Card-Loks and Wedge-Loks: clamping devices for printed circuit boards

Particularly harsh environmental conditions often demand special fixing components for electronics mounting systems. Now Schroff has added products of this type from its sister companies Birtcher and Calmark, both also members of the Pentair Technical Products Group, to its standard product range. If required, these products can also be customised, or custom solutions developed with them.

The Birtcher and Calmark products are primarily used for securing printed circuit boards in harsh environments such as on ships, in aircraft, on trains, in mobile communications, in the oil and gas industries and in medical equipment. A further area of use is for heat dissipation. The latest product from Calmark is a torque-limited Card-Lok retainer with a clamping force of over 1600 N. This clamping force is roughly four times greater than in other comparable products.

A further feature of this product is torque limiting, which prevents the fixing screw of the Card-Lok being overtightened. Card-Loks can be fitted using an ordinary hexagonal wrench, without the need for special tools. In addition to this locking system, Calmark's portfolio includes an extensive range of circuit board guides, other Card-Loks, retainers, insertion and extraction handles, connector accessories, PCB brackets and cooling products for commercial and military applications.

All products are designed for use in systems that must meet demanding conditions in terms of shock and vibration. Birtcher designs and produces robust printed circuit board retainers such as the familiar Wedge-Loks, insertion/extraction handles and conduction-cooled board frames for bus-based open architecture systems that require cooling.