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How is a double sided plated through hole solder masked and silk screened component olverlay PCB manufactured?
Take a step-by-step tour of a PCB manufactuing plant.
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[@BinjKomisar11]

Wow, the CNC electrical continuity tester is one I never thought of. Amazing. All of the processes are amazing. Something to work towards. Excellent video.

[@adejupe8308]

Of the hundreds of your videos that I have watched Dave, that was the bees knees mate! Thankyou for all the time and effort you put into your superb videos :) Much love from the UK!

[@GadgetAddict]

That was really interesting. It was good of them to shoot the video for you and they actually did a decent job of it.

[@nogthree]

Thanks for adding the design and hard edge video links Dave, was confused until I refreshed :)

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

I really enjoyed this video. Quite interesting what processes are used and in what order they are done. Thanks for sharing it with us!

[@muzzaball]

Wow, pcb manufacture is an incredible process. So time consuming and repetitive and complex. Very good to see, thanks Dave.

[@PeterCCamilleri]

Fascinating! I love episodes that give us a peek into the world of electronics manufacture!

[@simongross8324]

was waiting a long time for such a video again(Back to the basics) well done , love it

[@rocketman221projects]

The reason they electroplated the copper the second time was to increase the copper up to the required thickness. The copperclad they use only has a thin layer of copper on it. That allows them to etch them faster and have finer traces.

[@Fedorchik1536]

Because you can't elecrolytically grow copper on non-conductive surface. They use something to grow copper inside plated holes, not sure what exactly.

[@ikocheratcr]

IIRC, it is a palladium based chemical, that deposits electroless extremely thin layer, this makes it conductive enough for electrolysis copper to deposit.

[@frankderks1150]

And it guarantees that the through hole plating connects to the surface plating.

[@Bigolg1975]

it's easier to plate up to the required thickness, than to etch down to the specified thickness

[@AMalas]

Dave your video was a blessing is disguise to me yesterday evening! I got to learn some info, and it cured my sleeplessness ;)

[@timmgiles]

Great video Dave - especially given that it is your PCB in the videos.

[@nathantron]

I'm really surprised that most of this isn't automated completely.

[@km5405]

in smaller factories this is not that uncommon i think, plus its a lot more flexible if you have a human there.

[@tjeulink]

Nathan Trone i think that is because these are prototypes.

[@GeorgeGraves]

Nothing looked out of the ordinary for doing Dave's run then would be for a larger run. I assume this batch was for about 100-200 uCurrents or so. None of the process seemed to be set up just for him other then v-scoring. I too was susprised by all the manual labor. Seemed as if there was a good 15 mins of human time for each panel, if not more.

[@shana_dmr]

It's a small production run, so it wouldn't be really feasible considering variety of board sizes, special requirements and so on the PCB manufacturer has to cope with. If you deal with manufacturing BIG batches of few PCB types (like you make PCBs for PC motherboards) then of course line would be nearly fully automated - kind of factory where bare copper board comes one side, and trucks loaded with PCBs comes out another side;)

[@nathantron]

Yeah, but I thought there were circuit printers and they just apply a layer of whatever. Then send through the conductive printer again. Repeat as needed.

[@AlexandreKandalintsev]

One of the most interesting videos I've seen recently, time flew very fast.

[@tmdcbass]

Really interesting to see this entire process - also it's ridiculous how much manual work still goes into this!

[@dem0n1k]

Very informative video Dave, thanks!

[@FormulaXFD]

This was a great video. Thanks Dave!

[@rikvdmark]

Very nice Dave. Thank you! I love seeing these kind of videos :) Hope to order boards for my Tron Identity Disk project soon. Will be using the Elektor print service (Eurocircuits).

[@wilyfisherman3953]

Wonderful video to watch, very informative!

[@ExarchNZ]

If you are in Auckland you should ask if you can get a tour. Richard has given our company a few tours of the workshop. Its cooler to see in person, and you get to ask all the questions! He's a nice guy, very helpful.

[@ApolloTheDerg]

This process seems to be tiny compared to what I do every day at work. We make multi layer panels and start off with inner layer cores that are etched, punched, scanned (I am an AOI scanner), lay up, press, flash, then drill. And the electroless lines at my work are massive, the panels are carried by a massive crane from tank to tank. Theses panels are also very small, the panels we process can be as big as 36x34 inches down to 18x24 inches. You didn't get to show the full process sadly, but it's nice to see a process shown online.

[@EEVblog]

Yeah, this is a very small scale facility.

[@cesarcarvalho116]

Indeed. The CNC drilling machine shown seems to be a 1985...1990 model, having two 5-1/4'' floppy drives and a paper tape punch unit. Larger factories will use faster, much modern equipment, for sure.

[@totoxahc]

please make a video

[@Direkin]

This is a very interesting process. It'll be great if you could make a video showing the complete updated process for comparison.

[@andiyladdie3188]

That was very interesting and fun to watch!

[@sarowie]

Card edge connectors are hard gold which is a galvanic process. You pay a premium for combining the normal chem. NiAu for SMD and the galvanic Hard Gold for the card edge connector. This is important as you should not solder on Hard Gold, as Gold easily alloys with tin, forming a bridle joint.

[@EEVblog]

Yes, correct, should have mentioned that. Although if you only need a few insertions for a test connector or something, regular electroless gold edge connectors are just fine.

[@foxyrollouts]

che?

[@MrCravon]

I am surprised at how much manual labor goes in to this. I thought the reason you could get PCB production so cheap these days was that it had become highly automated.

[@ApolloTheDerg]

MrCravon I've been working on the inner layers portion of a PCB process and I can tell you a lot of stuff requires that human touch, picky machines and loading them correctly is something tough for some robots.

[@JohnDoe-qx3zs]

+TheBoxxWillRuleAll Really, I too thought the boards would roll into an assembly line (similar to the development one in this video), and be mechanically constrained by side rollers combined with optical front edge detection for steps needing positional precision. I agree that arm-style robots wouldn't provide the precision, hence my idea that mechanical constraints and optical sensors would be used.

[@EscapeMCP]

On minimum wage

[@cvspvr]

the technology hasn't become automated, it has just moved to china

[@id513128]

Awesome! Full of data and demo!

[@apexmike849]

Interesting to see how different companies do this.

[@RickThornquist]

Very interesting! Thanks, Dave!

[@DJStKittz]

We actually do the film process in my Schools clean room.... mainly cause most of this equipment is insanely expensive and places have donated all the equipment. Its still very cool way of learning the manufacturing process and working in a clean room

[@lasersbee]

How can someone Thumbs Down this easy to understand informative Video ??? It must no doubt be over their tiny little heads. Yeah the costs have come drastically down since I had my 1st prototype professional PCBs made. The 10pc 2" X 3" double sided PCBs cost me near $400 Cnd about 30 years ago. Today I can get the same PCBs made for less than $2.00 each delivered... from China

[@matooo95]

Thanks for making this video. I have been looking for something like this for a couple of years, but have always only found how are PCBs being populated with components.

[@Zonkotron]

Good video. Loved it. Roller/HAL tinning is still done by many, though, it seems.

[@MaxKoschuh]

excellent video. thank you Dave !!

[@stefansantiago7186]

Damn that's a lot of work....

[@Bradman175]

2/10 needs more automation and more clean.

[@Bigolg1975]

Brad The PCB manufacturing process is very automated, and unfortunately very messy, no way around that.

[@markeholbrook]

Stefan Santiago No wonder Chinese boards cost a dollar (sometimes 1/2 dollar) for 100mmx100mm 2 side, with top silk, each. And they are pretty good boards, same thing made in USA, $25 each. I feel really bad, but USA is not a good place for competing with asian board houses. Most are gone now.

[@leggtard]

Best 'how it's made' ever.

[@Screamingtut]

really informative David

[@Mr.Laidukas]

Interesting video in a long time :)

[@imbra]

I wonder how many more amazing videos like this one are 'waiting to be edited'. I bet a lot of those will never see the light of day. Ts, ts, ts...

[@MM0SDK]

My old job - CNC drilling. The boards i used to drill were normally pinned in 3's. An old cassette tape media for the CNC program.

[@Kevindarrah]

one of my favorites!

[@douro20]

The machine used to make the film for the photolithography is called an imagesetter. It's the same type of machine used for making masks for photoetching of printing plates, and once used to make semiconductor photomasks as well.

[@jackgassett]

Wow! What a great video!

[@TheAmmoniacal]

You should send your board files to cheaper "hobbyist" type PCB fabs like pcbway, dirtypcbs and elecrow to compare the results. That would be neat.

[@joeambly6807]

No point

[@GeorgeGraves]

Actually, that would be a great video idea for Dave!!!! How could that not make a great video? Specifically if you ordered boards from a long list of prototype houses, get them in and then looked at them under a microscope for registration, errors, etc. Also compare real world cost, time to deliver, adherence to design rules, and maybe sneak in some parts of the PCB that violate it, to see what they do. All that good stuff. "No point" - meh. My only thing would be have them delivered to a person in the US. Why, cause Dave's audience is like 90% US based.

[@joeambly6807]

Thats what PCB Shopper is for :) Plus...the quality varies week to week. Its really just luck of the draw

[@RWoody1995]

He has compared a couple of the hobbyist PCB fabs in the past, iTead vs another i cant remember the name of.

[@EEVblog]

+GeorgeGraves Err, no, less than 30% of my audience is from the US. Yes it's my largest segment, but still only less than a 1/3rd

[@electronicsNmore]

They are very inexpensive to produce. This was one of the better videos that I've seen showing the entire process.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

the chemicals, the machinery, the manpower, the design hours, the gas and coffee for all people involved, the metal, the expertise, the overhead. Its not cheap, yo.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

the infinite number of steps. im only on minute 26 of this video

[@JKnight89]

interesting to see the process

[@stuartthegrant]

Wow that is an interesting process. I compare that to a home made and home etched PCB and there just is no comparison. Nice one Dave.

[@joacimwennerberg8310]

Thanks Dave! Very interesting! :)

[@George-gz5zm]

Very interesting, thanks Dave

[@donaldfilbert4832]

That's a gorgeous PCB !!!

[@ElectronDust]

This is brilliant. Thanks so mutch!

[@Arithryka]

As someone who's done some basic screen printing, it's really interesting to me how they print over an entire board and expose the "paint" instead of exposing an emulsion on the screen.

[@314sami]

I think it is much faster to coat the whole board and use that masking to do the wanted image. Yeah, it wastes the ink but the other process wastes the holy silk screen.

[@Orvtrebor]

I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that much work, very impressive. I'll never complain about the price of a high-end motherboard again.. :)

[@alexsailingadventures]

Hopefully, we'll be 3d printing them some day.

[@maxel3g3nd]

Really awesome video

[@mateoarv]

Hey Dave, nice video! do you happen to know what kind of ink they use for the soldermask and silkscreen? I've been searching for those like crazy, thanks man!

[@SidneyCritic]

You can do a simple silkscreen on your homemade DIY boards by toner transferring it on after etching. Pretty much essential if you have over 50 components.

[@MurrayPearson]

The film imaging engine is an Agfa SelectSet 7000 imagesetter. It has the capability of imaging 1200, 2400 or 3600 dpi on film up to 25.6 inches wide. I used one about 20 years ago in a printing pre-press shop.

[@slepro]

Thanks Dave for this video! Very informative and accurate! However, I'll suggest that you should do a video on how to do your own PCB's at home. I started that way many years ago and it made me a better PCB designer since a I'm able to better understand what is the fabrication process and it's limitations. Even though you do not have plated thru hole on a home PCB, it is possible to design the board by taking that into account and avoiding top pad connection underneat capacitors, connectors and IC's and using vias instead. When I'm doing my own PCB, I'm using the toner transfer from a laser printer onto bare pcb boards and it's surprisingly alot better than the photo imaging process that I was using 15 years ago. It is a lot less expensive and the failure rate is really low. I can easily etch traces down to 10 mils using toner transfer!

[@over2there]

Thanks for the great video.

[@n8sot]

Wow!!!! great vid!!! Thanks!!!

[@BinarySecond]

I use to work in a PCB factory - I printed the ident layers -AMA!

[@ziggythegreat]

always awesome

[@wegi9621]

Exactly I wonder whats going on with non plated holes, and get the conclusion like explanation here - thanks!

[@tpowell453]

GOOD Stuff Dave! Awesome information. I used to "burn" mine on the patio. And every one of them sucked. LOLOL Life in 2017 is awesome.

[@stefflus08]

Great vid, I could watch stuff like this all day! I'm left with one question though, why would you rout out the panel when you're going to snap the boards out anyways? I can't remember your test jig, but did it register off the panel outer edges? I'd be aiming to reuse the manufacturers pin holes.

[@davidmaiolo]

Cool vid Dave. Would love if you could do one called 'EEVBOG #1000 How Is An IC Manufactured?'

[@kungfumaster8171]

Great vid

[@kentvandervelden]

This is fascinating! Why anyone would down-vote resists explanation. The only part that I didn't follow was the thru-hole plating. How does the metal build up in the thru-holes?

[@thomasleerriem6872]

I guess it's always the batterizer people that down-vote; they're traumatized by Dave debunking their bullshit ;)

[@robertclark8351]

As Ivan mentioned elsewhere in the thread, through holes can have metal chemically deposited using a palladium process. Once a base layer is there, copper can be electroplated on using a more traditional process.

[@johnkear2268]

Either electroless copper or direct metalisation process which is fundamental but not shown

[@googleenshitified]

love your videos

[@LazerLord10]

Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer!

[@GeckonCZ]

Oh, Hi Steve!

[@TheTurpin1234]

That is absolutely amazing how all those processes can lead to a board so cheap.... Its unbelievable

[@tpowell453]

ALWAYS do the automated electrical test. Whew. I learned that the hard way. :)

[@liuyuqiu8438]

Excellet video. Thanks

[@michal.gawron]

I'm trying to make simple LDI with laser module from a laser printer. Still far from success - currently I'm fighting with PLL for laser synchronization, but the amount of things I learned during that - priceless.

[@gnagyusa]

OSHPark rocks! I used to etch my own PCBs since I was 10 (ah, the ferric chloride stains in the bathroom sink. My Mom just "loved" me for it...), but now, there's no point in making a mess.

[@WobblycogsUk]

Considering the price I'm amazed at how much work goes into making a board, especially how much of the work is manually loading the boards. For the price you pay I'd have expected a lot more automation.

[@robertclark8351]

Highly automated plants want to make high (profit) margin boards, and typically have their production capacity tied up doing so. Small run prototype work typically goes to the small shops.

[@canadianavenger]

The bare panel has maybe 0.25oz copper on it. So they photo-plot the negative, so they can build up the thickness on the traces to the desired thickness. Then they etch off the unwanted copper. This minimizes under-cut during the etching process.

[@jake17124]

hey Dave! why do they do that double process of running? and the negative film is they can do it directly like at home? is there any benefit to it

[@Mephitus_LePew]

For vias, would they drill out the hole and then plate it? Or is it more like a rivet that gets punched in?

[@mmorena2787]

How do they make the vias and buried/blind vias for multilayer boards?

[@punpck]

great video, thx for sharing :)

[@optoelectronics]

Thank you very much for the video....

[@andreavico6198]

How is indentify plated or unplated holes in the gerber file? Someone know how to specify it on Eagle cad?

[@PlasmaHH]

10:42 I have heard from some manufacturers that they have a rather thin base layer of copper, and by electrolysis they deposit the amount of copper required for the desired thickness. That way when there is the etching step, there is only the thin layer of copper to be etched away. I was really hoping to see more on how the through hole plating works, its still not totally clear for me and my home brew process is quite lacking....

[@tjeulink]

Dennis Lubert look up how electrolysis works, that probably helps you understand it :)

[@PlasmaHH]

tjeulink I know very well how it works, but for the holes, I wanted more details, as the professional ones have very controlled uniform thickness which I was never able to achieve at home, so the question here is what they do differntly (other than probably higher current, I don't think thats the only difference)

[@tjeulink]

Dennis Lubert hmm interesting, maybe they pump around the mixture or jet it directly on the pcb?

[@PlasmaHH]

tjeulink I am stirring/pumping the mixture too (which you should to avoid any posibly ocurring bubbles to be removed as soon as possible). It might also be a chemical thing, as depending on various parameters the deposited surface changes in quality. There is a lot of trial and error and company secrets involved in getting it right

[@matsv201]

Yea.. it seams to be the case. This way they can use far less copper as well. The original layer can be really really thin.

[@flynnstilwell3852]

Just sent my gerbers off to PCBZone! Can't wait

[@A_RosnerNZ]

For my electronics project I got two quotes, one from pcbzone.net and one from JLCPCB. One was 50x more expensive than the other.

[@ShadowManceri]

There is a lot more handcraft going to this than I would have thought. I guess they use more automated process when you are doing bigger batch.

[@kkhalifa]

10:34 Wow this is in fact a brilliant idea. This may be why they get straight wires.

[@uwezimmermann5427]

You use the electroplating after film development to be more efficient in the use of the copper. The base board has only a thin copper layer of 1µm or less. On the exposed parts the copper is electroplated to the desired thickness. Afterwards you only have to etch away the thin base plating which is faster and consumes less copper in total. You could even skip the tin-plating step here: eletroplating to a thickness of 18µm and then etching away 1µm of copper over the whole board will consume all copper between the traces, but the thickness of the traces would only be reduced by 1µm to the standard 17µm. No risk of underetching here as well - yet another advantage of this method.

[@yucannthahvitt251]

You had this footage for 4 years?

[@AshtonCoolman]

As a Texan, I'm surprisingly amused by your Australian euphemisms. The "How you doin'" and "Bobs' your uncle" completely elude me as to their origin, but I'm determined to find out! I just figured out who this "Bobby Dezzla (Dazzler)" fella is..... Great video as always. This is very informative. I watched a video on how to do PCBs at home, but sending it off seems the proper way to get it done. Still, it's a fun home project once or twice.

[@harviecz]

How electrolytic plating can create copper layer inside FR4 holes/vias which are not conductive?

[@choly72]

Please where can I buy a red mask user in the video ؟

[@TheDessonator]

How did they do the through hole plating activation?

[@tarstarkusz]

10:40 This is the actual plating that builds up the traces and the ground plate. If you didn't do this step, your traces would only be as thick as the copper coating on the fiberglass board. To keep costs of the boards down, the copper coating is extremely thin. Where I worked, this particular process took like 45 minutes. That is a copper-sulfate bath with a copper source in it. Where I worked they used these long thin "baskets" filled with copper nuggets.

[@charleswatts1864]

Can you look at tp4056 boards and do a break down / review?

[@technobrend0]

I must have said to myself "Ok, now were done" like 8 times!

[@dawnminilla9299]

How are those sheets not sticking to the ink when he places them on the fresh uv ink to be exposed, @ 13:05 and 15:25 ? it looks like they are already cured because they don't stick. this is where I always make a mess with my boards. anybody know what's going on there?

[@funkathustra]

I think they pattern-plate (tin-plate) the design before etching so the etchant doesn't get into your vias and cause problems. I'm not sure how you'd be able to protect the vias with etch-resist otherwise.

[@ChaitanyaDhareshwar]

From the looks of it, around 11:10 they've added more copper and increased the trace thickness (before the tinning process)

[@Willster451]

How can you go round this place and decide not to upload the footage straight away or within a few weeks at least? Makes me wonder what else is stored on that computer. Very interesting though. So thankyou