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Speedline Today
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
By Gail Flower, editor-in-chief
FRANKLIN, Mass. Well noted in the SMT arena for wave soldering and reflow with its Electrovert product lines, cleaning (Accel), stencil printing (MPM), and dispensing (Camalot series), Speedline Technologies is in full production of new products, as well as legacy lines that just keep ticking. The company produces its MPM and Camalot machines at its Franklin, Mass., headquarters. The Billerica, Mass., plant also handles the Camalot R&D efforts. Electrovert reflow and cleaning systems are manufactured in the company's 205,000-sq.ft. Camdenton, Mo., facility. There also are regional offices in Mexico, Germany, Singapore, and China; and production partners in Malaysia for high-volume ovens and China for printing operations.
Keith Favre, vice president of product marketing and business development, led us on a tour of the 120,000-sq.-ft. Franklin facility. Our first stop, the metallurgical lab, employs four full-time engineers who handle customer evaluations and tests for local manufacturers. This development group performs a variety of tests, such as grinding, stress, and life-cycle testing for board manufacturers. Some related equipment, such as Juki pick-and-place systems, is used for simulating surface mount assembly processes. This system was acquired in a "trade" arrangement with Juki, whereby each company gains an additional step of the SMT-line operation in its laboratory. At the time of our visit, technicians had recently tested an Electrovert reflow machine, measuring flux extraction to improve reclamation and flux-capture systems. Controlling emissions in reflow, saving materials through reclamation, and controlling residue on the board were all goals of the project.
Next, Favre reviewed the factory floor where engineers build machines in cells using a demand-flow technique starting with a resin-composite base for stability, motion damping, and strength. Parts are stored in bins, and carts move components for a particular cell to the unit under construction. Speedline's cellular manufacturing enables production flexibility to accommodate basic systems through the Accela printer, a high-end, high-throughput machine. The company often uses words such as "repeatability" and "six sigma accuracy" to describe benefits of the system. The UP 2000, a legacy machine, is still the most popular workhorse printer, with production volume around double that of the Accela. The company builds to order, not to spec., because systems offer highly customizable features and options. Printers generally have a long life cycle; customers can upgrade their systems for performance enhancements. A new mid-range machine will be introduced in 2007 at Nepcon Shanghai: the Momentum.
Hugh Read, product manager for dispensing products, demonstrated the FX-D flexible dispensing system, a mid-range machine with two vision systems. The system made its debut at APEX in 2007. It is designed to be flexible, field upgradeable, and to handle underfill using a heated chuck under the board. Read also reviewed the Camalot XyflexPro, winner of an SMT VISION Award in 2006. This machine and the FX-D use a needle-less system with a fast flow rate to dispense underfill. This type of positive piston displacement causes a column of liquid to be dispensed with a streaming technique.
Chris Wild, product manager for printing products, demonstrated the capabilities of the MPM Accela, a high-performance printer with built-in parallel processing and inspection. This machine is used in medical and automotive board production, where traceability and accuracy are important. It has a stationary wiper, and the stencil moves to the wiper, unlike conventional printing systems. This allows post-print inspection and pre-alignment of the next substrate to occur during the wipe cycle. A handheld and external fixed barcode reader verifies correct board, program and process materials. With SpeedVision enhancements, post-print inspection occurs at line speed and results can be viewed graphically per board and device, or output to a database, text file, or CAMX xml format. Wild also explained how an inspection error can trigger a recovery action, and the printing operation continue with minimal interruption. Through innovations and improvements on legacy products, Speedline continues to answer market demands.