Mounting the APERTIF DCU backplane

© ASTRON

The backplane of an APERTIF DCU (Down Convertor Unit) is mounted using 28 screws. Putting in all the scews of 24 DCU's is a tremendous task. To simplify this task, Jan Idserda made a special 'tool'.

In the pictures you see Anne Koster of the technical support group using it. Using this tool instead of putting in all screws manually is not only faster but is also better from a health and safety perspective.

The tool is a good example of engineering in the most literal sense: to be ingenious. It shows that high tech is not always the solution for practical problems.