Customer Challenge:
Card readers are an easy way to prevent unwanted access to secure locations. It ensures that only authorized personnel may enter checkpoints and are much more difficult to compromise than traditional locks. For interior spaces, environments tend to be very stable and thus not compromise the lifespan of the reader or electronics within it. In some harsher environments, this is not the case.
For exterior environments exposed to high moisture levels and salts, there is risk of corrosion and subsequent malfunction of the circuit boards within the readers. Here, a dielectric barrier is needed that holds up to corrosive salts and gasses, preventing any ingression onto the circuit itself.
Conformal coatings are a practical solution for ruggedizing circuit boards to hazardous environments. Specifically, acrylic conformal coatings are simple, one-part coatings that cure at room temperature and require no specialized equipment to apply. For this customer, the challenge was to find a simple circuit board coating that prevented corrosion of copper traces in highly corrosive environments.
KEY CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS
- 1-part, easy to use
- Holds up to high humidity and saltwater environments
- Reworkable for future maintenance
SOLUTION
MG Chemicals 419E premium acrylic conformal coating is a 1-part coating available in both liquid and aerosol format. The product cures at room temperature and is certified to both the IPC-CC-830C and UL746E standards. The cured film holds up well against dust, moisture and corrosive gases. The customer included the coating as part of the build for readers installed in marine and humid environments, ensuring the circuits can hold up for years.
CONCLUSION
In high moisture environments, especially when saltwater is present, protecting circuits becomes critical as copper traces can corrode and impede current flow. An easy solution is a conformal coating as a flexible dielectric barrier. For this customer, 419E acrylic conformal coating prevented ingress of corrosive fluids, enabling card reader circuits to survive particularly harsh marine environments.
