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Stiff tail troubles. The new stiffer hybrid tail flexes the interconnect card on the rod by about 1 to 1.5 mm Some tilt in the connector as well Force needed to push board flat ~ 250g Rod tested fine at room temperature, but not in the cold (could be open connectors).
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Stiff tail troubles • The new stiffer hybrid tail flexes the interconnect card on the rod by about 1 to 1.5 mm • Some tilt in the connector as well • Force needed to push board flat ~ 250g • Rod tested fine at room temperature, but not in the cold (could be open connectors)
Old, softer tail in the same position • Some flexing of the PCB board • No tilt in the connector • Force needed to push board flat ~ 80g
New bends to the tail • Pos. 3 on the rod (smallest gap between module and interconnect card) • Tail bent in situ on the rod • Bends are close to c-fiber than before • Some improvement, but still deflection of the PCB
New bends to the tail • Same bend moved to pos 5 (larger gap) • No deflection of the PCB • But: Highest point of tail is ~1.5mm above stay-clear, not acceptable
New bends to the tail • Tail bent like original (soft tail) • Added “kinks” with tweezers, while module was on the rod • Less deflection of the PCB (~ 100g) • Also works in pos. 5 • The 2 modules used for these tests showed no opens in the tail after extensive bending
The tail tale continues • The goal is to bend the tails only on the vacuum fixture, not on the rod, to avoid putting stress on the connector • Try out new bending tools (the tweezers used previously crease the tail dramatically): • non-tapered rounded tweezers • Modified sur-clip pliers
Bending with the new tools • Was not able to repeat the tail bend shape previously developed (see slide 5) by bending on the vacuum fixture with either tool • Try different shapes • Tweezers work better than surclip pliers
Best bend so far • Small radius on top, large radius on bottom • Use new tweezers to make the small radius bend at the connector end, and bend tail back over the module frame by hand to make bottom part more rounded • Board deflection ~80g • This seems to be as good as it can get without bending the tail while the module is on the rod • A SS6 rod was assembled using this bend on all modules, still needs to be electrically tested in the cold