Have to agree with Tom, on FR4 clean cut is not a simple thing. Which is why i emphasized the shape of cutting edge. (check your paper binder hole puncher , works similarly) We did the ovals on PS boards, high volume, mainly for holding of large items which we did not want to strap, straight in line wave, test, out . I remember we did go through a selection of higher resin laminates, to facilitate the cleaner cut, even than it obviously was nothing crash hot smooth, however sufficient for the mechanical purpose, without major outgassing dramas. As you can imagine, the >mechanical< coarse barrel grip we actually validated as being superior to smooth hole preferable for currents . This is horses for courses design for a mass fabrication, consumer products are actually challenging as well, just different ways (cost). Those days it was SE Degussa, i think, than mainland CH Nowadays i have a good HK fellow who could repeat it in mainland fabs at a cheap price with reasonable quality, as long as you store the boards vacuumed, which is a norm nowadays anyhow, i think . Let me know if yo serious, get yo in touch with the fab, but you have to be prepared to work with them . As Bev said once, you can have good results with SEA fabs. But Buddhist frame of mind helps to eventuate it. As far as modern high volume boards, i still keep a decade old Siemens CEM board , Double Sided copper ALL punched and dispenser filled silver polymer (1/64)vias. That was from days when i contemplated rock bottom $ fast radicals, as this DS punch, all dispensed silver, p&p and UV cure tunnel . But as Inge's finding now as well the adhesion character, performance and variability's never reached even average quality solder. However the via "cork" does have some merit as it is flexible. To punch even DS FR4 on larger holes is not that much drama, with well designed carbide dies, however as you know below1/8 it starts to be difficult to relate to press. Lord wouldn't forgive yo DS FR1, perhaps superfreezed chock cookies can be punched clean, never tried that (have to stop somewhere). In the kiss terms , keep in mind WHAT you design for, if without fill, with solder fill, with wire/tab reinforcement, coarse, smooth, let it all work for you cu Tom paul -----Original Message----- From: Tom Martin [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2000 7:44 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Phil, It's not the hole shape that is a problem, it's that the nature of a punched hole does not lend itself to plating. If someone devised a cost effective method of plating thru holes on say CEM-3 or [Lord forgive me] FR-1 double-sided PUNCHED PCBs then people who design PCBs for high-volume consumer electronics could spend evenings with their families instead of pulling their hair out trying to get single-sided PCBs and wire jumpers to approximate what a double-sided plated-thru board could accomplish with only moderate difficulty. Tom Phil Nutting <[log in to unmask]> on 06/19/2000 05:16:03 PM To: "'TechNet E-Mail Forum.'" <[log in to unmask]>, Tom Martin/TVCOM-Knoxville Design Center cc: Subject: RE: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Tom, The process of plating a hole does not care about the shape. The hole can be round, square, triangular, elliptical or a slot. It is a liquid process that is going to "stick" to whatever surface is presented. Any fab house should be able to plate any given hole. We regularly have slots which are being plated. Regards, Phil Nutting Manufacturing Engineer Kaiser Systems, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Martin [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 4:49 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Just curious Paul, Do you have access to PCB fabricators who can plate punched slots and holes? I heard of this being done on one occasion but would be pleasantly amazed to find out there is a fab house who's figured out how to do this on a regular basis. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks, Tom Martin Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 08:32:40 +1000 From: Paul Klasek <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: oval pin into oval hole MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- Or a die punch , with large volumes routing is rather slow and expensive, also the die can solve more intricate openings . Relatively easy to keep horizontal concave ground carbide tips sharp . paul -----Original Message----- From: Phil Nutting [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Saturday, 17 June 2000 4:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Richard, We have several boards that we had to design plated through slots for capacitors that either had large rectangular tabs or multiple wires going to the same hole. We used the same clearance rules that we normally would for standard round holes. Depending on your board vendor these slots might be created by drilling a series of holes or by routing. Hope this helps, Phil Nutting Manufacturing Engineer Kaiser Systems, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Hawkins [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 2:15 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Hello all, I am having trouble finding design specs for an oval component lead going into an oval hole. The component is an indictor that is about 25mm in diameter and the lead is made by soldering two 16ga wires together. The shape of the lead is more like a rectangle with a full radius at the short sides than an oval and the hole in the pcb is the same shape. My task is to evaluate a design, that is already in production, to see if it should be changed and make recommendations if so. However, I have not been able to find anything in my IPC manuals that approaches this situation. My question then, is what guidelines for layout should I use? Any help will be appreciated. Richard Hawkins ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. 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If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ##############################################################