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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 2:16 am   #5
Argus25
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia.
Posts: 2,679
Default Re: Cutting (router) a circular flashover guard for me?

Al,

I would go with the idea of using acrylic sheet, its economic and its very hard to electrically punch through it if its 5mm or more thick, even 2mm sheet is good. The good thing too its easy to cut and work with than fiberglass, but fiberglass is stronger for thin sheets. Polycarbonate sheet also is good and has a high dielectric strength.

Many plastics companies that work with acrylic are all tooled up to cut it with nice polished edges to your liking and assemble up shapes to make large formers or any other shape you want. For these sorts of job I send the design to the local plastics company and they whip it up in a few days.

For my high voltage probe I used a material called Bramite, a unique AU product, but it has very similar properties to American insulating panels called Garolite which is a glass filled phenolic sheet, like this (sorry about the ebay reference but it shows a photo):

https://www.ebay.com/p/G-10-Phenolic...d=202010536860

(I think G-10 is pretty much like FR4)

Still these sorts of products are more expensive than acrylic or polycarbonate and usually more difficult to work with, with limited tooling.

It could possibly be worth looking into the readily available microwave oven mica sheet, easy to cut with hand shears:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-Microwa...YAAOSwuLZY2iUV

Last edited by Argus25; 23rd Nov 2017 at 2:33 am. Reason: add info
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