Do you know if this plug for gold wire is still selling on the market?

[LCSphysicist]

TL;DR Summary

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We are dealing with extremelly thin (radius of order in mm) wires of gold at the project i am. It is necessary to plug these wires at a copper plataform.

We have think two ways to do that: To weld it, or, to buy a plug that allow us to do that.

SInce to weld it is the second option, we are searching if the plugs are still on selling/on market. The idea of using a plug was from the manufactory's sir. He has showed to us a image of the plugs he talked about (aparently, he has used it, but was a long time ago, so he is not sure if it still exist):

(outside the apparatus)

(inside the apparatus)Do you know it? (Maybe the commercial name, or a place to buy it)

Thank you.

 

[Baluncore]

Is it soldered or crimp like a bootlace ferrule?
What diameter wire?
What material wire?
What diameter external terminal?

https://www.digikey.com.au/en/products/filter/terminals-pc-pin-single-post-connectors/323
Search in results for “insulated”.

 

[LCSphysicist]

Is it soldered or crimp like a bootlace ferrule?
What diameter wire?
What material wire?
What diameter external terminal?

https://www.digikey.com.au/en/products/filter/terminals-pc-pin-single-post-connectors/323
Search in results for “insulated”.

It is crimp. The wire is made of gold.
This site is a good reference! THank you. I will go on searching for.

 

[Baluncore]

The wire is made of gold, and the diameter is 25mm.

A one-inch diameter gold bar.

 

[LCSphysicist]

A one-inch diameter gold bar.

Yeah. My sorry, i have wrote it wrong. Actually is $25 \mu m$

 

[LCSphysicist]

Ok. Someone has moved my topic to a place where i think it should not belong. As always, i think i was not clear enough to clarify my ideas/questions. Let me try to be more specific.

We have a lot of thin wires made of gold, whose diameter is $25 \mu m$. These wires need to be connected to a plataform, and here is the main point. We could, like a circuit, to weld the wires at the plataform. The problem is that they are too thin, and they should all be tensioned. To weld it will demand copper, and we need this copper to do another things, so we have decided that to weld is the last option.
The other idea, which is the focus of this topic, is to make little holes at the plataform, so that these wires, instead being connected to the plataform, pass through it. We would use these material at the question to hold/tie the wires.
Essentially, these materials are equivalent to use bushings to hold nails. Instead of nails, we have thin wires, and instead of bushings, we would have this material at the OP.

 

[anorlunda]

I'm trying to make sense of your question. It is as clear as mud.

We would use these material at the question

What materials? What does "at the question" mean?

These wires need to be connected to a plataform

instead being connected to the plataform

Do they need to be connected or not?

We could, like a circuit, to weld the wires at the plataform

so we have decided that to weld is the last option.

Contradictory.

we would have this material at the OP.

What is the OP?

 

[berkeman]

Ok. Someone has moved my topic to a place where i think it should not belong. As always, i think i was not clear enough to clarify my ideas/questions.

I moved it to the EE forum because it looked like you were making electrical connections. Are these just mechanical connections for some reason? Can you please tell us *exactly* what you are trying to do? What is the application? Thank you.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I'm trying to make sense of your question. It is as clear as mud.

I agree.The OP has an idea about his project but is only trying to ask a specific question about it.
Welding is not the only option for bonding gold. Gold jewelry is usually assembled from parts using appropriate grades of gold solder. It's sometimes referred to as brazing too. If you need many gold wires to be soldered into holes in a plate (brass / gold / what?) then they could all be inserted, 'dry' into their holes (some steady work holding necessary) and then solder would be flowed onto the back of the base with a suitable flux and of solder alloy. (This is very similar to the way printed circuit electronics boards are made these days.) All the wires would become bonded at the same time.
It's already been stated that the details of the construction are needed if we are to go any further. How many wires, what spacing, what is the material of the base etc. ? If the OP is shy of describing the project then he may have to be disappointed that we can't help him more.
PS is the OP worried about the temperatures involved? Appropriate grades of solder would solve that problem.

 

[Baluncore]

@LCSphysicist
The tungsten corona wires in photocopiers are mounted with a preset tension. You might look for the insulated pins used in earlier photocopiers and laser printers to support those wires. Ask an older technician what terminal was used in the first generation machines.

If you want a spring-loaded termination that will maintain tension on the wire then you might adapt a test probe or pogo pin.
Search eBay for; “pogo pins”, Or; “spring test probe”.
You may have to;
1. Reverse the pin to change compression to tension
2. Fabricate an inner crimp tube.
3. Find or make the outer insulation sleeve.

 

[Tom.G]

Gold wire about the diameter you are using, 25μm, is friction welded in manufacturing Integrated Circuits.

Here is a 15 minute video about the process and needed equipment.


The machine being used is fairly recent technology, relatively speaking. I understand the current technology uses a computer vision system to identify the bonding pads and, I suspect, also to do visual inspection of each bond.

When I was doing maintenance on wire bonders in the late '60s the only automation was temperature control of the welding tip, and the workpiece was heated with a hot gas flowing thru the welding tip.

The machines were manually operated with the operator viewing the work thru a binocular (stereo?) microscope, the positioning was a via a 'mouse' that was extremely low-tech. The 'mouse', or puck, was mechanically linked to the work thru a linkage that reduced the hand movement from 'people friendly' down to the tiny size of the workpiece, either an IC or a transistor.

I never could figure out how the operators could tolerate spending a whole work shift sitting in front of those machines!

(video found with:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=wire+bonding+machine)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[f95toli]

The machine being used is fairly recent technology, relatively speaking. I understand the current technology uses a computer vision system to identify the bonding pads and, I suspect, also to do visual inspection of each bond.

"Relatively" is an important word here. We have that model of K&S bonder in our lab, and it is at least 20 years old. We have others that are nearly identical, and they were bought in the 90s.
Anyway, we also have more modern wire bonders (I bought one last year), but since we don't do any production work they are all semi-automatic meaning they are not very different from the old K&S bonders; the main difference is that all setting are saved in a computer and you can have multiple user-defined configurations. You can also make it do the 2nd bond automatically.

There are of course high-end industrial systems with lots of bells and whistles, but for one-off samples I don't think it is worth the effort,

Coming back to the OP. Yes, gold wire of that diameter could probably be bonded (which is essentially ultra-sonic "soldering"), However, I can't see how one would use a regular wire bonder in the configuration you are describing. A ball bonder might work, but it would be very awkward.
That said, working with 25um Au wire is always going to be challenging, it is NOT a very strong wire.