Brian Kenney
Newbie level 1
Hello All,
I need to design a board for pyrotechnics application and am having trouble finding definitive answers for the trace width and clearance sizing.
In one case a 24 V circuit could spike to about 12 Amps, the longest this pulse would last is 30 ms, it wouldn't fire again until there was plenty of time to cool off. Most of the calculators available online only calculate for a steady current draw. Given 2 oz cu/ft^2, what would be a safe trace width?
The other case would be where a Capacitive Discharge system would be used for firing. The voltage again would be 400 Volts. I would be using ENIG finish. The best reference is https://www.smps.us/pcbtracespacing.html. The calculator tells me that a coated finish I could use a clearance of .031" (Board is very tight), however I am unsure what coating that is? I was told that a soldermask would increase likelyhood of arching rather than decrease. I need to know what kind of coat that is referring to so I can look for pcb places that can produce it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Brian
I need to design a board for pyrotechnics application and am having trouble finding definitive answers for the trace width and clearance sizing.
In one case a 24 V circuit could spike to about 12 Amps, the longest this pulse would last is 30 ms, it wouldn't fire again until there was plenty of time to cool off. Most of the calculators available online only calculate for a steady current draw. Given 2 oz cu/ft^2, what would be a safe trace width?
The other case would be where a Capacitive Discharge system would be used for firing. The voltage again would be 400 Volts. I would be using ENIG finish. The best reference is https://www.smps.us/pcbtracespacing.html. The calculator tells me that a coated finish I could use a clearance of .031" (Board is very tight), however I am unsure what coating that is? I was told that a soldermask would increase likelyhood of arching rather than decrease. I need to know what kind of coat that is referring to so I can look for pcb places that can produce it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Brian