Electronic – Brown PCB Traces – Explanation

pcb

I just received my first PCB back from the manufacturer. After soldering on the SMT components I found that the board works absolutely fine. The only thing I'm puzzled about is that both the ground pour and the traces are a brown color and not the green I would expect it to be since I specified a green solder mask. This is what it looks like:

enter image description here

I've tested the resistance of the ground pour between two points and it is not conductive, so this does not appear to be pure copper. However, since this is my first PCB I am really puzzled about the brown color. Does anyone have an explanation?

Best Answer

This looks like they used clear solder mask. If there was no solder mask, the gold would have plated all over the copper.

Your photo is not clear enough to confirm that, but try looking closely at an oblique angle and see if you can see a small gap between a gold-plated pad and a clear shiny layer on the board.

Related Topic