Lead Trim Plate

Lutron Electronics

Nov. 2021

During my time at Lutron I was tasked with designing a trim plate, which would be used with a pneumatic lead cutter to trim leads within a 0.04” tolerance. In addition, the plate would have to alleviate stress in the leads, keep them straight and parallel to each other so they would be able to go through a circuit board after trimming, and leave a clean cut. For safety reasons, it should not leave burrs on the leads and should block an operator’s fingers from the pneumatic blade. While the plate looks fairly simple, its manufacturing required GD&T callouts for the thickness as well as the location of the holes for the leads. I aligned the leads along the diagonal with the goal of minimizing stress on the pneumatic cutter and wearing down the length of the blade, rather than only wearing down one section. Two of these plates (including the plate pictured) were in use on the production line when I finished my internship.