Date Announced: 11 Jun 2010 Intelligent automation specialist, Blakell Europlacer, has announced a new capability for high speed LED placement on ultra long boards. The highly flexible, dual gantry IINEO II pick and place machine now provides unrivalled PCB dimensions and is capable of handling oversized PCBs up to 1610 x 600mm with a placement rate up to 27300 cph.The development is timely in response to the needs of the LED market, particularly in China, where LED panel producers are increasingly requesting one board of 1600mm instead of two boards of 800mm with connexions. The connexions pose risks of breakdown and can be problematic, ultimately reducing the quality of the product. In order to be able to produce big boards, many contending pick and place manufacturers have compromised by sending the PCB twice to the machine or by reducing the number of feeders accordingly. Some see 800mm as futuristic and others can handle boards of 1200mm maximum but the pipette heads fail to reach the complete board. The structure of IINEO allows many board size configurations. PCB’s of 1610 x 460mm can be handled without reducing the huge feeder capacity of 264 position 8mm. By using only the front side of the machine for feeders, IINEO II still achieves 132 positions 8mm and can increase the board size to 1610 x 600m. This is a market first and with Blakell Europlacer’s concept of turret head, all heads can reach the complete board without de-rating.The turret heads can be fitted with 8 or 12 nozzles and feature an “on the fly” vision system that can analyze components from 01005 up to 50x50mm. An increased component height of up to 34mm can be placed by the turret head. The vision algorithm developed by Europlacer can detect the correct orientation of the LED, which is fairly standard, however Europlacer’s system also ensures accurate placement by automatically rotating the placement orientation by up to 180° if an LED with wrong orientation is detected. Pierre Chatain, Europlacer’s Product Manager, comments, “We have recently sold, and will soon install, the first machine to place LEDs on boards of 900mm and 1200mm in China. Since we made that announcement at the Nepcon Shanghai show, we have received many requests from China for boards up to 1500mm. We have a very big advantage over our rivals as no-one has reach this PCB dimension.”LEDs can be picked from tape, tube or sticks using Europlacer’s Intelligent Belt Feeder. Each component is driven on an individual belt, which completely eliminates vibration. The Belt Feeder features component recognition, data entry by micro-terminal and bar codes, auto adjustment of pick-up offset and batch ID for traceability reports. Specific LED elements and nozzles can also be designed and customized.The IINEO II can be fitted optionally with a glue dispenser featuring a time/pressure system or paste dispenser with an Archimedean screw system, enabling the same machine to efficiently dispense conductive adhesive on the PCB before the LED placement. IINEO II is part of the IINEO platform, which features many improvements to the Europlacer machine range such as a higher feeder count, increased board size and increased maximum component height. The platform uses the company’s proven core features — turret heads, intelligent feeders, powerful software — while introducing new technologies with linear motors and digital cameras.
Contact
Pierre Chatain Europlacer Product Manager Tel: +33 251 31 03 03
E-mail:[email protected]
Web Site:www.europlacer.com
