Essemtec, the Swiss manufacturer of production systems for electronic assembly and packaging, will debut its new SMT production centre at the IPC APEX Expo, scheduled to take place March in Las Vegas. The company has developed a combined SMT production center that is able to jet solder paste and mount components in one machine.
Jetting of solder paste instead of printing saves costs for stencils, eliminates printing errors and enhances production flexibility especially for lower to midsize volumes. Until now, separate machines had to be bought to fulfil these requirements, but Essemtec says it has merged its dispensing and pick-and-place know-how from the Scorpion and Paraquda machines into a SMT production centre. Quick setup is performed directly from CAD data using an integrated paste library; the same that is used for the pick-and-place machine. Production is fully automated, and solder paste application and component placement are seamlessly integrated while process monitoring ensures high-quality results. According to the company, the new system opens the range of pastes to most type 4, 5, 6 or 7 pastes. The solder paste jet valve can be installed on existing machines platforms, such as the Scorpion high-speed jet dispenser or the Paraquda component placer. The combination of jet printing with pick-and-place eliminates the need to program two different machines and reduces the investment costs dramatically. The return on investment (ROI) of the jet printing option is achieved with less than 100 stencils and even faster when the products require stepped stencils. Cleaning of the valve is an easy and quick (5-10 minutes) task, says the company.