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Wim Lewis
Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:10 pm
Guest
Flexible PCBs are neat. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard to make
them with the usual hobbyist techniques. Has anyone tried this?

The main problem I foresee is that the flexible material is not as
heat-resistant as the normal PCB materials (fr4, phenolic, or whatever).
This shouldn't be a problem for toner-transfer or photoresist etching,
but it would be a problem for attaching components and for rework.
Maybe a carefully-controlled hotplate reflow setup would work.

The data sheets for Dupont Pyralux (polyimide) have a specification
that mentions 10 sec. at 288 C for soldering, and a few hours at ~190 C for
lamination, but no mention of what the maximum temperature for the
material is. Rogers rates its R/flex 1000 to an operating temperature
of 150 C.

The other problem is finding the flexible copper-clad material in hobbyist
quantities ... and at hobbyist prices Smile Farnell sells it, as
does www.goodfellow.com, but it's not cheap. Then again, I don't
intend to make very large assemblies out of it, so I should get several
projects out of one sheet.

--
Wim Lewis <wiml@hhhh.org>, Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
 
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