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Re: Glass Epoxy or Phenolic boards...where??

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4/26/2000 3:52 PM

Re: Glass Epoxy or Phenolic boards...where??

I been doing amps on both phenolic and glass epoxy, I find thick phenolic boards just as good as any epoxy board for amp use, the only advantage of phenolic board is ease of cutting, but fumes are ugly, epoxy is harder to cut and it fumes less, I got custom made boards with hole spread in the grid fashon about .250 inches apart with 3/32 holes, it make an ideal board for a amp manufactore and prototyping, because you do not have to redrill the holes if you want add or remove components from your design, also it allows you to use any components you have available, for me it makes it much easier than to drill for every amp the layout, I like the flexibility aspect of the design.
If you want I can share the board for you, I sent a couple to Speed Racer, will see what he thinks about them.
Mike Kach
M&G amplification

4/29/2000 1:17 PM
DavidB	I've been using fiberglass from a safety supply house and eyelets.very easy to mod for prototypes. Is there any advantage to using epoxyboard and turret lugs because some friends what me to build them an amp and I would like to use the best materials?Got my chassis cut at a local machine shop and those are nice, now I gotta get it all together! Regards David

4/30/2000 1:23 AM

Epoxy reinforced with glass fiber weave is better than phenolic. The thermal stability alone says enough (not to mention the electrical properties). Phenolic is a lower quality board. Can't say whether turret or eyelet is better but I know about circuit board substrate. There are a lot of different grades of epoxy/glass. Mainly different ratio of glass to epoxy and the Tg of the epoxy. Tg is the temperature in which the epoxy begin to soften. The higher the Tg the better. The cheaper stuff is about 120 C. The better is about 140 C or higher. As far as the epoxy/glass ratio, the more glass the cheaper (epoxy costs more than glass weave).

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