Richard,
What wavelength laser did you use? What did you have as a maximum spot
size?
Thanks,
Bob K.
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stadem, Richard D.
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2017 8:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Robotic soldering
For a client company where I also work, we developed and built our own laser
soldering system. Nothing on the market could do everything we needed.
Ours has a programmable focal spot size, programmable focal distance, and
the length of the lase is also programmable, and it can also lase while
moving, with programmed speed, location, spot size, beam length, laser power
setting, and angle all changing simultaneously, if needed, and as
programmed.
The machine is capable of taking up to 4 different power sources through the
same head, so we can use a laser source (30 to 100 watt), or a UV source for
curing Dymax adhesives or coatings, or an infrared source, or a near white
light source also used for more conventional soldering.
We use both the laser and white light for performing solder ball attach on
sockets, reballed BGAs, initial ball attachment to LGAs, Pb90 columns or
balls on CCGAs or CGAs, adding compliant pins to leadless components, etc.
The machine can switch between any of the four available power sources for
any programmed dimension, length of time, a single spot, or a single energy
application for a programmed length of time, or a continuous but varied
power application for a variable length of time, etc. It is infinitely
programmable, but only from one energy source at a time.
If you wish to perform laser soldering, special knowledge of the process is
required. For example, you need a special flux or method of controlling
solder splatter from the laser energy. Laser melts a solder ball from the
inside out, in that order. We developed and patented a proprietary oxygen
evacuation chemical that reacts with the heat and removes all oxygen from
the area being soldered. It is not a flux, but serves the same purpose. It
produces absolutely pristine solder joints, just unbelievable. You can even
control the microstructure with some skilled programming.
In addition, the machine also has a more conventional imaging camera, also
programmable, for use in inspection. You can perform automatic optical
inspection before, during, or after energy application, but it relies on an
operator viewing a monitor, it is automated, but does not do any electronic
manipulation of the images, the viewer simply does the inspection from
joint-to-joint on the monitor.
There is a lot of process knowledge you will need to develop for successful
laser soldering, and it is not available in the public domain. Laser
soldering is NOT a drop-in technology. If you choose to go that route, plan
on spending many hours in your process development. But on the other hand,
for simple repeated soldering such as what you describe, it is entirely
possible for almost anyone to develop and there are plenty of good systems
out there that can do it, some better than others.
But the beauty of using directed energy sources is that you can solder every
single solder joint or solder ball, no matter how small or how large,
without heating either the component or the circuit board one degree C. This
means you can open up a whole new world of components that otherwise could
not take the heat of conventional convection solder methods. The same is
true for curing individual dots, lines, or globs of UV curable epoxy or
coatings, or for curing heat-cure adhesives using the focused infrared
application. No longer do you need to subject the entire assembly to an oven
bake just the cure adhesives or coatings.
For most solder joints, the laser can reflow with a step-to-step speed of
approximately 1 or 2 seconds per joint.
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ioan Tempea
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2017 8:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Robotic soldering
Dear Technos,
Need your help on choosing the proper automated soldering robot.
We need to automate soldering of 24 pins that will be surface mounted
vertically on an FR4 PCB. The application is high-reliability, so Sn63Pb37
will be the solder. Parallelism of pins is very important, but smart tooling
will take care of this.
Looking for a table top type of system, rather than a Beamworks machine.
Questions:
* Which are your favorite robotic system brands?
* Laser vs. iron tip
* In terms of processing times, how long does it take to make a
joint, realistically? While pins are pre-tinned, PCB finish is not clear for
now, but it might be either ENIG or ImAg. Is 3 seconds/joint a good bet for
ImAg, with ENIG around 5 sec/joint?
* Any idea regarding robot prices?
* Any other considerations I should be aware of?
Thanks,
Ioan Tempea, P. Eng.
Manufacturing Engineer, Satellite Systems
[cid:[log in to unmask]]
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