How to glue down an SD card breakout board?

ElectricAye · 2009-01-29 19:14

Hey all,

I've got an SD card breakout board from SparkFun, and I'd like to secure it to the inside of a metal enclosure. Except for some exposed pins that I need to keep away from the enclosure, the bottom of the breakout board is smooth, flat PC board material. I was wondering how to glue this down. Would plain epoxy work okay? Superglue? Chewing gum maybe?

Comments and suggestions greatly appreciated.

thanks,
Mark

www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=204

SRLM · 2009-01-29 19:24

Try this website:

http://www.thistothat.com/

Mike Green · 2009-01-29 19:26

I tend to use either epoxy or silicone rubber for this sort of thing because of the bulk and, for the silicone, the flexibility. Superglue tends to be rigid and the film is thin. Because of the need to insert and remove SD cards, the adhesion may break more easily than with the epoxy.

Ugha · 2009-01-29 19:42

Hot glue... always hot glue.
It's non-conductive, holds well on everything except metal, and holds halfway decent on metal.

It can be scraped off fairly easily with an xacto knife and its completely non-toxic.

I love the stuff... As you can most likely tell by all the pics of my robot.

ElectricAye · 2009-01-29 20:28

Mike Green said...
I tend to use either epoxy or silicone rubber...

Mike,

is this the same silicone rubber people use for fixing gaps in windows and doors, like what they sell at Home Depot? or something fancier?

thanks,
Mark

mirror · 2009-01-29 21:27

Sorry, but I can't second hot glue. I have found it to be quite unreliable - it comes unstuck when subject to vibration.

I'm with Mike - I use a 5 minutes 2-part epoxy for stuff that doesn't need to come unstuck.

My second choice is silcone sealant - which really does stick to evrything rather well. I use "Selleys Wet Area Silicone Sealant", the most important thing is to get a sealant that's marked as non-corrosive; this is VERY important as the corrosive ones will eat electronics and plastics. The corrosive one has the vinegar smell. The other option is an electornics-grade two-part silicone but that costs about 10 times more than the Selleys.

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SRLM · 2009-01-29 23:46

I used to use hot glue for everything (models, buildings, quick jobs,...) But I really didn't like how messy it was. Now I just bolt everything together. It takes more time, but you can assemble and dissemble it as many times as you like quite easily.

MovieMaker · 2009-01-30 03:02

There are different types of hot melt glue. The clear kind doesn't hold very well all the way to the dark yellow kind. It holds good.

WBA Consulting · 2009-01-30 06:22

A common way to mount items inside plastic enclosures without hardware is doublesided foam tape. A project I worked on a while back actually called for 3M command strips to mount a DC-DC power supply PCB that was about 3" square. At first I was uncertain of that holding very well, but we took a failed power supply, stuck it on, and dropped it from 8 feet; didn't budge. When I opened a no-name brand LCD to harvest the panel a few months ago, the inverter board was mounted to the back of the LCD the same way.

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Andrew Williams
WBA Consulting
IT / Web / PCB / Audio

ElectricAye · 2009-01-31 16:08

Thanks to all for your inputs on this.

If only Sparkfun had a put a couple of flanges or something to screw onto, then mounting this sucker wouldn't be so annoying. (That's a hint to all you board developing types out there: for me, getting things mounted and connected seems to take 2x as much time as wiring the circuits - ugg.)

cheers,
Mark