ViTechnology’s X-600 phase convection oven reportedly provides dramatic reductions in operating cost, footprint and downtime issues of soldering SMT assemblies and curing underfill and glob-top encapsulation. Boards are loaded via a hermetically sealed system into one of four levels of phase convection. Each level comprises of three phase units, each with its own conveyor where boards are heated while remaining static, greatly improving temperature uniformity. Each unit has a re-circulating convection mechanism in which the temperature is exactly regulated. A SPC tool monitors these high-precision measurements. The oven measures just 2.6m in length, the equivalent of an 8 to 10 zone model in a third of the footprint, with no reduction in throughput. Nitrogen consumption is reduced by up to 50%, and flux management is simplified. Re-circulating air from each phase unit passes through a flux management system on each level, which is connected to a closed-loop flux decontamination mechanism, resulting in self-cleaning. Maintenance time is reported to be less than five minutes per week, and cost of ownership is dramatically reduced by 50%. The system does not require an external exhaust.
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