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No, bit I'm guessing it will break if the board is flexed a little. The copper is slippery. It would sure be convenient... I'll try some.

The contact cement would probably work, since it's sticky and flexible.

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I usually use Krazy Glue. Sticks pretty well if you don't cook it too badly, and comes off with side cutters when you want to move a pad. Using accelerator helps, or just heating the pad with a soldering iron to speed it up.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Yes, for a reasonable time. It's used to hold Formica on countertops where hot pots and pans are placed.

Yep. I've done the Formica trip, back in the late '50's, Formica-over-plywood for speaker enclosures... double-wall, space filled with sand ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Pliobond 20 and 25 should work okay. They're rated to 375°F (190°C), so they should be okay for brief soldering. 35 is more for porous surfaces.

Here's a 1-oz tube via Amazon for $5-ish:-

I wonder if it still smells the same- been years since I've used it. Rather pleasant smell, IIRC, so probably carcinogenic etc.

The good stuff uses some nice benzene-family solvent. There's also a newer water-based contact cement that doesn't much want to stick to anything.

I bought my last bottle about five years ago, and it still had the same scent.

Are you using it as contact cement, or as glue?

I generally use contact cement as contact cement.

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I think it's a bit more elastic than FR4, it's been used to manufacture O-rings and even repair small drive belts.

So you coat 'both' surfaces, let them dry, and stick them together?

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I've used ordinary superglue with no problems, but I haven't stressed (flexed, beat on, etc) the completed boards.

Ed

That's what it says to do on the bottle.

Most people ignore that step, then complain when it fails.

If you don't want to 'send it out', silver plate can be accomplished by hand, with Cool-Amp powder (is that still available?)

Caswell sells small electroplating kits & supplies.

I tried the pcb-slivers approach for some r.f. stuff way back. I used double-side islands so they could be soldered to the GND plane.

Krylon clear acrylic spray keeps them shiny new forever, and you can solder through it.

I carve pcb by "drawing" on it with a broken carbide drill bit in a Dremel. You use the Dremel like a fat pen. It cuts like butter.

Cheers, James

Another fun proto.

This is a temperature-controlled SWIR photoreceiver for a transcutaneous spectrometer. The photodiode was indium-soldered to the cold plate afterwards, and wired up to an LF356 TIA.

Box with Peltiers silver-epoxied on, cold plate, and advanced optical alignment jig:

Assembled (without photodiode or Styrofoam)

Detail of temperature controller board on cold plate to avoid drift and TC offsets:

Transient response to a 45-second pulse of 0.5A on the two series-connected Peltiers, open loop

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Should have added: the blue wire-wrap wire joining the cold plate to the rest of the world is actually 0.003 inch Constantan threaded into WW wire insulation, which works out to about 3 uW/K per lead, about 20 times less than copper of the same size. I also put a few drops of hot-melt glue on to prevent the wires from cracking due to vibration during shipping.

Thin flex is better, but that's plenty good enough for room temperature operation, and I needed to to this one by hand. to save time.

(My reel of Constantan is dated 1961--I think it was originally bought for strain gauges rather than thermocouples.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs