Greg,

The ERSA is a fine piece of equipment.  When considering it you must take
into account the production environment it must survive.  The prism used in
the tip is vulnerable to damage (i.e., collisions with components such as
caps and resistors around BGA's).  Replacement is costly and requires
sending the tip assembly to ERSA for replacement.  When we evaluated the
ERSA Scope a year ago, the repair process was to provide ERSA with a p.o.
(several hundred $'s), they would send out a loaner tip, you would send your
tip to ERSA where it would be repaired in Germany, weeks later you would
receive your tip back and either be partially credited or additionally
billed depending on the extent of the damage and difficulty of the repair,
and then you would send the loaner back to ERSA.  This cumbersome and costly
process may have since changed but you would want to check into this.

There is another scope, the Cal-Tech "Hi-Roc" scope that is very similar in
cost and performance but utilizes easily replaceable (takes minutes with
your own people) plastic prisms.  We did a side-to-side comparison and this
is what we ultimately bought.  We could not discern any appreciable
difference in optical quality between the two although the Hi-Roc uses a
plastic prism and the ERSA uses a glass one.  Because we were using the
scope in a volume production inspection process we couldn't live with the
replacement costs associated with the ERSA.  Within the first couple of
months we replaced at least four prisms until the production shifts got
comfortable with the level of delicacy associated with this type of
equipment.

If you will be using your scope in more of a lab inspection environment with
control over who is using the scope and the training they have received,
this level of prism damage likely won't occur, but in my humble opinion it
is still a matter of "when" the prism gets damaged, not "if".

ERSA has a very nice software package available with their machine that
includes prepopulated component images that display acceptable and
rejectable conditions along with the live image of the part under
inspection, including potential root cause comments.  You can add to and
customize this image/comment library for your own criteria and conditions.

Good Luck,

         Glenn Woodhouse
                 MCMS
Advanced Technology Development

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anderson, Greg (IndSys, GEFanuc, NA)" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 8:43 AM
> Subject: [TN] BGA Visual Inspection
>
>
> > > TechNet Friends,
> > >       We are looking into visual inspection of BGAs to supplement our
> > > X-Ray inspection.  I am somewhat familiar with the ERSASCOPE.  It
> appears
> > > to be a fully developed, well-thought out system, with all the options
> to
> > > make life easy.  It appears that their supplemental tools in fact, do
> add
> > > value to the endoscope itself.  This, of course, comes at a price.
> > >       I'm hoping to hear from people who have personally evaluated
> such
> > > tools.
> > >       Are all the features of the ERSA truly benefits?
> > >       Are there other systems that do what the ERSASCOPE does?  Are
> they
> > > as fully developed as the ERSA?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help with this one,
> > >
> > >
> > > Greg Anderson
> > > Senior Advanced Manufacturing Engineer
> > > GE Fanuc Automation
> > > Charlottesville, VA 22911
> > > Phone:  434-978-5181
> > > FAX:  434-978-5898
> > > e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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