Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design SMT Electronics Assembly Manufacturing Forum

Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design Forum

SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


Rivscrew� Good Bad Ugly

#31286

Rivscrew� Good Bad Ugly | 9 November, 2004

Some GD saleman [Oops, make that very nice saleman. He took me along for lunch.][Just kidding, all you sales types out there. You know how much I like to put burrs under your saddles. ;-) We kid because we care.] got into the catacombs to wake-up our engineers and talk to them about screws.

Anyhow, we're trying to assess this, new to us [they've been around for a year and a half or so], fastening product. Actually, it seems pretty cool. [Well, cool from a gearhead stand-point, you know!!! Shuddap!!!]

What are your experiences with Rivscrew� [ http://www.avdel.textron.com/index.htm?products/speed/rivscrew.htm ] when attaching part to circuit boards? We're thinking maybe the hot tin dipped brass.

What suppliers provide comparable parts?

What special tooling is required? How much does it cost?

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Dave G

#31305

Rivscrew� Good Bad Ugly | 10 November, 2004

Let's go for Ugly..... I've used these in the past for attaching connectors to boards and tabbed Transistors to extruded Aluminum heatsinks with mixed results. The concept is great but, in practice there are some headaches to deal with. We've gotten rid of these on all of our newer designs and went to roll thread forming screws instead.

They work ok if you can get good control of hole sizes in the material you are installing them into. Tooling isn't that expensive. About 2.5k USD for the tool & a pantograph arm. (That's what I spent in 2000 - my guess is it's probably a bit more these days) You'll spend a little additional $$ on mandrels as they wear out from time to time. Selecting the right Rivscrew for the material & Selecting the correct mandrel for that installation goes a long way to make them work better. We had problems early on where Engineering didn't spec(Tol) the hole size correctly and the rivscrews were pulling out due to an inadequate amount of thread formation.

Hope this helps,

Dave G

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