CFFJR wrote:As promised, circuit porn.
Nice that they printed some art on there. Fun surprise.
I would joke that the shield is held in place with spit and prayer, but even that would be an exaggeration. It fits perfectly over the glob, but there's literally nothing to hold it in place. I guess friction was the idea, but it doesn't grip at all.
So it's still floating loose in my cart. I'll have to find some other way to stick it down. Would electrical tape be ok?
That black stuff is epoxy, which is used when you want to hide your circuit and/or prevent the contents of the chips from being dumped. It looks like the idea was to put that metal piece on the epoxy before it sets, but the epoxy doesn't bond well to it so it pops off easily.
I don't see how that metal piece would work as a shield because it would have to be connected to ground to do anything at all. I suppose it could be a heat spreader since we don't know what chips are under the glob, but if the chips needed to be cooled then you wouldn't use epoxy. You would use something that would transfer heat easily, like thermal pads or grease.
That white silkscreen box that runs around the perimeter of the glob, there's two solder pads that intersect the white line. If those are ground pads, you could use them to solder the metal piece in place, and then it would actually be a shield. Or, just use a few strips of double sided tape on top of the glob and press the metal piece back on.
Or just leave it off since it doesn't appear to be able to function as a shield or heat spreader, I don't see what purpose it has anyway. Though I could be wrong, perhaps it's only purpose is to look nicer than the epoxy. But I mean, if it's rattling around and the game is working then it doesn't appear to be doing any function.