Steve- I would use a foot operated eyelet press for that job. We have a Stimpson foot operated job which would be perfect for it. Don't know if they are available--ours is about 20yrs young. Wayne Thayer -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Gregory Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:09 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Suggestions for Pressing in Pins... Good Morning Everyone! We build a ruggedized multi-purpose meter here...it's quite a piece of work I must say. Here's a photo of the finished meter: http://stevezeva.homestead.com/files/Potted_Assembly.jpg It's a stack-up of five assemblies: http://stevezeva.homestead.com/files/Completed_Stack-up.jpg then the whole thing goes inside the box and then potted with some optically clear epoxy so that the LCD is nicely visible. My issue is with what is called the interface assembly: http://stevezeva.homestead.com/files/Interface_Assembly.jpg As you can see in the photo, there are 35 custom pins that are pressed into the PCB, one-by-one, by a hand held tool that we had made: http://stevezeva.homestead.com/files/Tool_and_Pins.jpg Actually, they are lightly tapped into the board with a small rubber hammer. The board sits on top of a teflon support block and the pins are tapped in using the tool. The pins have to be pressed into place because they are the main part of the "structure" of the stack-up, and they keep everything aligned and perpendicular so it fits properly into the box. I think we can do better than tapping them into place... I'm thinking about getting a nice precise hand press and making a ram for it that will hold the pins like this hand tool does, then making a support block for the board that is movable beneath the ram to locate each pin. I think it will be too much to try and come up with something that can press them in all at once, or is it? We don't build a ton of these, but we do enough of them that I would like to come up with something that is easier and more consistent than the way we do things now. So I'm humbly asking for suggestions. I'm looking at a press from Tox Pressotechnik, are there any others I should look at? Kind regards, Steve Gregory --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/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 -----------------------------------------------------