Making the print at jet speed
07 February 2006
One of the talking points at the recent Productronica exhibition was Mydata's new 'stencil-free' printer. Questions were raised about who could afford it, but it is still an interesting piece of equipment. This article describes the machine's vital statistics.
At last year's Productronica trade show in Munich, Mydata automation unveiled its latest solution for flexible production: the MY500 jet printer, claimed to be the SMT industry's first stencil-free printer, and which gets its name from its speed. It uses a patented Jet Printing Technology to shoot volumes of solder paste up to 500 dots per second (1.8 million dots/h). With the MY500, the electronics manufacturing industry can speedily optimise the solder paste application process.
The stimulus for its development came after a customer asked Mydata if it could find a way to reduce the errors coming from his screen printer. Because the MY500 needs no stencils, operators can change the print program in seconds. Furthermore, they can control the volume of solder paste deposits for each pad: an 'on-demand' benefit. To develop the jet printing technology, Mydata teamed up with solder paste suppliers such as NIHON ALMIT Co Ltd and Senju Metal Industry Co.
Other benefits to stencil-free production include no more waiting for stencils to arrive from stencil manufacturers, or stencil production costs, or even hazardous solvents to clean stencils. Also, there is instant control over paste volumes on pads, flexible programming possibilities, reduction of errors associated with screen printers, complete offline preparation and lower consumption of solder paste.
"Setting up for a job is easy," product manager G”ran Persson says. "The user creates a print program with the same CAD or Gerber file information used for the pick-and-place machine." The software then generates a 'virtual stencil' with solder paste volumes for each pad. For editing, the volumes can be adjusted down to the individual package, component or pad. Pads can be printed for components with pitches as small as 0.4 mm (16 mil).
The MY500's ejection technology is contained inside a lightweight cassette, which holds a single replaceable cartridge of solder paste that takes only seconds to load and unload. Scan the barcode on the cartridge and insert it into the printer. The operator needs only to select a print program and press start.
"The secrets are in the software," says Persson. "When customers come to see the machine, we print a standard PCB, then make changes to the print program by adding and decreasing the paste volumes for certain on pads. Next we print the results - all in 10 minutes, including time for instructions and explanations.
"This kind of flexibility is particularly useful when running many small jobs since the MY500 allows you to quickly switch between jobs or set up new ones." Persson sites one example: "recently, a Mydata technician was visiting a customer site with multiple stand-alone machines, when he observed a man operating the MY500 with regular paste. A woman asked: 'Can I jump in here a second? I have a job I need to run ASAP using lead-free paste.' She loaded a new cartridge and ran her job."
"There's nothing more inflexible than a stencil," one customer told Persson. "Once you get it, you have to store, label and control it. If it becomes warped or the design is wrong, you've lost $200. Then you have to buy a new one that costs even more, not to mention lost production time. This is a cost saving we hope to pass on to our customers, not just in terms of stencils but also in terms of getting the product to them faster."
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