It was cool to watch the Tormach hog this out of a block of aluminum bar stock.
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A PCB will bolt onto this. Some parts will be on the bottom, and will get hot, so we'll use gap-pads or thermally conductive putty to conduct the heat down to the block, which will itself get cooled somehow. Some of the cutouts are clearances for the pins of thru-hole parts.
This was hard to photograph; the shiny features mess with my camera's autofocus.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
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My old old Olympus and fairly new Canon digital cameras both have focus lock - press the shutter release down halfway and the camera does its autofocus and then holds that until you either release the button or press all the way to take the picture. For something like your plate, put a sheet of paper with some kind of target drawn on it with good contrast (a business card would probably work), position the camera and push the button halfway so it focuses on the target and holds that, remove the paper and take the picture (all without moving the camera). Easiest with either a tripod or a helper :-).
-- Regards, Carl Ijames