| One of our board fab houses is asking (again) to eliminate the reference designators and polarity markings from boards. This isn't feasible for thru-hole, but what is the industry trend on surface mount assemblies? | Deon Response:
Hi Greg, From my past experience in contract manufacturing (that is dealing with many different bare board suppliers) I have not noticed any trend (here in CA)as far as removing silk sceening process. If anything I beleive that if you have the room to silk screen your boards, then do it. It will eliminate the use of referencing the drawing if you are visually inspecting the boards,troubleshooting, programming, testing , etc...in process. Thus increasing your overall productivity. Furthermore, if a board is laid out properly per IPC-SM-782 and other decent standards under normal circumstances, then the bare board shop should not have a problem. I would recommend that you investigate why? your bare board shop wants to eliminate this process (+$$$ for them), if you as their customer can benefit from it.
Regards,
Deon Nungaray SMT Mfg. Engineeer GMI USA CA
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