name & function of this component cover? (RF shield?)

Sounds like you know what they are.

Doghouses. That's not their formal name but it is what we call 'em.

Well, it's nice to get it confirmed.

Thanks! What would they be called in a catalogue (for example)?

RF shield, but most are made to meet a particular design.

RF shield can, maybe. That googles pretty well.

Probably "RF shield." We've always done custom, the better to fit the shield to the space available, but there are vendors that offer standard parts. For example However, if you also need holes then you'll almost certainly have to go custom.

"The perforated whatchamacallits".

It almost sounds like a trick question, that somehow there should be something more than "shielding".

Michael

It'a not an off the shelf piece. A design is conjured up, it's layed out, and then that defines the size needed, so it's off to the machine shop to make the shielding. Obviously it's mass produced in commercial equipment, but since it's to fit the circuit, it's made for that circuit.

If you were doing it at home, you'd get a metal bending break and bend some thin brass or whatever thin metal you could get cheap. Tin cans would offer up small pieces of metal that would work. Or someone else might solder bits of copper circuit board together to make small shielded compartments, again especially useful since you can make them to the size you need. If you weren't up to that, you'd buy miniboxes (now often too big) to build up isolated stages in.

Or dig through the junk pile until you find something that is the right size. Older (and thus larger) IF transformers were once a source, once transistors came along. Copper pipe might be used, with end caps. I find myself often saving those bits of shielding from commercial equipment because they can make neat boxes for this. Anything that offers up a small box of about the right size is useful, though less likely to be found in today's electronic equipment.

Michael

Check out the video: a surface-mount can with removable lid.

They claim to have some standard parts.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc

Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

"Adam Funk"

Those ICs inside generate RFI that could upset services like TV or Wi-Fi so the shielded box is to keep it in.

So tin boxes will do.

You see the same in most TV sets, VCRs and FM tuners - housing the tuner itself.

... Phil

I have a bunch of those. They're pretty nice, actually.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Good one! Thanks, everybody.

Interesting, thanks.

te:

We get some things like that from leader tech.

I also buy stuff from these guys,

A little PCB shield 100 for ~$4 each. It was cheaper to design the circuit to fit under the shield than making a custom shield.

George H.

The Laird ones are cheaper than that, and really very nice. I like being able to work on stuff without having to desolder the shield.

Here's Digikey's selection:

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

"screening can" has been in common usage for some time.

That sounds sort of British to me. I wish you guys would learn to talk proper American.

If it weren't for British English, you'd all be speaking French.