PCB for 90 Amp continuous

Not to mention the bonuses, 401K, free indoor parking, the cabin in Truckee, and the occasional barbeques. Happy people do better work.

We stay very close to our production and test people. We get their opinions on packaging and placement before we release new products and get feedback on existing ones. After all, they're the ones who make the money. Our biggest problem is to get them to complain to engineering when they spot a possible problem pattern, as opposed to working around it. When engineering messes up, we need to know it.

We had a vendor review on Tuesday, with a gigabuck instrument company, our biggest customer. Our quality rating in the last 4 quarters was

99, 98, 98, 98. Their QC manager said "there's nothing for me to say about that."

John

Yep. One client of mine has already planned out the Christmas company dinner. They'll take them to the most fancy restaurant in the whole area, a place where you can easily rack up $100/person. But, no consultants :-(

That's the way to go. I am always disappointed when engineers hint that they are different from the people "on the floor". They shouldn't be. A very long time ago I had a situation where I ended up talking to a line lead in production and (together) figuring out a solution. Turned out the engineers hadn't talked to production about a yield issue. Billed consulting hours: 4. Billed travel time to get there, at half rate: about 40. It was half way around the world. The business class air fare alone was north of $5k, they needed me there immediately.

I had a conversation with a client, asking about field failure rates after the redesign (it had been huge before). "Basically none, except cases such as where a truck rolled over it."

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

I bet you wind up acting as liaison between people in the same company, maybe the same building. We wind up doing that sometimes, too. We have one customer whose people never copy one another on emails, so we have to do it for them.

Some of our stuff, especially the big gradient amps, get dropped and bent. And some come back with nothing apparently wrong. Maybe half of our returns are actual failures.

John

Oh yeah. Sometimes it goes farther, once I was more in the role of a lay caregiver which I usually only do for our church. A client engineer went through some serious personal grief and needed this. Of course that part was zero-Dollar work.

My first design after getting the degree was part of an ultrasound machine. Sent a unit from the first run to England. Came back, supposedly DOA. Department head was fuming. When we uncrated the returning unit a minor question arose: "Err, why is a quarter of its chassis base missing?" Looked like a Land Rover had crashed into it. Turns out it had been unloaded from a Boeing and instead of traveling down on the rubber belt it fell straight onto the tarmac.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

So pack it more carefully :-). If you had to use the uk parcelforce, you would *expect* it to be thrown around. Anything at all fragile needs at least 1.5-2" of bubblewrap around every edge. then in a stiff card box.

The avionics people pack things the best ime. A 3" dia / 6" long gyro foam packed in a foot and a half square box at least...

Regards,

Chris

Sometimes they just have to see the warm body on site, to get the communications started/understood/implemented. The worst case of that which happend to me: I told them what to do over the phone. Net cost to client: one phone call. Nope, we need you here. Ok, round trip to Montreal, hotel, meals, rental car, fee. Result: all ok, same as it would have been for free if they did what I told them.

That gets two smileys! :-) :-)

Ed

>

I'm=20

seem=20

care=20

assume by=20

course,=20

the=20

thick.

trace=20

reduced=20

No, the reduction level is less than the thickness increase as the potential radiating area goes down. Do try to remember the thermodynamics to help with your estimates.

you=20

total=20

=20

would=20

branches=20

or=20

layer=20

at=20

That's what I thought.

I tried several online trackwidth calculators and they all decrease track width in proportion to the increase in copper thickness.

90A

I'm=20

seem=20

care=20

assume by=20

power)

course,=20

copper(thats the=20

thick.

trace=20

reduced=20

Glad to confirm your intuition / experience.

I just got an email from the prez of IHI, about their 100 amp PCB lugs:

John

Wow. Isn't #6 stiffer than even 0.187" thick PCB? Surely they must require "welding cable" #6.

And people think Tek's TDS's have flimsy connectors...

Tim

Thanks for the link. Very useful.

Hi, The techy (Chas Ridley) says the bending torque for #6 coarse stranded copper wire (known as semi rigid) is only 10 in-lbs at the lug so nothing near the torque needed to tighten a typical screw on a mechanical connector which is more like 30-35 for a #6. Thanks for the link by the way - we send out samples if you email us and provide your UPS number. If you want to see what the B2A-PCB #6 PCB connector looks like in a product see the ProStar product from Morningstar. They have been using this high amp PCB lug for many years with great success in fact replaced wire binding screws on other products as folks like the easy attach and detatch so much. Glad to help anyone with high amp wave solderable PCB connector applications up to 115 amps (#2 wire). Ruth sales"AT"LugsDirect.com or lugsdirect.com"AT"gmail.com

s

ed text -

I got some more info from Chas - he says all the high torque forces are in line with the plane of the board (whatever that means) so it is no problem for bending the board. The AWG #6 is tested to go up to 35 in-lbs screw tightening torque as mounted and the AWG #2 PCB connector is tested up to 50 in-lbs These IHI high amp PCB Connectors are currently shipped out to Asia, Europe and the USA with usage (all styes) projected to reach 1 million in 2010 so something must be good about these. Thanks Ruth sales"AT"LugsDirect.com, LugsDirect.com"AT"gmail.com

Nice. The traces to them look a bit skinny on their example though:

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Yes you are right Joerg - the thin traces are used for only for voltage sensing wires as they have a pretty sophisticated battery charging algorythm. It is easier to use the same high amp PCB connector for the signal wires too as they will also take a wire #14 or smaller. The wide traces are taking 30 amps in their model 30. To get to 90 amps on one wire it would take the larger B2C-PCB (AWG#2) and adequate sized traces and air. The comments about spreading the current density around makes sense too - splitting 90 into 2 x 45 amps would enable lower foil and trace sizes overall. We do supply the copper staple separately as it can be used as a premade wave solderable current shunt (also as wisely mentioned above). It is commom for these lugs to be used in "shunt pairs" to loop the current through as well as pass power to and from the PCB components. For looping type wiring it is harder to control what currrent customers put through there so it makes sense to have more than the traces. For multiple small wires (AWG12) LugsDirect has a mini one at:

which is UL recognized for #10-16 copper wire.

Sales"AT"LugsDirect.com.