Peters Lacke can apply additive coatings with new inkjet printer
Peters Lacke can apply solder resist using digital additive technology with a new inkjet printer. In addition to conventional coating processes (screen printing, curtain coating and spraying), Peters Research thus has extended possibilities in research and process engineering.
With the second SUSS LP50 "Pixdro" inkjet printer, paint manufacturer Peters' R&D department is able to reproduce projects from industrial customers in its in-house laboratory, drive qualification forward and make a correspondingly reliable recommendation. "The print head is identical, so a laboratory project also works on industrial printers that have several print heads of this type," says Kevin Poth, Project Manager Elpepcb at Peters, describing the advantage of the purchase. "Thanks to its precise positioning and small droplet volumes, inkjet printing is suitable for numerous applications, such as printed electronics, printed circuit boards and semiconductor assembly," explains Service Engineer Leon van Lieshout from the manufacturer Süss MicroTec, based in Eindhoven. The main features of the Pixdro are its robustness, process control, user-friendliness and precision, says the Dutchman, who has now set up the printer at Peters with a team of three engineers.
Additive coating with solder resist for digital inkjet printing
The bottom line is that with the solder resist for digital inkjet printing, Peters is highlighting its decades of expertise as a supplier of high-quality electronic coatings and is now continuing to focus on this new card. Using the Samba Dimatix print head, the varnish is sprayed like an inkjet printer and selectively applied to the PCB. In addition to providing protection against corrosion and mechanical damage, the solder resist optimizes the electrical properties of the PCB. The solder resist has previously withstood soldering processes without any problems and has therefore already fulfilled its first essential service. With inkjet printers and the Elpepcp solder resists from the Elpejet IJ 2467 series, new PCB layouts and interesting representations of resist geometries are possible. With the so-called "digital drop-on-demand" technology, the solder resist is applied selectively. Compared to conventional application methods such as screen printing, spraying or curtain coating in conjunction with exposure and development steps, the process is simplified and accelerated, allowing a significant reduction in material consumption.