Automotive Terminal Design & High-Speed Stamping Project
At INTRICATE, we are an innovative company that partners with our customers to develop complete solutions that support the design and manufacture of their end products. We manufactured the four unique terminals shown here for use in a PCB assembly in the intelligently designed Ford-F150 pickup. As one of the best-selling vehicles, these components needed to be manufactured with an elevated level of quality in large enough volume to keep pace with the thousands of trucks rolling off the assembly line.
These four terminals incorporate press-fit technology features for mating to the circuit board. Constructed from .0315" thick C-19210 copper alloy, we designed and built a modular progressive die that would stamp them with precision accuracy and repeatability through millions of cycles on our high-speed Bruderer press. We subcontracted the plating, of the parts, with an electrodeposited 0.76-2.0 µm nickel underplate followed by a 1.0 - 2.5 µm tin top plate for optimal electrical and wear properties.
In addition to micro-sectioning each terminal, we leveraged our solid background in connector engineering and technology to build a special resistance test cell to evaluate the current carrying capacity and electrical resistance as well as a load cell test station to measure insertion and removal forces.
Current production of these components is upwards of 30 million per year, shipped fully tested and ready for assembly. They satisfy the requirements of the customer specification as well as the technical specifications of SAE standards.
If you are interested in more information about this project, please see the table below, or contact us directly.