Honeycomb Optical Breadboard, 4.8 mm Skin, 12 x 12 x 4.3 in., 1/4-20

The SG-11-4 Scientific Grade Honeycomb Core Optical Breadboard has a 1 foot width, a 1 foot length, and is 4.3 inches thick with 1/4-20 holes on a 1 inch grid. The SG Series provides rock-solid stability and rigidity to support demanding research applications. It demonstrates an outstanding <±0.004 in. flatness over two square feet. The SG Breadboard offers a 3/16 in. ferromagnetic steel surface, enhanced damping, sealed holes, and a steel honeycomb core. This means the SG Series still out-performs other manufacturers’ top-of-the-line breadboards.

SG Optical Breadboard Broadband Damping Performance

The 4.8 mm thick working surface on SG optical breadboards is bonded to a polymeric material that serves to seal the honeycomb core and damp the working surface. The trussed honeycomb is vertically bonded enabling a rigid triple core interface. Although the adhesive is rigid, its broadband damping factor is much higher than that of steel and introduces substantial damping into the core. The side panels are made of a highly damped, epoxy sealed wood composite. Compared to the metal sides used by other breadboard manufacturers, the composite wood sides offer significant damping to the structure and eliminate another source of resonance. The damping performance is evaluated and represented by a compliance curve.

Trussed Honeycomb Core with Unmatched Stiffness

Our trussed honeycomb core design maximizes an optical breadboard's rigidity to weight ratio by using an additional steel member to bridge across the center of the honeycomb cells. This design enables a triple core interface at each hexagonal honeycomb cell that is vertically bonded along the height of the core. Most manufacturers use 0.010 in. thick steel sheet for a 0.02 in. core interface, while our trussed design provides a 0.03 in. thick triple core interface for a 50% increase in local rigidity. To manufacture a honeycomb core with these advanced features, each piece of corrugated honeycomb steel sheet is emerged in proprietary elastomeric vibration absorbing materials and bonded vertically throughout the height of the core. This labor intensive procedure allows our optical breadboards to offer the highest static and dynamic rigidity, while also increasing point load carrying ability.

Hexagonal Honeycomb Core Advantages

A typical optical breadboard features a sandwich structure consisting of two faceplates and a lightweight honeycomb core for a high stiffness-to-weight ratio. Most manufacturers use a traditional open cell construction that can't match the static rigidity of a Newport optical breadboard. Our honeycomb core design is different than our competitors. We use a high-performance trussed hexagonal shape honeycomb core which offers several advantages over ordinary small-cell round core designs. The hexagonal shape allows for a much greater surface area for bonding together adjacent cores vs. traditional designs that use corrugated wavy steel sheet with minimal contact between adjacent cores. The additional bonding area also improves the strength of our truss design that bisects each hexagonal core.

Grid of Individually Sealed 1/4-20 Threaded Mounting Holes

This optical breadboard is designed with a grid individually sealed 1/4-20 threaded mounting holes. Those mounting holes feature 19 mm screw depth. In contrast to some of the other products in the market that has channel for a row of holes or just a polymeric film, our individually sealed holes are more reliable and easier to clean. This is because we believe in the integrity of the product - especially the core. When dust and liquids go into your optical breadboard and table, it may have a long term effect on the damping performance of the product and make the product degrade over time. A good quality breadboard and table lasts long time - tens of years and more. It's a good investment for a product with sealed mounting holes.