Peter,
As with all Technet replies - it depends. First let me say, if you have nothing to keep coating off of - spray away. Its quick and your loses are what is lost in the over spray. In the real world, coating usually has to be kept off some area or another. This then leads you to selective coating with specialized equipment or masking and dip coating, either with automated equipment or manually.

If assemblies have been designed with a mind on the process requirements for selective coating you will find - labor for application of the coating takes longer than dipping, but masking time (usually the tall pole in the tent) is zero and material loses are considerably less the manual drip coating. If assemblies have not been designed with selective coating in mind, the process can sometime be used along with masking on the tricky areas.

That being said - there are some assemblies that are just meant to be dipped. There are automatic dipping machines that control immersion and withdrawal rates. However, some assemblies may require the the delicate hand control of an operator.

Hope this helps,

Gary Camac

Peter Lee wrote:

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Technet,

Can anyone share their opinion and experience on dipping Vs spraying conformal coating on PCA?
In terms of :

-Process setup and labour cost
-PCA preparation and coating material consumption
-Automated Vs manual application
-Quality and reliability

Rgds,
Peter