 |
| Fully automated SMT line, including solder jet printing at Gemini Tec Ltd |
With many new customer wins and increasing volumes of SMT assemblies from our loyal customer base, August sees the completion of the first phase. We have now installed our MY500 solder jet printer in-line with our MYCRONIC MY100 Synergy line, and added extra speed functionality to the placement lines, added additional Agilis feeders.
Blank boards are loaded via our Nutek loaders, along a conveyor into the MY500 solder jet printer. The solder jet printer places small dots of paste to make up the exact volume required, without the need to use a stencil. The process is quick, accurate and checked with on board cameras.
The solder jet printing really helps eliminate the problems with traditional screen printers, such as over paste, leading to shorts or blocked stencil aperture's which left open circuits. If you type 'solder paste defects' into goggle, you'll discover a high number of examples of this common problem.
Using stencils created us alot of solder paste defects, resulting in excessive SMT re-work. The effect of too many solder defects added a significant cost to the PCB assembly process - that ultimately needs to be recovered, setting aside the production delays and onward impact to customer's. Thankfully we are able to use solder jet printing to avoid such problems.
The boards are then run along more conveyors into the first SMT machine, where a selection of component parts are placed with 8 fast placement heads. Clever software works out which components should be loaded. to each machine in the Synergy line to balance the run time, thus by using 2 SMT machines simultaneously, we can half the placement time per board.When we are running NPI and prototype boards, we are able to use each machine as a stand alone placement machine, each building a different customer order.. very clever.
Both machines have electrical verification on-board, this has proved to be very useful when parts are supplied incorrectly, or if the wrong component value is ever presented to the machine, this avoids putting incorrect resistors and capacitors on to the board.
Once all the parts are machine placed, the boards then travel to a inspection conveyor, at this point we are able to add on any SMT parts. This is useful when building 1 or 2 offs, as we do not need to buy reels, tapes or take on large MOQ's etc.
The conveyor takes the PCBs directly into the oven. Our MYCRONIC Synergy 100 line uses a BTU VIP98, with 7 reflow zones. 7 zones allows us to create an accurate thermal profile, for any PCB, regardless of the types of components on board. We spend time engineering a profile for each board, using our knowledge and slim-kic technology.
The boards are automatically unloaded back onto a Nutek de-stacker, and can wait until cooled. The boards are then transferred into our AOI department for 100% inspection. Including 3D X-ray and ERSA camera inspection. This allows us to confirm our process is correct and detect any issues that may need further investigation. Our combination of solder jet printing, placement and reflow ensure the minimal amount of errors.
The process of how we get blank boards to fully populated assemblies is highly important for a contract manufacture to provide customers with high yield products and quick deliveries.We invested in MYRONIC technology, for its speed of set up and accuracy. The solder jet printing technology in amongst the best technologies available in the world.
We have been asked many times, 'why doesn't everyone have solder jet printing?'
The answer to this question has many points. Initially the investment deters traditional CEM's, who make higher volume or less product mix with more simple types of PCB assemblies. Gemini can produce complex boards, in low to medium volume.
Before the days of solder jet printing Gemini would order over 700 stencil's a year (due the the mix of assembly orders) so this made a substantial cost contribution, which has also been passed back to our customer's.
Managing the stencil process from procurements to storage and cleaning, added hidden costs. The quality problems that had risen from stencil printing often led to high amounts of re-work and un-happy customers! Gemini aim for a lean approach to its CEM business which helps optimise its costs to customer's.
Gemini Tec are among a range of leading suppliers in Europe, who have invested into solder jet printing to avoid traditional solder defects and gain many technical advantages, Companies who have also invested include Thales, Halin BV, Netherlands, Appel-Elektronik GmbH, Germany and Page (Belgium) to name a few.
UK & European customers can all benefit from rapid prototype to small and medium volume production with solder jet printing, which provides higher quality products at optimised prices points.
Next month we install the UK's first MY600 solder jet printer and new MY200 SX Synergy line, so more news to follow.
If you wish to know more about us, click our website or get in touch with us by phone.
Gemini Tec Ltd
1 The Brook Trading Estate
Deadbrook Lane
Aldershot
Hampshire
GU12 4XU
Tel: +44 (0) 1252 333 444
No comments:
Post a Comment