1. Stiff tail troubles The new stiffer hybrid tail flexes the interconnect card on the rod by about 1 to 1.5 mm Some tilt in the connector as well Force needed to push board flat ~ 250g Rod tested fine at room temperature, but not in the cold (could be open connectors)

2. Old, softer tail in the same position Some flexing of the PCB board No tilt in the connector Force needed to push board flat ~ 80g

3. New bends to the tail Pos. 3 on the rod (smallest gap between module and interconnect card) Tail bent in situ on the rod Bends are close to c-fiber than before Some improvement, but still deflection of the PCB

4. New bends to the tail Same bend moved to pos 5 (larger gap) No deflection of the PCB But: Highest point of tail is ~1.5mm above stay-clear, not acceptable

5. New bends to the tail Tail bent like original (soft tail) Added “kinks” with tweezers, while module was on the rod Less deflection of the PCB (~ 100g) Also works in pos. 5 The 2 modules used for these tests showed no opens in the tail after extensive bending

6. The tail tale continues The goal is to bend the tails only on the vacuum fixture, not on the rod, to avoid putting stress on the connector Try out new bending tools (the tweezers used previously crease the tail dramatically): –non-tapered rounded tweezers –Modified sur-clip pliers

7. Bending with the new tools Was not able to repeat the tail bend shape previously developed (see slide 5) by bending on the vacuum fixture with either tool Try different shapes Tweezers work better than surclip pliers

8. Best bend so far Small radius on top, large radius on bottom Use new tweezers to make the small radius bend at the connector end, and bend tail back over the module frame by hand to make bottom part more rounded Board deflection ~80g This seems to be as good as it can get without bending the tail while the module is on the rod A SS6 rod was assembled using this bend on all modules, still needs to be electrically tested in the cold