benchtop CO2 laser

How long are these in the direction of the extrusion, into the page of your sketch? If they are a few inches or more, you could use a piece of angle for the side rails with one flat against the side of the box and one parallel to the bottom below the parting line for the board to attach to. If you want to thread directly into the material make it 1/8" thick or so; you can get 1/8" thick x 1/2" x 1" angle and mount the 1" side against the box side. Then use a piece of flat bar an inch long, say 1/8" thick (or thicker) x 3/8" tall x 1" long. Drill and tap two holes 1/2" apart, with matching holes through the lower box, and clearance non-tapped holes through the angle. Use these to sandwich the angle against the box bottom at each end, and drill and tap a hole in the end to attach the box end plate. No custom extrusion needed, just off the shelf shapes and lighter than a big piece of flat bar like your first version, but you do have four extra pieces per box so the assembly labor goes up. A win if the boxes are long, not so much if the boxes are only a couple of inches long or less.

--
Regards, 
Carl Ijames
Reply to
Carl
Loading thread data ...

3", usually.

If they are a few inches or more, you could use a piece of angle

We keep evolving this. The latest plan is to just use stock rectangular bars for the side things. The top and bottom sheet metal covers screw in from the sides, the box end plates screw on on the ends of the bars, and the PCB attaches to the bottom of each bar with three #2 screws. We would get full-length grounding and heat transfer, and most of the board free for parts. Each bar needs 9 tapped holes, from four different directions, but that can be automated once we get some quantities.

This might be it:

formatting link

formatting link

The dims are rough. My mechanical guy will do a proper SolidWorks design.

One problem with high speed design is that it makes hot spots, jams a lot of tiny high-dissipations parts close together. This should be pretty good thermally, and we can easily add a gap-pad between the board and the bottom of the box.

A 4-layer board, with ground and power planes, should spread the heat laterally pretty well, transport it to the metal bars and then the clamshells.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Reply to
John Larkin

That's what we do for making fast temperature control loops for diode lasers and MPPCs. Bare ENIG pour held against the cold plate close to the TE cooler, with an 0603 thermistor. One end of the thermistor connects to the pour just beyond the edge of the cold plate.

Time constant is of the order of 100 ms, and there's no significant slowdown due to the presence of the FR-4. Super simple to assemble, no thermal epoxy, works great.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

On Dec 11, 2019, John Larkin wrote (in article):

I see a PCB clamped at both ends to an aluminum assembly. The thermal coefficients of pcbs (roughly the same as copper in the plane) and aluminum are not the same, so temperature cycling will cause possibly large mechanical

heatsinks, or something can bend a little.

Your mechanical guy can do a thermal analysis, maybe in SolidWorks.

Aluminum is 21 to 24 ppm per degree K.

Copper is 16 to 17 ppm/K.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Thermal expansion of PCBs is dominated by the FR4, not the copper, so its CTE comes in a bit lower than that.

But anyway, the thermal stress will probably be dominated by temperature gradients rather than CTE mismatch. (AIUI JL's stuff is mostly used indoors.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs "It's usually 70 degrees where I am"

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

It's usually 60 here.

I've never seen a CTE problem from bolting a board to aluminum.

I have seen bad effects from cold flow, specifically bringing a high current into a PCB through a nut and bolt into a big via or pour. The junction gets warm, the epoxy flows a bit and reduces contact force, resistance goes up, and it runs away.

These PCBs are pinned to big heated aluminum blocks with drive screws.

formatting link

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
Reply to
jlarkin

Phil Hobbs wrote in news:qstlhk$j5f$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

That IS indoors.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

The box will flex a bit to take out the sideways expansion, but longitudinally it would probably have to slide if the gradients got too big. (The Young's modulus of FR4 is like 3 million PSI.)

However the thermal conductivity of FR4 is so lousy that the presence of the aluminum stiffener would pretty well eliminate the gradients nearby.

Like this?

Quick-connects (aka spade lugs) are good medicine for that. (Although you were probably doing 2000 amps or something.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Sure. Outdoor applications are the ones where thermal cycling commonly bites you, though. The first commercial product I ever worked on (1981-83) was SpaceTel from AEL Microtel, which was also the first civilian DBS system. It was designed for voice and data communications from remote sites such as mining camps and oil rigs, and had to work in ambient conditions ranging from Arctic winter (-50 C) to a tin shack in the Saudi desert (+70C).

Challenging. Fortunately that part wasn't my worry, apart from keeping a careful eye on tempcos.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

No, just 120!

Several paralleled medium-gage wires with fastons soldered to the board works. The wire resistances equalize the currents. That works with Molex connectors too.

I'm running a bunch of amps between boards now on ribbon cable! Same idea, let the resistances equalize the currents. I've used skinny PCB traces to equalize currents on paralleled pins when we used hard connectors between boards.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
Reply to
jlarkin

Phil Hobbs wrote in news:pvedndbXDIB57m snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:

Wow! Is that a fault event or was that supposed to be normal current flows on those lines? Looks like a ground bus, so that must be the resultant surge effects of a fault event.

Or the return of a center tapped transformer.

I liked the comments too.

"The current situation doesn't phase anybody???"

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yeah, it takes a little more current to make those stainless steel LEDs light up.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

torsdag den 12. december 2019 kl. 18.21.15 UTC+1 skrev DecadentLinux...@dec adence.org:

could be as simple as the nut being loose, I've seen screw terminals on low voltage halogens turn blue from heat because a screw was loose

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

I like the connection to the left of the LED. Looks like one or maybe two threads on the nut, no room for a lockwasher. I think three threads is usually the acceptable minimum.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Reply to
John Larkin

torsdag den 12. december 2019 kl. 19.51.24 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

I think the rules of thumb is that three threads does most of the work, if you want full strength, engagement should be ~1x diameter

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

The one to the left of that is pretty interesting--obviously wireless power transmission.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

On Dec 12, 2019, snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote (in article):

What about customer sites?

Depends on how widely you cycle temperature, and the physical size of the assembly. And how long the unit is supposed to keep working.

Warm flow? Classic.

How large are those boards? They look small enough to be immune.

The span of the assembly I reacted to is three inches, as I recall. My instinct is that the issue is coming into view.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Phil Hobbs wrote in news:qsuodf$7k8$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I want that on my 100W cell phone upgrade so I can make calls with it right next to my skull.

Maybe that will fix me.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

One of the cheap ones was reviewed on youtube, and the reviewer discovered that it powered up with the LASER on. Since it had no base it started to burn his table until the CPU booted and turned off the LASER.

What would you do to ensure it's always off initially regardless of the initial state of the CPU's I/O pins? A one-shot could be reset at power up and drive the LASER only if it gets regular pulses. What's a better way?

Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

We had a problem with automotive LCDs and wanted more information. A dealer had five cars with LCDs with all L and no D. We had them use a thermal imager on them. The interior surface of the car was 85C. The dealer was in Phoenix. Even then, we were kinda surprised (85C is the design point for many car manufacturers) and.

Reply to
krw

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.