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From:
Ioan Tempea <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]>, Ioan Tempea <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 19 Jan 2017 16:22:12 +0000
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Thanks O'Dean!

As exhaustive as always! So I guess laser is not what I need for my simple application.

But, laser might come in handy for the opposite side of the board, which has 8 big transfos that I don't believe convection reflow can handle. At 1-2 sec/joint, laser soldering would be a lot faster than vapor phase...
How much for your laser system?

Best regards,

Ioan


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Stadem, Richard D. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Envoyé : Thursday, January 19, 2017 10:57 AM
À : TechNet E-Mail Forum; Ioan Tempea
Objet : RE: 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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