Why are PCBs green mos tof the time?

TheOverlord

Platinum Member
Oct 17, 2000
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I was just wondering if anyone knew why this was? I would rather have black, red, or blue pcbs than the standard green...why is mainly green used (or that nasty yellow-orange in newer mobos) and the other colors only thrown in occasionally?

I know aopen has an entire line of boards with several PCB color options (including pink...wtf?) so is it cost that makes other people refrain or what?
 

Schola

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I would like to know also, because someone had one in black and it was really cool looking. Would have matched my case if Asus would have made the K7M in black.

Schola
 

rickn

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
7,064
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there are different colors that are used. it is just some type of resin. Gravis use to have a red color for their sound cards(the SB Live cards use a different color), there is black, blue, green, yellow'ish, but green is basically the standard
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,026
2,879
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I bet it's probably just cheaper to produce. I think brown might be cheaper for larger PCB's, like motherboards, because that's common too.

The coolest I've seen yet, are the slick blue Hercules cards.
 

khold

Member
Mar 5, 2000
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I think its because green reminds us of the trees around us, which makes us happy.
 

nortexoid

Diamond Member
May 1, 2000
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they should start making them translucent like everything else..tho that would require some other material...they better get to it then, i'm not waiting around forever for a translucent/parent pcb...

invisible would also make my case look tidier...wait, invisible cables, not pcb...

i dare someoen to spray all their pcbs different color and benchmark them...
 

Dulanic

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2000
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Because they coat the whole board to cover the traces with a resin type material, naturally it is green in color. Basically this is how a board is produced...

First it starts off as just a sheet with copper on both sides totally covered. They then coat the board with a resin type material that is UV sensative, they lay a patern over it and put it under a UV light, the UV light hardens any resin not covered (The traces etc...). Then the board is soaked in a liquid that eats away any of the copper not covered by the UV hardened resin... that leaves you with a board with all the traces etc... then a machine would put all the holes etc through the board and all the eyelids for the traces are put in. Once your done you coat the whole board in a resin to protect the traces from contacting other metal materials etc....

Now this is how they do more simple board, wether this is how they do a big 6 layer PCB like a MB Im not sure. Either way if they want they can coat the PCB in any color resin they want... green is just the natural color of the resin.
 

sharkeeper

Lifer
Jan 13, 2001
10,886
2
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PCB's can be any colour you want. The resist resin can be opaque or totally transparent with a dye.

Cheers!