Rainbow to showcase key PCB technology at Productronica 2013

This completely self-contained unit takes up only 12 sq.m of floor space and does not require a separate clean room environment. The process is automatic requiring minimal operator intervention and it will deliver a double-sided panel approximately every 20 seconds ready for etching.

At the core of the Rainbow Process is a proprietary liquid etch resist which does not require pre-drying before imaging. The resist is 100% solids, and solvent free. Using only UV LEDs and standard photo-tools, tracks and gaps of 20 microns and below are easily achieved. The unit has very low running costs with power consumption averaging 4kW which is not only good for the environment but means it can be used in areas where the electricity grid is unreliable.

Jonathan Kennett, CEO, Rainbow Technology Systems comments: “Over the past year we have been in discussions with major players in electronics manufacturing in Asia and North American. Once the beta testing phase is completed we anticipate full scale production starting during 2014. We believe the Rainbow Process will cause a sea change in the electronics production sector as it introduces a radical method of PCB production which overcomes many of the drawbacks of traditional methods, especially when it comes to printing fine line circuitry.”

The company will also be offering visitors to the show information on a new desktop coating system, which has been designed for laboratory R&D prototyping, and small-scale circuit board production. Employing much of the ground-breaking technology used in the Rainbow Process Unit, this compact unit offers fine line detailing on boards up to 12”x18” and incorporates an automatic carriage system which pulls a coating bar across the substrate to be coated ensuring an even layer of coating is applied to a specified depth. Dispensers are included for spoils paper and a lamination material such as Mylar. A laminating roller, contact cleaning system and UV LED curing bar can all be attached easily to the automatic carriage allowing a range of processes to be carried out. The unit is very easy to set up, operate and maintain. A speed selector allows the operator to accurately control the speed of coating and curing.

In addition, RTS will be demonstrating the Panda Coater – a high performance coating system for precision coating of sheet materials. In the electronics sector the equipment can be used to coat phototools and other substrates where a precise depth of coating needs to be applied. The Panda unit offers many advantages over conventional coating equipment. Its patented Smart Coating Dispenser system ensures that only the optimal amount of coating fluid is used to coat the material. Traditional “roller in bath” systems can be extremely wasteful, expensive to run and messy. A thin transparent, scratch and chemically resistant coating (typically 3 microns) is applied to the substrate. It then passes through the integrated, controlled environment UV curing tunnel and is ready for immediate use. Both thick and thin calibre materials can be processed and the unit automatically senses the exact size of the sheet so only that area is coated. At the front end of the unit is a contact cleaning unit which ensures the material is completely free of any contamination (particles down to one micron) before being processed.