Crazy Custom Colors

Published on 2017-03-15 in Nyan Board.

At the beginning of this year, DirtyPCBs announced a new service: Mystery Color PCB Group Buy . The idea is similar to what OSHPark does – you get 3 PCBs and get charged by the surface area. But there is a twist – they are going to experiment with various soldermask color combinations, and you never know what you get.

I decided to try this, and made an order for the single Nyan Board – because I thought it would be fun to have it in a crazy color. The example PCB on the picture is pink, so I expected something flashy. I made my order on February 05, 2017. Today is March 15, 2017 and the PCBs arrived. I have to admit that this is a bit longer than I expected.

But never mind that, what are the new exciting colors? I have to admit that I am a little bit disappointed here too. Here’s a photo:

First of all, the boards are mostly naked FR4. The soldermask is present only where there is either copper or silkscreen – all the other areas are simply unpainted. That pretty much ruins everything.\

The soldermask itself is a kind of body color orange, which might be interesting for human figures or faces, if only you knew the color in advance and could somehow get the whole board covered in it. The silkscreen is pretty much standard unexciting black.

On the plus side, I ordered 3 boards, and I received 11, which is a bit strange, but I guess a good deal for $4 with shipping.

Update:

After talking with DirtyPCBs, I examined my boards closely, and realized how wrong and unfair I was. The soldermask is not_missing_ from between the copper traces. And it’s not orange – that orange is just the color of copper traces covered with it. Yes.**The soldermask is transparent!**This opens a lot of possibilities for novel designs, although I still have to say that it would look much better if the FR4 underneath was some other color than the default.

Also, they refunded it to me completely, and now I feel like a complete jerk.