As subject line says, I work in an electronics factory. We turn laminate copper + other raw materials (liquid gold, nickel, etc) into electronics-ready circuit boards. I have photos that I can post or send so y’all can make a hyper-realistic electronics factory, just ask!
Here’s the process in making a simple circuit board:
Shearing. Shear the laminate copper sheet(s) together into layers.
Drilling. Drill the appropriate holes, usually measured in mil (thousandths of an inch), into the laminate copper.
Imaging. Take the laminate copper to an imaging room, in all (cancer-causing) yellow light, and image it, like a giant, copper photograph, and place an image of circuit direction onto it.
Etching.
Soldermask / photomask.
Surface finish. This can be done via hot air, Entek, molded white tin, or nickel or gold. This protects the circuit board.
Silkscreen. This is putting circuitboards into obnoxiously-huge printers, just like paper printers but larger, and using a carbon ink or a peelable mask.
Fabrication. This may include more drilling, scoring (to fix them), routing, beveling, flash routes, or power sinks.
Product completion. They’re usually cured so that they dry.
These curcuit boards are NOT fragile - you can drop them without issue or get a bit of rain on them without issue. The problems come due to lots of exposure to the elements (think a leaky roof dripping onto a circuit board or storage for months in a humid warehouse).
Ingredients in the actual product usually include copper. Electronic connectors can include silver, gold, a mix of 73% palladium 27% nickel and a mix of 60% palladium 40% silver. These are included in the circuit boards and typically stored in a liquid form. Circuit boards are put into large vats of liquid gold, liquid silver, or liquid palladium/nickel or palladium/silver.
That’s a sampling on circuit board creation. Next time can be photos of the process, and what an adventurous adventurer might find in a circuit board factory! CDDA can definitely get, ahem, creative with the scientific inventions since it’s based in a more advanced world than our own…
P.S. Circuit board factories are extremely flammable, but not as flammable as plastic factories, which are as flammable as dynamite.
Below is some of the quality control processing. Aside from standard offices, this area tests the circuit boards to verify they move electricity per specification, and minor errors - for example, a two mil indent - can be fixed here. By mil I don’t mean a millimeter, I mean a mil, which is one thousand of an inch or about 1/40th of a millimeter. We use a very, very fine tool to make any tweaks needed. This machine below is like a microscope, except it will move the laminate around to detect imperfections and enable the operator to remove any rough edges.
Some of our very reassuring warning labels set up all over the building. We are, unsurprisingly, in the fire department’s database, with specific notes for our building regarding how to contain certain types of fires and chemical spillage and gas leaks due to all the elements involved.
Above are more very reassuring big blue barrels, about 4 feet tall, with various liquids and gasses.
Below are two blurry photos of the liquid metal area - in those very large, industrial tanks you can barely see are liquid gold, liquid copper, and liquid palladium, among other metals. This area is authorized personnel only, so pardon the bad photo quality. Underground are power lines which keep the vats of liquid metal heated. Laminate is submerged for a time in the vats to give the laminate a finish for conductivity.
Here are some miscellaneous photos of machines and factory floor rooms. Im not an engineer so can’t speak to what these all do. I also included some photos of the original good - copper sheets mostly - that we turned into printed circuit boards.
To answer your first question on the Yellow Room, they were assigned more protection than they usually chose to wear. They were given plastic hairnets and plastic shoe covers, but rarely wore them unless OSHA was visiting.
These are decently common factories. Theres a few hundred in the US, spread out all over, especially near airports, rail lines, and other international shipping options, plus near electronic, appliance, and vehicle manufacturers.
Fun fact: a shockingly large amount of worldwide PCB manufacturing occurs in the State of Gujarat, a coastal province of Northwestern India. Over 90% of Gujarati Indians are vegetarians. A good chunk (over half) of PCB manufacturing in the USA is run by Gujarati immigrants.
These PCB operations are the size of a typical factory. Its about the size of a suburban elementary school for 500-100 students.
WOOAAHH holy shit these are awesome! That yellow room is so gnarly. Why does it have to be like that? I was imagining a small darkroom, but this place is huge, with computer stations and swivel chairs and everything. I think I would probably achieve some kind of extra-dimensional state of consciousness if i walked in there.
This is MIND BOGGLING! I don’t know if liquid metals exist in-game, but I want there to be, just so we can have these.
…And then fall in.
I think the pictures in post #7 are my favorite. Very soviet. And reminds me quite a bit of Fallout 4.
Lol, there’s just something about “Environment (Non-Mandatory) Hazardous to ozone layer (Non-Mandatory)”.
Also, ‘skin sensitizer’. Not sure why that freaks me out more than “this will blow your limbs off”.
The corner made to look like a kindergarden art wall is pretty hilarious too. Maybe they thought you’d remember it better that way, lmfao.
This is some good info. I can see this sitting among the other industrial overmap specials easy. (And if we only had elaborate rail lines that would just be perfect.)
In fact, everything you’ve shared is some damn good info! Thanks again for sharing, man.
Im so glad you enjoyed it! I only wish I was one of the engineers now so I could speak to the science and what each specific machine does! Have another Fallout-esque photo
