The traditional liquid conformal coatings offer great protection for the majority of circuit boards requiring protection. Between the standard coatings like the acrylic, urethane and silicone materials most problems can be prevented.
However, there are times when they just can’t do the job.
There can be various reasons that these conformal coatings can’t be used.
For example, they may not protect the electronics effectively enough due to an extreme environmental exposure. A good example is where the circuit boards are required to be waterproofed or immersed in water. In this case, the liquid coatings may be inadequate.
Another reason may be cost. The value of the circuit board may be too low versus the cost of the coating production and material. Therefore, an alternative material and process may be required that is lower in price.
So what alternative coatings are there to the liquid conformal coatings?
There are many alternative coatings available to the traditional conformal coating materials that can provide extremely high protection to circuit boards.
These alternative coatings include:
- Parylene coatings
- Fluoropolymer coatings
- Molecular Vapour Deposition (MVD) coatings
- Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) coatings
Some of these coatings offer a higher level of protection or create alternative surfaces. Others are lower in cost in production.
Nexus examines them in detail.
Need to find out more?
If further information on these topics and the key question you can go to our free eBook by clicking alternative conformal coatings now.
If you are new to Nexus and our work on conformal coatings then a good place to go is our Start Here page.
Dr Lee Hitchens is the author of the Nexus conformal coating website and eBook.
Send me an email at lhitchens@nexus3c.com and let me know what you think?
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