Dick,

 

You could be correct although I wouldn’t call it butchered.  I enlarged the holes using my milling machine, a few thousandths of an inch at a time.  But aside from the altered state of this base plate I think there are other issues to address.  It may come to pass that two compartments are required to deal with the radiated EMI from the CAN-Do module.  I think it will be very hard to partition this enclosure into two RF-tight compartments using sheet metal.  I also think the AVX guide specifying no more than 0.0038” flex in any one-inch segment of the PCB might be hard to meet with this enclosure.  AVX is one of the largest manufacturers of ceramic chip capacitors in the world so I believe they know what they are talking about.  If anyone disagrees and wants to put out another argument for maximum SMT PCB flex I’d be interested to see it.

 

Anyway my opinions are just that.  Once the dust settles and there is an EMI requirement and a PCB flex requirement, a determination can be made to see if the existing enclosure meets the requirements.  If it does then there is no need to change it.  That removes all the subjective opinions out of the decision loop.  You hold everything up to the peer-reviewed requirements, run some peer-reviewed tests, and either it passes of it fails.  The same goes for the CAN-Do module and the Receiver.  At least that’s the way I’m used to doing things at work.

 

73,

 

Juan

 

 

 


From: Dick Jansson-rr [mailto:rjansson@cfl.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 11:36 AM
To: 'Juan Rivera'; 'Chuck Green'
Cc: 'David Smith'; 'Dave Black ((Work))'; 'Dave Black ((Home))'; 'Louis McFadin'; 'AMSAT Eagle'; 'Samsonoff@Mac. Com'; 'Juan.Rivera ((Work))'
Subject: RE: [eagle] Re: CAN-Do Suggestions from Juan

 

Juan:

 

You keep commenting on the flexure of the PCB and relate it to the module hardware that you have in hand. It is my very greatly considered opinion that the baseplate that you have has been modified (butchered) to allow for the soldering of the CAN 40pin connector and this has created not only reduced sections in this plate, but probably has also distorted the plate considerable. Such distortions in all likelihood have created a non-normal flexure condition in that particular plate. As such, your opinion of the design has been biased, and that is unfortunate. It seems to me that you should try to acquire an E05 21 base plate that is in “stock” condition. I don’t have any in hand here in Florida, or I would have sent it to you some time ago. These parts, unfortunately are in a limited supply at this time.

 

’73,

Dick Jansson, KD1K

kd1k@amsat.org

kd1k@arrl.net