FAZE Electronics
Manual SMD Pick & Place
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It should not be only big businesses that can afford to do SMD. |
Be sure to read theWHY SMD down the page.
We offer a perfect, VERY affordable solution for anybody, for business or private
person to compete in the SMD market, be it leaded solder or lead-free. We want
anybody to be able to work with SMD, without the usual associated frustration and cost.
We manufacture a complete Manual SMD Pick & P lace unit
It works fast, easy and cost efficient, and it's as easy as writing
First, you have to get some solder on the footprint (SMD pads).
The freely available solder used is a liquid paste consisting of flux and very small
solder balls. Getting it applied evenly and quickly by hand is difficult.
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Solder dispensing is done with air pressure. Adjustable Pressure and Duty Cycle (air pressure ON time) determine the amount of solder dispensed. A foot switch trigger each dispensing cycle, taking only part of a second to happen ! |
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Dispenses an equal volume of solder every time you hit the foot switch - as fast as you can go. A syringe with liquid solder may not look like much, but it goes a long way.
In some cases we dispense solder flux only on the footprint as the solder on the footprint is enough for soldering very fine pitched IC's, and the solder balls can cause shorts between some of the IC pins.
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You can look at a video
HERE showing
how dispensing is done.
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The first step is now complete. You have applied solder to your PCB. |
To get the components on the PCB's is just as easy.
The Pick and Place unit has (adjustable) vacuum and it is foot switch controlled.
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To get a component picked up, you peel the cover tape on the component reel back to exposethe component. Your small to middle fingers holds the tape down while the thumb and pointingfingers peels the cover tape back. The other hand comfortably resting on the side of the slide, holds the vacuum pen as you would a pen when writing.
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Keeping your elbow always on the same place, you simply slide foreward to the exposed component, trigger vacuum with the foot switch (hold your foot down to keep the vacuum), and pick the component up. |
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Note the arm-slide slide cover the boards and runs on bearings. Components are picked directly from the reels. No carousels or loose components lying around. This makes for quicker changing over if a different board is to be populated. The reels are simply replaced with other ones. |
You can look at a video HERE showing
how placing is done.
With
the component vacuumed to the dispensing tip, slide back to expose
the PCB's and place the
component (below). The component is placed on it's footprint on top
of the dispensed solder.
The solder is tacky and holds the components in place. Don't worry
about slightly
misaligned or skew components, they align themselves when soldered.
Componentsposition can also
be easily corrected when soldered on our Hot
Plate.
Do
not peel open more components than you need to place.
Orientation is done by turning the vacuum pen with your fingers,
or, by turning the turntable (the PCB's are on it).
Rina places 4000 components a day!
No, she's not for hire.
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Step two completed! When you've placed all the components, your boards are populated! |
A ll that remains to be done is to solder the boards on the Hot Plate (read on).
That takes only a few seconds per board. The populated PCB's are placed on a tray out
of harms way until you are ready to proceed to solder them.
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Conventionally speaking, you probably would still be cutting, bending and eyeing holes. |
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For production, two people can simultaneously use the Pick & Place unit - one dispenses solder,while the other populate the components. You need a (small) compressor and mains to power the unit. The arm-slide and one foot switch is not shown here. Visit us for a demo. Most people marvel at the simplicity, speed and ease of use of our system!
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The Control Unit. Liquid solder is available in syringes. |
Use injection needles as tips for dispensing and picking. They are cheap and also available
from any clinic or vet. You will have to cut the tip to a length of about 10mm. Best is to use
a fine needle file to file it off if you do not have a very fine disk cutter.
Ready cut tips are also available from us.
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Many people are scared of SMD components. SMD equipment are considered expensive, components are small and very small , difficult to handle by hand and if the tweezers goes "tick" your only (or last) component is gone. |
Using the right method to handle SMD components are easy if you do it right. You can take your car's wheel off with a hammer, but it's messy. SMD components are handled with vacuum pick-up. |
Using SMD components have numerous advantages
1 Small in size, mostly on reels, it saves a lot of storage space, ie. resistors come 5000 per reel.
(see our component reel holders !)
2 Less vibration sensitive, much less dry joints if any.
3 Much smaller PCB's, a huge money saver
4 Smaller enclosures needed, save some more.
5 Very easy to handle – and a breeze if you use the correct tools, a nightmare if you don't.
6 Faster assembly of boards – a big time saver – time can be cut by as much as half or more !
7 No cutting, no bending, no inserting pins in holes.
8 No pins to cut after soldered, a huge time and blister saver.
9 Cheaper components.
10 Professional appearance, boards look neater.
11 Use much less solder.
12 Easier to work with SMD, and less tiring.
13 It's the way to go, and really, beyond comparison.
The whole world won't be switching to SMD if there was no time and financial advantage involved
Get the right tools for the job .
(Remember the hammer-and-wheel)
Use pressure to dispense solder, vacuum to handle components.
Soldering PCB's on a Hot Plate from below is the best method. (See note below)
Soldering with a heater of sorts from above the PCB requires the components to be pre-heated.
Skew and misaligned components will "swim" into place if the pads are designed right,
especially if you apply fine vibration to the soldering board.
Once you worked with SMD, you won't go back to conventional components. Ever.
NOTE: Re-flow equipment using an overhead source of heat is less ideal when
soldering SMD PCB's. The components are heated up before the PCB does
due to their small size, is closer to the heat source and have a bigger risk
of being overheated and heat stressed. Hence the pre-heat function on
re-flow equipment which is not needed with the Hot Plate.
See our Hot Plate!
Pick & Place with tweezers. Do people still do that?
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If you will not spend the money to get the right equipment, in a while, you would have paid for the equipment, but be without it. (I only pretend to be this clever, but someone else said this, dunno who. It is true though .) |
FAZE Electronics Design & Manufacture Commercial and Industrial Electronics
Phone +27 12 661 4751
Fax +27 12 661 9949
Mobile 082 456 6925
