FAQ on PCB overlay and colours by QualiEco Australia

Find out more about PCB design, manufacturing, pricing and administration in our frequently asked questions.

PCB - Component overlay/ silkscreen/ legend printing

What is silkscreen or legend printing? Silkscreen is a process of screening ink using a stencil prepared by lithographic method. The aim is to apply a nomenclature to assist assembly. It provides component labelling that makes manual assembly much easier. While not essential, it is nice to have when you have hundreds of holes and need to figure out which component goes where.
Which legend printing technology do you use? For prototype and small volume PCBs, we use PILP (Photo Imageable Legend Printing) technology, which is quite expensive but offers excellent quality and high accuracy. For large volume PCBs we use standard screen printing technology.
Can I have a different colour than white for my component silkscreen print? Yes. We also offer silkscreen in black and yellow.
What is silkscreen fix? In order to print legible silkscreen, your PCB design should not contain a line width of less than 6 mil, or we will have to increase the line width at our end for efficient printing.
What does "clipping" mean in the silkscreen printing process? To avoid problems during electrical testing, we prefer no overlay ink to fall within the range of 0.1mm from the respective solder mask pad. If your design violates this rule then we will have to clip any silkscreen that falls inside the 0.1mm periphery. This process is called “clipping”.

Contract Assembly

We are one-stop solution provider for all your contract assembly requirements. We have the capability and resources to provide PCB assemblies, as well as cable and harness assemblies.

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