Isobaric expandable thermal clamp for printed circuit board

Abstract

A mounting and fastening device for electronic printed circuit boards (PCBs) in a rack of an electronic enclosure. In particular, the assembly uses an elongated clamping assembly with or without a torque limiting clutching device that may form part of the torque tightening component of the device. The fastening assembly expands transversely to fasten the PCB and maintains a proper thermal conductive path between enclosure and PCB. The expandable clamping feature of the invention has several embodiments. A first embodiment of the assembly includes at least one matching pair of a first "U" channel (2) of length similar to the PCB that is nested loosely inside a reversed second "U" channel (1) of the same length with each pair having ends of the first and second channels that have side walls cut to form open slots with opposite angles at each end, the first channel having the slots with an angle that points up (10), while the second channel's slots (9) points down; each pair has a pair of rollers (3) that are engaged with their shoulders in the first and second channel's slots; and the screw assembly (4) passes through holes in each of the rollers, the screw assembly includes a screw, a nut (5) that is threaded in contact with the end of one of the rollers, a spring (6) held by a circlip (7) in a groove pushes against a face of the nut. The screw assembly used fastening a PCB can include several embodiments of a torque limiting clutch device.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.