Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Why Are Circuit Boards Green?”.
Do you remember when it seemed like every motherboard ram, module and adapter card out? There was green. Well, these days they often come in other colors to be more aesthetically, pleasing with black being the most common. But even now many circuit boards across a wide variety of electronics retain that classic green color. But why is green so prevalent? It certainly isn’t because these big electronic companies are secret environmentalists. So what’s the real reason? Well, there’s actually not a single reason that everyone agrees on, but one major contributor is a layer on the pcb called the solder mask, as the name might imply solder mask is a lacquer that protects the board against oxidation, very important for electronics as well as prevents Different pieces of solder from accidentally touching each other and causing a short circuit. Some of the materials used in solder mask especially in the early days of electronics manufacturing had a natural green hue to them, since they contained glass epoxy, and you need only look at an old coke bottle to see that glass often has a bit of a green Tint at some point, though, manufacturers started to augment this natural green with green dye.
One reason is that, despite the glass epoxy, pcbs still had a rather unappealing brown color, even though they made numerous attempts to recolor the board through trial and error, though they were able to turn the board into a less offensive shade of green that wasn’t so god-awful To look at but, of course, people showing off exposed, pcbs is a relatively recent phenomenon and before the era of glass and acrylic computer cases, most people who stared at circuit boards for long periods of time were hobbyists engineers and quality control. Workers who needed to see the individual traces clearly a green background provides a strong contrast for the gold and copper traces, as well as for the text that labels individual components, which is usually white, to reduce mistakes and catch production errors before they make their way to Consumers, green is also a color. Our eyes are relatively sensitive to, but doesn’t tend to be fatiguing over long periods of time. The way yellow and red can be, which matters for professionals who stare at pcbs all day.
There’S a related argument that green boards also have higher yields, meaning they experience fewer errors in production. Conversely, this has also been floated as a reason why white pcbs are harder to find the materials used in green solder mask actually allow board components to be spaced closer together than some other colors reducing errors on densely packed pcbs. Another popular hypothesis is that the us military had their hands in making the pcbs green. Obviously, militaries around the world have long favored green for its ability to camouflage soldiers and equipment, but it turns out that the american military actually had multiple patents on pcbs back in the early days of electronics. And, of course, it would make sense that if soldiers were lugging electronics around in the field, it would be far better to blend into the rest of their equipment and thus their environment than you know. Some shade of orange that would effectively serve as a bull’s eye for an enemy sniper, but regardless of which, of these reasons, was the primary driver of green becoming an industry standard.
The ubiquity of the green circuit board has also led it to become an inexpensive option. Since green pcbs can be produced in bulk further contributing to its popularity, of course, manufacturing has improved over time, and nowadays it isn’t too hard to order a pcb in a different color, and if we’re talking motherboards, i mean good luck, even finding a green one anymore. If you’re trying to build your own computer, i guess you could always throw some fake plants inside your case and turn it into an earset’s terrarium. If you really miss green check out private internet access, vpn, which masks your ip and encrypts your traffic with reliable service and no bandwidth caps, it has configurable encryption and an internet kill switch which keeps you in control of your connection. You can combine it with private browsing to make websites think you’re in a different country, plus you can connect up to 10 devices with clients for windows, mac, android, ios and linux.
Pia has also recently launched its new dedicated ip option, which offers an even smoother internet experience, while maintaining your privacy and security, with over 25 000 servers in 78 countries. What are you waiting for? Try pia risk free for 30 days at the link below, thanks for watching guys like dislike check out some of our other videos, like our recent video on chip, stacking and comment with video suggestions and don’t forget to subscribe and follow. .