Electronic productions face new manufacturing challenges more and more frequently. Besides high quality requirements at low production costs, there are also an increasing number of product variants and flexible reactions to fluctuation in demand.
With the LeanSelect, the company is introducing an innovative selective soldering system that is particularly designed for lean production manufacturing environments, and which features high flexibility and outstanding ROI.
Loading and unloading of assemblies is done manually on two separate conveyor systems. The work stations, such as fluxing, pre-heating, soldering, and cooling, are arranged in a counter-clockwise U-shape, thus consistently following the general lean production guidelines. This allows processing of up to five printed circuit boards at the same time. Due to its unique concept, the LeanSelect ensures the highest productivity at a small footprint of only 2.5 m².
The process steps are completely automated and monitored. Like all selective soldering systems from the company, the new solution also features outstanding solutions for automatic process control. It monitors the fluxing process, including the actual applied amount, provides automatic position correction and z-height correction, controls the wave height, and traces the process completely. In doing so, the system provides the same uncompromising superior accuracy and soldering quality as higher-end systems from the company.
Also suitable for lean production applications but flexibly expandable is the SelectLine. The machine concept is consistently modular, thus ensuring clear cost benefits. Additional fluxer, preheat, and soldering modules can be integrated even at a later date to respond to higher complexity of board layouts or increasing throughput requirements. The technological highlight of the SelectLine is the patented Synchro concept, an intelligent software feature that doubles the production volume. Therefore, costly dual conveyor systems are not necessary.
Innovations from the company focus on one point: To continuously increase the system’s productivity. This also includes reduction of maintenance times. Maximum machine availability is ensured with the automatic ultrasonic cleaning for miniwave solder nozzles that are patented by the company. Besides significant time savings in terms of maintenance, this unique feature provides an absolutely stable soldering process. Both systems can be equipped with this new feature.
Specific applications, such as wave soldering with masks, require selective flux applications that wet only the points to be soldered, not the entire mask. This prevents flux from running under the mask. Also, it significantly reduces flux consumption and shortens the cleaning cycles for the masks. The company has developed the coordinate fluxer SelectFlux for this purpose – a high-speed system that precisely applies the flux at previously programmed points. No other assembly areas are wetted.
A particularly exciting highlight at the stand (7–139) will be a special transport system, with intelligent concepts for handling of assemblies. The company very successfully made the step from a standard machine manufacturer to a system supplier with innovative automation technology.
