free HASL).
So, I'd like to hear how people feel on this, particularly if you or anyone you know hates ENIG.
Also - how do people feel about black solder mask for simple breakout boards?
The downside is that you don't see the traces as clearly, which is why I use yellow for a lot of boards (to make it easy to see where the traces go) - but for a simple breakout board, I'm not sure that matters, and ENIG gold pads on a black soldermask look pretty slick.
A wise man on this forum told me the first thing I learned here when I first joined, in 2009, which I will pass on to you:
When using an acronym, spell out the first instance, so that others know what it refers two; subsequent instances of the acronym may be left as-is.
Commonly known acronyms can usually be left alone; but even there, it may be of benefit to spell it out.
For example: Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
Which leads me to my question: What do ENIG and HASL stand for? They sound like (based on your descriptions) some form of plating process for traces and thru-holes on printed circuit boards, like the prototyping boards you make. Even so, I have no clue beyond that what the processes are - and so I can't make a decision or recommendation on which I would prefer or like...
Apparently ENIG doesn't rework well as the gold dissolves leaving a solder joint to the nickel
layer under the gold. It is however very flat which helps with fine pitch SMT
If the boards are going to sit on a shelf for years, gold prevents oxidation that can make soldering tricky. Regards black PCB's, they look cool, but I hate doing any kind of work on them, because it makes it hard to see the PCB details.
For me, soldering to ENIG boards seems so much easier. But, for prototypes, I go the cheap way including green mask.
I seen an EEVBlog video where he showed a flat black PCB out of a mail bag episode. The board looked amazing. Since then, I've been trying to find a board house that has flat black soldermask.
As for colour, anything except green. Green PCBs are boring/ugly and I don't understand why people use
it. White has the advantage you have the whole board for writing on (serial numbers, test status, rework
history...)
A place I worked at once, the owner insisted on everything being black - circuit boards, too.
In quoting jobs and all his primary concern was whether everything could "be black."
I prefer the cheaper HASL, most of my board gets used within a few weeks to a couple months. Not long enough to make it worth the more expensive gold plating.
As for color, anything but green. I use iTead and Seeed for cheap PCB run, and they have other colors but they cost more than standard green.
Just one question. why are the PCB almost always green for decades? Is the green just cheaper? Or were green picked because many engineers back in the day liked it better than red or purple or black?
Not sure why green, but according to my father, who was in the industry for his whole career, back when he was working, they could only get guaranteed electrical properties in green. ( they did high frequency stuff so it was apparently relevant for them)
I do find ENIG more reliable for SMT work and have started ordering it as standard, even for prototyping work.
I also prefer to be able to see the traces under the solder mask, I've never ordered black but the white supplied by Elecrow didn't allow this. Have become a fan of blue myself but personal taste and all that...
