Any info on calculating trace width for aluminum PCBs? I can get 2 or 3oz copper on a 2-sided aluminum PCB but not sure how to size the traces. Presumably they'll handle more current than an epoxy-glass PCB for the same trace dimensions. Different for top and bottom (this is the kind with Al base rather than core).
--Spehro Pefhany
If you know the substarte PN, then the Saturn PCB toolkit may be of help. It has a number of substrates listed, but I do not know if any are Al. Saturn does advertise Al substrates, but it may or may not be in the tool.
Cheers
I assume there is some dielectric between traces and Al. You could simulate the Al slab as a thick copper plane...
George H.
LED arrays are often copper traces over aluminum with a very thin dielectric between, looks like white paint.
Do the LEDs have a metal back heat-surface? How is that attached to the Al pale for heat transfer?
What I've seen is just the surface-mount LEDs soldered down.
What's cool is that you can go to a hardware store and buy a few LED lights and take them apart. My pics were from a cheap (and likely dangerous) "corn lamp."
The several aluminum LED plates in the corn lamp are easily removed and probably useful for something else.
afaik it is not, it is just soldered to the board which is basically a single layer pcb bonded to an alumonium plate
Semi unrelated, but they put new bulbs in our 4 foot florescent lights and they are LED's. Pretty neat.
GH
I've got some of those. You can gain efficiency by removing the ballasts. But new LED fittings are better still, and pretty cheap.
Clifford Heath.
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