A faster procedure to glue and cut blocks of scintillators is to assemble them first into 50+cm assemblies, held by clips, and then put glue along the centers of the sections, and then cut them apart.

tray_new.stl
tray_new_cap.stl

Cut files (dxf):
cutfile_a
cutfile_b
cutfile_c
cutfile_d

Put a stripe of gel superglue next to each clamp. Cure for few minutes

Cut with on the Boss LS 3655 laser cutter, at 95% power (of 150W) at 10 mm/s

Outgassing outside

Start of the 48x50 cm panel.

We need a stiff, lightweight base: honeycomb core panel

How to cut carbon-fiber honeycomb panels

Tray for layer A. The prototype is 48x50 cm, and will be printed in sections, since the printer has a working area of 20x20 cm.

STL for layer a bottom left
STL for layer a bottom left
STL for layer a bottom left

The cross ridges hold the bottom bars in place. The fibers from upstream bars pass underneath. This is better than trying to hold the fibers down in the channels with tape, as I did in the previous prototype.

Bridges in red. They are 1/4 of the width, the tray sections (grey, green, yellow) are ~1/3 of the width (cuts at 16, 32 cm from the origin.

layer a bridge 6.0 cm
layer a bridge 12.5 cm
layer a bridge 5.5 cm

Scintillating bars are glued in bundles of 16, then laser-cut into blocks. 4 layers (A,B,C,D) × 6 blocks long × 12 blocks wide × 16 bars = 4600 channels for the 48×50cm prototype.

Beginning construction of layer A; The trays are mounted on a 1/8" honeycomb core panel. From the left 3, 6, 9, 12.5, 14, 5.5cm blocks. The even blocks are raised on bridges. The bridges for 12.5 and 5.5 are supported by mylar, which lays over the grooves where the fibers go.

Removing the '6' block shows the bridge. It is shorter than 6cm to allow the fibers from '3' to bend down into their groove.

Removing the bridge shows 2 fibers going into their groove:

Middle and right sections done, with small tweaks: ridges to keep blocks from sliding sideways increased from 0.3→0.6 mm. Added mising ridge at 3cm.

layera_botleft.stl layera_midleft.stl layera_topleft.stl

xxxx

layera_botmid.stl layera_midmid.stl layera_topmid.stl

xxxx

layera_botright.stl layera_botright.stl layera_topright.stl

WLS fiber connector

New connectors: there is no reason to maintain the triangular pattern in the connectors as I did before. The piece that joined the two in the previous prototypes was too weak and tended to split. Here I line up all fibers, spaced 2mm apart. The total width of the connector is 39mm (to fit at 40mm pitch), and the walls of the joiner are sturdier. The joiners stack on top of each other, with a height corresponding to the total height of a layer (11.9mm). You can see half-circular cutouts, so the stacks can be screwed down.

linker.stl
connector_v3.stl

I printed a few to see how the fibers might want to be routed. Here you see some A input conectors, some with wls fibers coming in, joiners B, some stacked. and C output conncetors, no clear fibers attached. The wls fibers pass through the open space on the top of the joiners, which makes the assemblies want to be tilted.
Top view.
Note that we want 6 of these assemblies, here 3 are shown.

connector_angled.stl

polisher

        A   B   C   D
  -------------------
  dd1  30  30  30  60 
  dd2  90  90  90 120 
  dd3 180 180 150 210 
  dd4 305 305 240 340 
  dd5 445 445 375 500 
  dd6 500 500 500 500 

Now layer A can be flipped over and layer B will be constructed on the other side.