Thermal-Clad Metal Core PCB Material

[the_canuck]

Anyone have any experience with T-Clad from Bergquist?

I'm looking for an idea on price they charge and if there is alternatives with similar constuction.

I am working on very high powered LED design that needs to be kept nice and cool.

Once I get my PCB Gerbers I'll be talking to Burquist but for now I'd like to know how much to budget compared to FR4.

For proto's I need one panel, single sided circuit, AL base, standard finish, 1oz cu, etc. Basically nothing special, just standard FR4 specs only with T-Clad. Once I have protos tested I will adjust my requirements accordingly.

If anyone has worked with this type of board material and knows general pricing for proto quantities and don't mind sharing that would be super.

Andrew

[TMorita]

From what Ive seen , high power LED setups (10+ watts using either an SSC P7 or Osram star) need a dedicated heatsink. If you try to use a copper clad PCB for a heatsink, you will fry the LED in about five seconds.

Toshi

[Stuart B]

one ting I want to try that is cheaper is use a standard dual layer pcb using vias for the heat transfer.

I saw a thread on candlepowerforums ages ago saying it worked pretty well. A colleage of mine has used this technique for a non led application.

Stu

[AndyKunz]

It works better if you run the board through a wave to fill the vias with solder.

Andy

[the_canuck]

I plan to use large heat sink (whole enclosure will be AL finned) under the t-clad. Looking at using Cree XRE's 9 - 12 per board. 3 in series for each driver with thermocouple feedback to control current. High temps = lower currents.

I'm not super worried over cost but would like to know ball parks to calc. the cost of prototypes.

Andrew

[JohnMuchow]

I looked around for board houses that supported T-Clad last year and struck out. You might want to consider using the thinnest FR4 stock your board house of choice has, using lots of thermal vias, and placing a solid plane on the bottom of the board. Using a few choice screws and a good thermal grease, or thermal epoxy, you could mount the board directly to your heat sink.

Since you'll be mounting the T-Clad to the sink anyway, perhaps there's a way to save some $$$ here?

Just some random thoughts... :)
John

[ZAGNUT]

i had a small part in a project long ago that called for an alum backed PCB to be used, not for it's thermal properties but so it could be part of the needed enclosure. i don't remember the numbers but it came out FAR cheaper to use the thinnest FR4 we could find and stick that to a milled alum plate with transfer tape.

i agree with the others and think you should look into using a two sided FR4 board, via the crap out of it and epoxy it directly to your heatsink.

dave

[the_canuck]

FR4 with via's is just not good enough for what I want although that was considered early on before I did the heat calc.

I've compromised for the protos with 14mm t-clad disk under each LED (I can order the LED's with the t-clad disk preattached) and FR4 to carry the rest of the circuit. It's a pain to assemble with lots of little screws (2 per LED) but will work for the protos. PCB layout is not trivial this way either. In a day or so I hope to be done with the layout.

For the FR4 boards I'll cut with cnc and circuit cam. ;) 2oz single sided.

Andrew

[Tomapowa]

A very interesting brochure...

http://www.bergquistcompany.com/objects/Brochures/LED_496KB.pdf