The New Universal Stiffener™

Fast Rivet Assembly For Printed Circuit Boards

Compufab developed a New Universal Stiffener which does all the things a PCB stiffener should do, with the added advantage of time saving rivet assembly.  The stiffeners are designed specifically to use Avdel Textron Inc. Briv® 1800 series rivets.

Dimensions and hardware information.

Large PCB's require a mechanical stiffener to reduce warp and bow when handling.  Stiffeners are a must to eliminate dangerous deflection due to vibration and bending and to assure good guidance of a PCB into its backplane connector.

The obvious construction for a stiffener is a rectangular bar with drilled and tapped holes.  Most PCB stiffeners are just that, but drilling and tapping holes in a bar is expensive.  Assembling with screws is time consuming.

Compufab has reduced this assembly time with the design of an ingenious bar shape that will accept a rivet anywhere along its length.  Experience has shown that most existing PCB designs using stiffeners can adopt this new stiffener with no changes.  Check other advantages listed below which also may improve your design.

• Same bar will mount on PCB's with different hole locations.
• Eliminate close tolerances between mounting holes on PCB's.
• In most cases, this stiffener will occupy less PCB precious real estate.
• Can be mounted over insulated spacers to clear copper traces or wire adds.
• Can be anodized different colors for coding.
• Ideal PCB label area, when used on rear edge of PCB.
• Strong and light-weight.
• Clean, professional appearance.
• Rivet mounting reduces assembly time.
• Can also be used as a heat sink or power/ground bus.

The Universal Printed Circuit Board Stiffener system has been operated and tested under severe vibration conditions.

 Dimensions and hardware information.