Hi Jack - I had the opportunity of talking about drill head electronics
when I was in Australia teaching an instruction course on QFN technologies
and assembly. A  product designer was literally looking to have his entire
assembly in a QFN package (which was why he was attending the course). His
electronics were located in the drill head itself and he was measuring the
ore body for various element content (gold, silver, tin, etc.) as the drill
was boring thru the ore body (think of a XRF or SEM running in the drill
head in real time). And you'll get a kick out of this - his biggest issue
was that physics was getting in his way as his electronics were getting so
small, the physics rules of the analysis technologies (i.e. electron path,
sample densities, focal length) wouldn't work. It was a very educational
and informative discussion for me.

Dave Hillman
Rockwell Collins
[log in to unmask]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:41 AM Jack Olson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> just curious - what is the function of the circuit board at the end of the
> drill?
> I mean, what is it DOING at the bottom of the hole?
>
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:38:24 +0000, Stadem, Richard D <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >I work for a company in Norway (in my spare time, LOL) who manufactures
> downhole electronics. It is a completely different world, building
> electronics that must survive, MUST survive, in the world's harshest
> environment, quickly going from typical 16-20 deg. C then to freezing while
> in arctic water in the north Atlantic, then quickly ramping up to as hot as
> 175 C during normal all-day drilling, sometimes hotter for a short-term
> controlled drill, then it is flooded with a mix of oil and mud and gravel
> and salt water, and the shock and vibration are beyond belief. You come
> away with a different perspective on high-rel electronics than you ever had
> before, believe me.
> >
>