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Topic: Material for cast resin  (Read 1861 times)

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Offline rianzu

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Material for cast resin
« on: June 06, 2016, 03:49:52 PM »
Hello friends,

I'm not even a beginner in chemistry, so please be patient :)

I designed a electronic PCB (printed circuit board) for some prototype that have fine components on it.
It suppose to work at high mechanical stress, eg. dropped on floor, etc. and not break sensitive ceramic capacitors.

Despite low mass, it needs some protection and I thought the cheapest way (and cheap for small production) would be to cast in existing market resin (transparent glue, mix from 2 tubes)

The problem is I need to fabricate the cast itself but what kind of material should I use to be able to not be glued together.
Something like insert electronics inside, put the resin, wait a while and extract the nice cube :)

Thank you in advance,



Offline Enthalpy

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Re: Material for cast resin
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2016, 06:44:53 PM »
Do NOT cast an electronic Pcb in a resin. That's a BAD idea. The components can't cool down anymore, so they burn after a variably long time, and losing access to the components is horrible. In  addition, a resin is far too stiff and doesn't protect your components in a shock. Optionally, the resin can corrode the board or the components; very little HCl from hardening diffuses through the components' package to destroy the chips.

Put the whole board in a box, and hold the board in the box with foam - not a too hard one. I had a polyethylene foam, firm under the fingers, that was nice for it; I could drop a ferrite rod and a quartz crystal from the 4th floor on concrete. An outdor mattress is good too.

Ceramic capacitors... Avoid the Smd if you can (and even if you can't). If you really need Smd ceramics, do NOT get them from Roederstein. Try to bend the pcb very gently with your hands while in operation, and observe glitches in the signal as the soldering caps separate imperceptibly from the body... exactly what you don't want.

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