PCB Screws? How to Mount PCBs With and Without Screws 3D Printer needed FreeCAD & Fusion 360

fasten circuit boards in your housing of course you can do it this way but i always get upset when i see something like that if you have a 3d printer here are two ways how to fasten a circuit board in the housing a real classic way and a super cool new hot hipster tick tock method without any screws at all but with the help of these little bodies here and i will show both to you after the intro [Music] hey today it's about the following situation we have created a beautiful project something with a nice housing and the microcontroller has to be attached into it so how can you properly fasten your pcb or your microcontroller into your case for this exact situation i have created a project in freecad and fusion 360. you can find the link to the files in the video description below the classical source is of course screwing for this you need such spacers which have a hole suitable for the screw in my cad files i have created such a spacer which you can adapt to your dimensions really really quick i'm going to show you how to adapt these to your needs in freecad and fusion 360. alright download the zip file from the link in the video description and unzip it open the freecad file you can see the buddy pcb socket in the combo view on the left we will come to the other body pcb clip in a moment i have hidden it for now if you click on the pcb socket once it should be displayed in the 3d view the adjustment is really easy i built the cat model with parameters so you only have to adjust three numbers in a spreadsheet done click once on this pcb socket spreadsheet and it opens in the spreadsheet editor it's kind of like xlr numbers here all important dimensions for the spacer are stored and can be adjusted in the column value you enter your dimensions in screw hole diameter enter the diameter of the screw for an m3 screw i would enter three millimeters wall thickness is the thickness of the cylinder wall and socket height is the height of the spacer you should adjust this if there are taller components on the bottom side of the board when you have entered your values click once again on the body pcb socket and in the 3d view you should already see the adjusted spacer in the menu click on file and export and save the whole thing as an stl file now you can send this file to your 3d printer now let's have a look on fusion 360. open the fusion 360 archive file in fusion [Music] in the project browser's buddies section i will hide the hipster one for now open the parameter spreadsheet with this fx button at the top here we find the same three parameters for the screw diameter the wall thickness of the cylinder and the height of the spacer just enter the values as needed to export an stl for 3d printing in the menu go to file 3d print make sure to select the body you want to print in this case the spacer object you can send it directly to your slicer like cura or if you want to export to an stl file then uncheck this box sent to 3d print utility and click ok [Music] after you have printed four of these spaces screw them to your board first and finally glue the spacers into your housing be patient while the glue dries and your classic board fastening with spacers is ready to go ah screws are sometimes annoying because the right screw is often not available in sufficient quality besides you have to drive them forever especially in the prototype phase you have to remove your board with a microcontroller all the time so i constructed something to make this easier i call the whole thing pcb clips in fact i did a lot of tests and iterations to get the right design here you can see my test slide for the different designs pcb stands for printed circuit board i use this term as a generic term for all pcbs that can be used in your project be it etched circuit boards breadboards or even circuit boards from the 3d printer like i showed in this video warning this video link might point to my german youtube channel my german youtube channel is currently a little ahead of time compared to the english one of course as soon as the english video is available i will exchange the links accordingly thank you the adjustment is just as easy as with the spaces this time we can interactively see how the part adopts by displaying the 3d view and the spreadsheet at the same time side by side click once on pcb socket so that it is selected and press the space bar to hide this 3d object select a pcb clip and press the space bar to show this 3d object now click once on the pcb clip spreadsheet and close the other pcb socket spreadsheet in the window tab bar in that bar you should only see the tab spreadsheet pcb clip and this pcb mode now in the menu select windows and tile and all open windows are displayed side by side you need the length of one of the sides of the board usually this will be the narrower side then you need the thickness of the board for my boards i always measured 1.6 millimeters which seems to be the standard for pcbs if you use for example one of my 3d printed boards these are much thicker of course the last thing you have to check is if there are any components on the bottom side of the board that are very tall so we need the minimum distance between the board and the lower side of the clip in the column value you enter your dimensions pcb size is the value for the pcb length pcb thickness is the value for well the thickness of the pcb and distance to base is the distance to the bottom of the clip technically 3d printers have some tolerances in their printouts besides there are expansions and it also depends on the used slicer profile how precise the printer will be that is why i always add 0.4 millimeters to the pcb size and the pcb thickness this still clamps quite well but it's not too tight you may have to try out what works best for you fortunately the clips are printed quite quickly small example the measured thickness of the pcb is 1.6 millimeters i add 0.4 millimeters so i insert the final value of 2 millimeters in that corresponding field if you want to you can also adjust the clip thickness to make it more or less sturdier i have had good experience with four millimeters for petg the clip is still flexible enough but does not break right away to export again check that the pcb clip body is selected in the combo view if not click it once so that freecad knows what should be exported now in order to export this file you first need to like this video subscribe to my channel and activate the bell shameless i know now to really export this in the menu use file export and save as an stl in fusion 360 use the eye icon in the body's section to hide the pcb spacer object and show the pcb clip again use this fx button to open the spreadsheet here we have the same parameters as i just explained for freecad to change the dimensions of the pcp clip to your needs again in the menu use file and 3d print to export to an stl file or send it directly to your slicer after printing check if everything fits if everything looks good leave the clips clamped to the pcb and glue the clips now as you want it the main thing is that it holds well but that is what gluing is all about i guess when the glue is dry you can simply clip the pcb out and back in as needed so cool very important to know we need two pcb clips to hold a pcb the second pcb clip must be mirrored you can do this in the slicer every slicer should have a tool to mirror a 3d object on a certain axis do not forget before printing the second clip a word about the filament of course you need a filament that does not break quickly so pla is not the right choice i recommend petg or nylon they are quite flexible do not break quickly and are not so demanding when printing abs would probably also work but it's more like the easter mong filaments must not get too cold no drafts so it's best to print only in the closed housing otherwise it warps and besides it stinks quite unhealthy when heated it gives me a headache so i don't use abs anymore and that brings us to the end of this video i hope one or the other tries out the clips write in the comments if they work or if you have problems if you like the idea of the clips click the thumbs up if you like the video please subscribe to my channel and activate the alarm to make me happy keep tinkering stay healthy i have to go shovel snow now bye [Music] oh oh we need to build a tool for then something with lasers

Channel: raydiy

Views: 129

Keywords: how to, 3d printing, fusion 360, freecad 0.19, freecad 0.19 tutorials for beginners, freecad tutorial for 3d printing, fusion 360 tutorial, fusion 360 for beginners, fusion 360 3d printing, diy projects, diy, pcb screws, pcb design, pcb, cad, microcontroller projects, microcontroller, esp, esp32, esp8266, arduino

Id: 6KTznAQglPs

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021