Drone Applications: Minco Components for Better UAVs

Key Minco Components for UAVs

• Battery Heating: Stabilizes batteries in cold environments with self-limiting flexible heaters.
• Flex Circuit: Replaces traditional wiring harnesses with lightweight and reliable flex circuits.
• Motor Temperature Sensing: Monitors motor performance using embedded temperature sensors.
• Lens Heating: Keeps optical systems condensation-free with transparent heaters.
• Gimbal Heating: Protects moving parts like gimbals and flight surfaces from icing.
• Antenna/Sensor Heating: Protects exposed antennae and sensors from ice and snow.

Visual Description: An illustration shows a drone's internal structure. A cutaway view reveals components like batteries and electronic boards. Orange glowing elements are visible, indicating heating elements integrated into the drone's structure, particularly around the batteries and potentially other critical areas like the camera lens or control surfaces, ensuring functionality in cold conditions.

Download a Design Guide

Learn more about Minco's capabilities and product selection by downloading their Design Guides for Sensors, Heaters, and Flex Circuits. These guides offer selection tips, technical specifications, FAQs, and a glossary, with product indexes for online purchasing.

Find the catalogs here: https://www.minco.com/resourcecenter/productguides

Convert a Wiring Harness into a Flex Circuit

Discover how Minco's flex circuits can save money and improve time to market for electronic manufacturing.

Overview: In competitive electronic manufacturing, products are becoming lighter and more compact. Replacing traditional wire harnesses with flexible printed circuits is a key method to reduce assembly size and weight, addressing challenges in industrial, medical, and defense sectors.

Wire Harnesses vs. Flex Circuits

Flex circuits offer significant advantages over traditional wire harnesses:

• Thinness and Flexibility: Flex circuits conform to enclosure shapes and flex around curves, unlike wire harnesses which are bundles of discrete wires with lower wiring density, taking up more space and adding weight.
• Weight and Durability: Flex circuits have lower mass, reducing overall weight and improving resistance to shock and vibration. Wire harnesses are more prone to failures in solder joints and connections due to repeated flexing, shock, or vibration, and can move unpredictably, potentially obstructing other components (e.g., optical sensors).
• Installation Efficiency: Flex circuits streamline assembly with faster, less error-prone installation, often using single high-density connectors. They are also repeatable, ensuring consistent performance.

Visual Description: The document contrasts two methods of internal wiring. On one side, a dense, bulky bundle of wires, representing a traditional wire harness, is shown entering an electronic enclosure. On the other side, a thin, flat, flexible printed circuit (flex circuit) is neatly routed and connected within a similar enclosure, highlighting the space-saving and organizational benefits of flex circuits.

Start Building Your Flex Circuit Today

Minco is a leading flex circuit supplier for electronics OEMs, offering comprehensive in-house design and manufacturing with a wide range of insulation, foil, and termination options. Minco holds NADCAP accreditation and certifications including AS9100-D, IPC-6013 Class I/II/III, and IPC J-STD. Their CAD designers are IPC CID certified.

Minco's unique offering, "Integrated Solutions," involves embedding sensors, flexible heaters, and integrated circuits directly into flex circuits. This approach simplifies installation, reduces error rates, and provides cost savings for customers.

Contact Minco to discuss your next flex circuit project.