You may wish to check the Mantis for ESD. The one I had experience with was a huge ESD generator (tribo-charged to greater than 10,000 volts using a calibrated field meter). No matter what you select, just be sure it is ESD-safe. Every single board is going to go by under your inspection tool. Not having an ESD-safe tool is not very smart. 
You would think the manufacturers of inspection systems that are targeted for electronics use would make sure they are ESD-safe. Guess what? Most are not!

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Riccardo Inverardi
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 4:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Handy Magnifiers anyone?

Greetings to all TechNetters, I am facing a problem and I hope that the great experience of the forum can help me.

 

I have to provide our AOI operators with an adequate magnification and illumination aid to inspect those features that a 2D AOI cannot reliably inspect and/or to discriminate false calls from real defects.

We have evaluated different magnification aids: from digital magnifiers, to binocular microscopes. The absolutely best option is a stereo microscope such as Vision Engineering's Mantis line: depth perception is maintained and once the focus has been set, it's easy to switch from focusing on the PC screen and inspecting the board.

Disadvantages are high cost, but the worst is that they are cumbersome.

On the other hand, tabletop magnifiers are cheap, have good illumination and they are really handy. It's a pity that they usually are too cheap and most of all, it seems that no one makes them with adequate magnifying power.

 

Currently, our operators have to work ideally in a 1.5 square meters' area (actually, they are not trapped in: it's just a "designated area").

 

Any suggestion, past experience and lessons learned that you can share will be highly appreciated.

 

Have a nice day,

Riccardo Inverardi
AOI Programmer | IPC/J-STD-001 + IPC-A-610 Certified IPC Trainer


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