I am designing various EMC filters that will need to be housed in steel. Usually sheet metal suppliers only go as low as 0.9mm but this is really thick and heavy for my needs. i am thinking more like the sort of metal used in RF cans and boxes in TV's. Is there anyone that supplies this sort of stuff?
The only sheet steel I could find at my local Home Despot is 0.6mm.
i am in the UK and we need to buy it by the 1x1m or larger sheet to put on a laser.
Look for shim steel instead of sheet steel. Goes down to 0.05mm
Not sure what sort you need but you can get CS4 mild steel for cold forming relatively cheaply. Only pain is it usually comes in strips rather than large 1m sheets
Well basically steel will make a better enclosure than aluminium which is our go to material but it's heavy and for the frequencies involved something sensibly thin will be fine. "sheet" metal can be got at down to 30swg or about 0.35mm but not one actually stocks it or they want silly money for it.
Indeed. The thinner it gets the more expensive it gets. Another fine engineering trade off to deal with
Nothing off the shelf you can get?
Roof flashing gets thinner than that, but it's zinc galvanized which sucks for solderability. Also is probably in roll form, which sucks for flatness (does the laser cutter have a vacuum bed or anything?).
Hardware stores at least around here, only seem to have the tiny decorative pieces, super expensive for what they are. That, but industrial sized, would be great. You'll have to look around real suppliers, maybe order a few kilos worth (hopefully less than a tonne?).
Tim
Indeed. The thinner it gets the more expensive it gets. Another fine engineering trade off to deal with
Nothing off the shelf you can get?
Well that is what i am looking for. The usual metal suppliers go down to 0.9mm and don't like getting anything else. I can just stick with that or if it's just the case that I am asking the wrong people try and go thinner.
Try looking for Tinplate. Its available down to about 0.1mm and around 0.2mm is readily available. Because the steel is electroplated with tin, it solders like a dream. However you certainly wont be able to get large sheets in small quantities at a good price owing to the difficulty of keeping them flat and un-dinged in shipping.
Try looking for Tinplate. Its available down to about 0.1mm and around 0.2mm is readily available. Because the steel is electroplated with tin, it solders like a dream. However you certainly wont be able to get large sheets in small quantities at a good price owing to the difficulty of keeping them flat and un-dinged in shipping.
Heinz bean tins are quite good for that on one offs. Also free beans
You can find thin 'shim stock' in various metals on eBay and then cut out by hand with tin snips. Don't forget to deburr the edges though because it'll be properly sharp.
Another cheap possibility - if stainless has the required EMC characteristics - is to design a foldable can (in Fusion 360 for example) and have it cut for you as a solder paste stencil. I've, for example, created electrode designs that way. Some shops will be a bit reluctant to do an unusual stencil like this - but some are fine with it.
Alan
Try looking for Tinplate. Its available down to about 0.1mm and around 0.2mm is readily available. Because the steel is electroplated with tin, it solders like a dream. However you certainly wont be able to get large sheets in small quantities at a good price owing to the difficulty of keeping them flat and un-dinged in shipping.
Heinz bean tins are quite good for that on one offs. Also free beans
Unfortunately despite the free beans we need this to be manufacturable in quantities.
Well it's to put a PCB into. I was hoping to got the sheet material and we make the boxes like we usually do.
Will be cheaper to just use ready made shielding cans that you can buy at Mouser/Digikey/etc than laser cutting and making a die to bend the sheet into the required form..
Shim stock is usually the easy way to get modest amounts of thin steel stock, for example:
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/00056200, or spring tempered steel:
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/00053082 The next opportunity is specialist suppliers, for example:
https://www.thinmetalsales.com/ that likely will require high volume purchases. The trick here is going to be finding the right specialist supplier. You may need to do some networking to find the right supplier. The big concern here is the volume requirement but the same supplier likely might have a big scrap bin of drops.
Another possibility is finding a local sheet metal shop. One possibility is a shop that does laser work for the electronics industry. This might be especially useful if the shop does stencil work. A Shop doing custom chassis work is also worth looking for.
I am designing various EMC filters that will need to be housed in steel. Usually sheet metal suppliers only go as low as 0.9mm but this is really thick and heavy for my needs. i am thinking more like the sort of metal used in RF cans and boxes in TV's. Is there anyone that supplies this sort of stuff?
For small quantity, look for shim stock. I buy rolls of it in .003" (~.076 mm) thickness, but in brass. But, I'm pretty sure you can get shim stock in steel, also.
Jon