Epec's Blog | Electronics Manufacturing Solutions

One of the most critical design requirements for military and aerospace user interface devices is the ability to withstand high temperatures. Everything is relative, especially when it comes to what it means to be high-temperature resilient.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the heart of electronic products as they provide the conductive pathway for all the electronic components to connect and function together. As electronics become more advanced and complex, PCBs are having multiple layers sandwiched together to establish all the necessary connections.

Custom cable assemblies use various types of plugs, connector housing, and gasketing to mate and properly seal within a system. These connectors provide a way to mechanically attach to the other system components by means of a latch or a polarized connector body.

At the conclusion of our webinar, How to Properly Select LEDs for Your Keypad, we had several questions submitted to our presenter, Steven J. Goodman, User Interface and Cable Assembly Product Manager at Epec. We have compiled these questions into a readable format on our blog.

Flexible heaters are essential devices to provide heat to specific areas of an application. They are used in a wide range of industries including aerospace, medical, food service, and military. When applying heat to a surface, the right types of materials must be used for the heater. The heater must be flexible enough to bend and wrap around curved surfaces while avoiding working parts. They also have to be able to provide optimal heat transfer without damaging either the application or the heater’s elements and circuitry.

There are several reasons to choose silicone or PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE) jacketed cable when designing a custom wire harness. Both jacket constructions are known for their high-temperature resilience and extreme flexibility. The main difficulty of selecting a PTFE is the fact that they can be a bit hard to come by.

When the electronics world was preparing for the Chinese New Year (CNY) 2020, I don’t think any of us could have imagined what we would be planning for CNY 2021, and even fewer people would have predicted what we will be going to be up against in 2022.

Flexible heaters allow customers to apply heat at targeted areas at any given moment. This procedure is desired for applications for a variety of reasons, such as preventing condensation to form on instrument panels, keeping the consistency of semi-fluid materials so that they may pass through pipe systems, or keeping systems warm during extreme environmental temperatures.

Silicone is one of the most common materials used for elastomeric technologies today. Silicone elastomer is utilized across numerous industries and applications, from o-rings to cable jacketing, to cookware, to even your child’s fidget toy, silicone elastomer is chosen for its exceptional mechanical properties and low reactivity.

Dome switches are a very popular solution for use as a momentary switch. They are a good solution that provides tactile feedback that the switch has been depressed and an event registered. Many applications require a dome switch mounted to a flexible circuit board.