Electronic – Can we place silkscreen inside the footprint

pcbpcb-design

Can we place silkscreen inside the footprint for through hole PCB? I guess it eliminates "visual congestion". What are the problems associated with it??

Best Answer

You can put silkscreen markings anywhere you want on a board. There is nothing special about being "inside" a footprint of a particular part. It is quite common to put markings inside the board area of a part. Just keep in mind that these will be covered up when the part is installed, so such marking are only of use during assembly or when looking at a bare board.

Silkscreen should never cover pads, but every board house I have used automatically clips the silkscreen layer to only where there is soldermask. It's not good to rely on this since registration may not be as tight as the clipping. Don't do it yourself, which leaves the board house clipping as a extra layer of protection against screwups.