Cutting those 20mm boards down to size

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

OK, sure, this is soon to be obsolete, with good 16mm boards showing up more and more, but still sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I always find this kind of thing tricky. It can be done with some careful measuring and scribing, but I seem to screw it up all too often. You can try to align the two boards and clamp them, but they always seem to slip at just the wrong time, or something else goes wrong.

So solder them together! Solder paste, a bigger blob than you'd typically use for a bare emitter, heat, and if you have the right amount of paste, the lighter 16mm board will snap into place just like a LED does. Then you have a template in place that ain't going nowhere until you're done.

2

Ha! I laughed out to myself when I read your description of how they always seem to slip...

What a brilliant yet simple idea! Bravo! And thank you Sir.

3

Good Idea!

4

Clever idea.

5

that is a great idea, thanks for sharing.

6

Ingenious! Have to try that before you apply for the patent .

7

Ha! Holy crap, you mean I finally came up with something everybody else didn't already know about 3 years ago?

8

that’s a great idea

especially since I’ve got so many (useless) aluminum pcbs now :slight_smile:

9

nice idea comfy chair, I like your sig too, cant imagine what inspired that…. :bigsmile:

10

Great thanks for sharing…

11

Oh, and one other thing: With the disposable AL board on top, you can clamp onto it with the vise grips and it protects the top of the copper goodies underneath.

12

Good idea. Well done.

13

Very clever. Has anyone tried a golf cleat wrench to see how it fits on a board. Might be an easy way to spin it true.

14

That's brilliant! My first attempt at cutting a 20mm Sinkpad down to 16mm ended up being a deformed hexagon of some sort. This should make it easier

15

Yes I did mean that! Although I don't think you are being fair to yourself when you say "finally". It is a great idea!