Gold edge connectors: Update

Last month I was asking about gold edge fingers for some extender boards for Ampex AVR-2 and AVR-3 videotape machines. We went with PCFabExpress (from the list of low cost board houses in July). The price I was expecting was $200/9x16" piece with gold fingers, no soldermask, no silkscreen. What we received was WITH soldermask and silkscreen for the same price. I don't know if it was because this was our first order but they included a 'gift' (packing list said 'include gift'). The gift was 1 extra board of each of 2 parts. 1 set is assembled and tested and work very well.

Thanks for the help

Glenn Gundlach

only

Strange as it may seem there were gold plated fingers before solder mask even became normal practice.

Graham

My guess is its cheaper to only gold plate the bits you need. I think they now plate after the mask

I suspect you'll find (as Andy alluded to) that the only way to gold plate only the fingers and not the whole maze is to apply the SM. Just "dipping" the edge isn't done as I understand commercial practice. So built into the GP price is the cost of SM.

only

edge

became

T'aint strange at all. It was around when i first saw pcb production, and was a dipping/plating process that was restricted to straight line boundaries. But nowadays UIAVMM it is bounded by SM.

Real Andy wrote: My guess is its cheaper to only gold plate the bits you need. I think they now plate after the mask.

Perhaps some houses plate after mask but after looking at these boards, the gold extends under the soldermask. FWIW. GG

Real Andy wrote: My guess is its cheaper to only gold plate the bits you need. I think they now plate after the mask.

Perhaps some houses plate after mask but after looking at these boards, the gold extends under the soldermask. FWIW. GG