Bill

As I said, sounds like you need an applications engineer.

Can't imagine why you would have considered rigid-flex, a premium cost,
high-rel, extreme packaging fix for this application. Rigid flex is  used in
applications where the rigid part is wave-soldered to a mass of connectors
or components, which is why it needs a severe qual test and why it saves so
much money and space----less labor, easier to clean up afterwards, more
ruged than flex etc.Rigid-flex  saves a great deal of PWB area (needed for
the connector landing sites) and assembly labor ( because connectors are
eliminated)  and improves reliability ( because labor and connectors are
eliminated), none of which is relevant to your situation. Rigid-flex is
tested to ridiculously high standards which you probably don't need---bake
at 220 F for 6 hours followed by solder dip at 550F for 10 seconds followed
by crossectional analysis and rejection if voids are found. Most flex
adhesives which are allowed by the specs will fail in this test,
particularly if they are sandwiched inside PWB materials in a rigid-flex.
Hence the high cost---yield is lower, prep requires more care and in-process
attention.

If you  have the room to do the job with flex or ribbon cable & connectors
that's surely lower cost. And modular  which means if you damage one of the
cables you can replace just it, not the whole works.  Which is why I say you
need an applications engineer--somebody who can estimate the costs of
various approaches for your review.

Tom Stearns
3 Brander Court
Nashua NH 03063
603 889 2522

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------