PINTO CAR CLUB of AMERICA
Welcome to FordPinto.com, The home of the PCCA => Parts Resources, Here is where you can find this or that. => Topic started by: douglasskemp on April 09, 2008, 10:01:06 PM
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:read: I was looking for DIY copper plating, and happened across this interesting idea. For those of us that have PCB's that are damaged, this may be worth looking into.
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Flexible-Printed-Circuits/
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Reading this, I need to ask the question - is this an item that needs to be reproduced?
I am an electronics engineer heavily involved in new product development and am closely tied with PCB and contract manufacturing. If there is a need for this board, I'd certainly be willing to spearhead it, since I have a good deal of knowledge in this arena.
Anyone?
Chris
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I would think the white plastic it attaches to would have more demand.
Bill
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I would think the white plastic it attaches to would have more demand.
Bill
I agree ;D
I have seen posts people asking for replacements.. . I may need one soon for my 78 if I'm not careful. It's cracked and the speedo is a little sloppy in there because of where the break is.
I would think the PCB part is very durable and unless there is a short/fire it would last forever (almost)
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I agree with Cookieboy and Bill.Mine fell apart years ago.I went with after market gauges.I tied them together using the factory circuit board.Works well enough.
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I too would also agree. On the 78 I used to have it fell apart so I bought one, and when I got the 77 its cluster also fell apart. I kept the one from the 78 so I was good.\, but would have been screwed if I hadn't. Even if the board does get a little flimsy like mine is, it still works ok, but if the plastic housing for the gauges falls apart like they all seem to, you are up a creek without a paddle.
I don't see why someone can't get a mold made of one so they can be reproduced. Just my opinion.
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I don't see why someone can't get a mold made of one so they can be reproduced. Just my opinion.
Matt, anything can be done but the setup cost for plastic injection moulding is very high as I recall from way back when I used to work for a manufacturing company that did it. The only way they could make money was to make lots-and-lots and waste wasn't allowed because the margins were terrible. it was however 20+ years ago so prices could change but...
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I gotcha. Learn something new everyday.
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I would think the white plastic it attaches to would have more demand.
Bill
I agree
I agree with Cookieboy and Bill.
I too would also agree.
No one is debating that. That is not why I started this thread. I started it to help those of us that MIGHT have a need for it.
For those that MIGHT have a need for plastic reproductions, I MIGHT have a lead on that as well, but I am gathering more info before I go public with my findings lest they be nay said into oblivion by something even MORE desirable.
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Sorry Doug, my post was a reply to PopB.
I have ONE PCB with damage but ALL the white plastic parts I have (15+) have at least some deterioration.
Bill
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I will agree the whit plastic part goes bad. My 76 was crumbling like sand. I replaced it with a different one.
Just a side note I did find one from a 72 or 73 and it showed no signs of deterioration. but the main plug on the circuit board is different.
phils toys
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OK, so continuing with trying to be resourceful... ;D.....does anyone have this plastic part/parts INTACT that I could take a look at? Reason - I have done a lot of urethane casting and molding, and think I might be able to come up with something reaonable and "inexpensive" here. Even a couple of pics would help - please let me know, thanks.
Chris
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I have a few Chris...I'll round them up....
I have 3 or 4 versions of the speedo cluster including the tach option
FrankBoss
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Outstanding Frank. LMK when you are ready and I'll send you a message with my mailing address. This is worth a look, from what I gather here. Thanks!
Chris
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Hey fellas. Has there been any recent movement on this? I have a 78 CW and am desperately seeking an instrument cluster that isn't crumbling to pieces. Mine is still working but the lights for the guages are starting to flicker and short. If I jiggle the fan control switch they come back on. Electricity scares and confuses me. Thanks in advance.
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I see that this must be the most highly needed plastic part, the white instrument mount. So Chris do you need more to copy and sounds like Bill has extra he could send. Fred ???
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Sorry Fred, I am such a slacker :-\. I have too many projects in the works and this one has quietly slipped away. For those who are "keeping score", I am planning to take a master unit (as supplied from Fred), make a two piece RTV rubber mold from it, and cast new pieces in urethane.
Initial review of the part shows some interesting undercuts and holes that need to be addressed in the mold. What will probably happen is that I will end up wiith functional units that will not be exactly like the originals, but very, very close. My ONLY concern at this point is if the repro will have adequate strength. I may need to toy with the thickness of it.
Alright, I kind of ranted here, I have some loose projects to tie up and then I will start working on these. Again, sorry for the delay.
Chris
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Looking forward to when you have the piece made. Mine is in good shape but it couldn't hurt to have a spare for when it finally gives out.
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I have a 76 Pinto and need a cluster gauge. If anyone has one for sale, I would be interested.
Beer Nut
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Mine if I ask a dumb question? Can they be made from fiberglass?
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No. These are reasonably complex pieces that would require an original plastic extrusion mold or some other type of molding.
Chris
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Guys, Ladies.
I was absent from the board from July 2008 until April 2009. Lots of things happening which prevented me from logging on.
Some of you may remember that I work in plastics. Back in June 2008, I posted something which I will paste below, which may help shed some light on the economics of manufacturing plastic parts in small runs.
Before I get to that, the look of the site has changed while I was away. I have been able to reply to a couple of posts, including this one, but I am UNABLE TO FIND HOW TO START A NEW POST. Please help.
Here is what I have written in June 2008. I have seen how some of you have used something which had been written previously and pasted it in a coloured box. I don't know how to do that either.
Here is what I wrote last year:
“Some of you wanted to know more about plastics. There are two kinds; thermosets and thermoplastics .
Thermosets are used where extreme heat requirements need to be met. An example would be the ashtray in my wife 2001 Taurus wagon. The tip of a cigarette is roughly 900 degrees F and will melt any thermoplastic. This kind cannot be remelted after it has been given a shape so that is ideal for an ashtray.
Another example for thermosets is a boat. A fiberglass boat (or a Chevy Corvette for that matter) is really a thermoset polyester structure reinforced with a woven glass mat. Boats are generally small production runs (a few hundred per model), and thermoset polyesters can be manually layered onto a pattern (typically a wooden mould) and allowed to harden to match the shape of that pattern.
Pretty much everything else is thermoplastics (that is what I work in). In thermoplastics, there are several processes. A process like rotational moulding has low tooling cost and is therefore used for low production volumes (say a few thousand parts per year). Processing costs are high (highly labour intensive).
A process like injection moulding has low processing costs per part, but when you build a mould, you may be looking at 50, 100, 150 thousand dollars, depending on the complexity. When you build one of these, you are looking at making hundreds of thousand parts per year, sometimes several millions of parts per year (imagine 64 bottle caps every 5 seconds, 24/7). A mould like that would cost a half million dollars, and would run on a million+ dollar machine.
Here is the question you all want to ask. You have this broken or missing part you want to replace, Maybe you can get together with other Pinto nuts and split the cost. Can you build a mould and do that?
Technically yes, but the tooling cost is staggering. Once you have your mould, you will be looking for a moulder to colour match and mould this part. Typically, unless you want at least 5000 parts, nobody will touch it (or you will be getting your one part, but still paying for 5000).
Plastics allow my big 2006 Chevy Impala (sorry - company car - I only get to pick the colour) to get 45 miles per gallon doing 60 on the highway. That big thing only weighs maybe 3200 lbs. It is however a disposable car, along with everything that was built since the late seventies. These modern cars will never be economically restorable (aside from taking good parts from a donour car).
When things were made out of metal, you could reproduce them if you had enough talent and patience. You did not have to spend huge amounts of money. That fabricated part was made to replace an original part which was expensive to produce; plastics changed that. However that only works when you need to mass produce something. Plastics will always beat metals for part cost when the numbers are large.
The enemy of metal is corrosion caused by oxygen and moisture. The enemies of plastics are degradation caused by oxygen, prolonged heat exposure, some chemicals (depends on the plastic), and in the case of car parts, ultraviolet rays (sunlight).
Keep your plastic questions coming. Plastics are fantastic.”
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Welcome back Pierre
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Hi Pierre:
Welcome back. I recall this message "way back when". For the sake of clarity, and again to address the original poster, when I refer to "molding", I am not specifically driving towards the original, costly process you outline. These dash clusters COULD be done with urethane pours and silicon molds, and would cost far less. I have done a lot of urethane molding, but alas, I am so buried in my own car restoration that I have had little time to really make the effort towards doing it.
Chris
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I don't have experience with cast urethane. I have only seen it in foam (the yellow foam inside of a life ring used on a boat or from a dock).
I am still unable to start a new post. Something changed. How do I do that? Anyone?
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The cast urethanes that I use are two part systems that are mixed 1:1, and are thermoset - the chemical reaction between the two parts makes the material very warm and it cures quickly - even moreso in a warm room.
Urethanes are rather versatile - they can even come in "clear" - and can be painted, vacuum metalized, drilled, tapped, sawed, carved, sanded, etc. They are EXTREMELY useful for modeling purposes.
On a large scale, urethanes get a little more expensive, since the cost is relative to the size of the silicon mold, the debubbling vacuum, and the volume of material itself. It's not as expensive as a machined die, but dies are superior in length of life vs. a mold.
Chris