New Tech on the Surface Mount Assembly Line
Maintenance versus New Equipment
It’s a scenario as old as machine-assisted manufacturing itself: an existing functioning-for-now piece of equipment is now an older model and the possibility of increasingly costly repairs is becoming higher and higher so you investigate whether acquiring a newer model now is more beneficial, or if waiting a little longer could give you an edge. Our most recent iteration of this scenario resulted in the former option, and thus new opportunities have emerged.
Enter the Mycronic MY700
Caltronics is proud to report that it will be introducing a Mycronic MY700 Solder Jet Printer to our arsenal within the year. With years between our current model and the MY700 the improvements to accuracy and speed, as well as flexibility in terms of possible jobs are palpable. If we extrapolate some results by converting the old UoM of components per hour (cph) to dots per hour (dph), we can see that using Mycronic’s reference board there is an approximate difference of 109,000 dph for jet printing frequency or an approximate difference of 5,000 cph when looking at board throughput.
We can be more efficient than ever with single dot accuracy at Cpk=1.0 (X,Y) ±40 µm, and single dot repeatability at 3σ (X,Y) ±35 µm. Greater accuracy and smaller dot sizes lends itself to denser PCBA designs and thus potential new opportunities for your projects. Improved accuracy and performance in the way of how well it is repeated will also allow us to cut back on rework and the costs and delays associated with that.
The final improvement is the flexibility it offers by slightly increasing the range of compatible board sizes between a minimum of 2.7” X 1.5” and a maximum of 20” X 22” (with the use of indexing software). That figure represents just one side of the flexibility coin though, and we stated the other side of the coin at the beginning of this post. Acquiring the MY700 provides the flexibility necessary to prevent an unacceptable period of downtime due to a needed part being unavailable/obsolete, or just plain too expensive.
The Caltronics Design & Assembly Promise
We’re excited by the prospects brought about by this acquisition and what it means for our team and yours. Contact Caltronics through the website or call 651.462.1440 to get started on your electronics project. Together we’ll design and assemble something great!