Our surface mount line consists of a Milara “Semitouch” screen printer, a Contact “3AVX” Pick and Place Machine and a Heller “1500” reflow oven. We also have a John Deere 3 phase power generator that is capable of powering the entire surface mount line (and the entire building it is housed in), enabling us to continue production even in the case of power outages.

The Milara “Semitouch” screen printer is the newest upgrade to our line. In addition to the typical things on a screen printer like vision alignment capabilities, automated screening etc…, this printer has some unique features that help to boost our quality. One of the features is vibrating squeegees. The squeegee vibrates as it passes along the screen during paste application, to aid in even and consistent application of the solder paste. Obviously, the more evenly and consistently the solder paste is applied, the better your solder joints are. This printer also has a self cleaning under-screen squeegee. After a preset amount of boards screened, the under-screen squeegee automatically cleans the under side of the screen. The printer itself is powered by a Windows 2000 computer, running Milara’s software.

Contact’s 3AVX pick and place machine is the back bone of our operation. Its capabilities include a placement rate of 8,500 cph, enabling us to build boards at a very rapid rate. The 3AVX can place parts as small as 0402’s up to parts as large as 2” x 2” (51mm x 51mm). We are able to place Fine Pitched and Ultra Fine Pitched parts as well as BGA parts.

All of our feeders for the 3AVX are “Smart Feeders”, meaning that they maintain a record of what part is on the feeder as well as the quantity remaining on the feeder. A computer separate from the Pick and Place machine has an “Off Line Programmer” that is capable of programming these feeders, which is what enables us to change reels of parts while the machine is running. The Off Line Programmer also has a bar code printer that can print the information stored on the Smart Feeder in order to affix the quantity to the side of the parts reel for placement back into the inventory system when needed.

We have in-house software that we use to read the log files of the 3AVX as well as the Off Line Programmer, and use the data to automatically adjust our inventory based on parts that were installed on the machine, and parts the machine has consumed. This lets us keep an accurate running total of our inventory. The same in-house software also has parts lists for every board we build, and is able to tell us how many of a specific product we can build with the current inventory count.

Our Heller 1500 reflow oven is pretty much your standard oven. It’s a 72” long, 5 zone oven with a temperature accuracy of +/- 1°C. The Heller operating software has the capability of profiling a board utilizing RTD sensors to insure boards are heated to the proper temperature, in the proper amount of time, during reflow. We run oven profiles for every board we manufacturer.