Zaffar Memon said (replying to my comments on the Air-Vac station):

>                      RE>FWD>RE>ASSY: TBGA's on "big boards"       4/18/97
>
>Charles,
>
>May be they should try SRT Century 1000 rework machine. SRT offers superior
>(compared to AirVac) preheat and reflow process control and 14 X 16 inch wide
>bottom heater for bigger boards.

Of course, it is wise to examine all choices.

The SRT equipment I have seen is more elaborate and expensive, undoubtedly.
I know one local user who has an older SRT and is quite satisfied. I think
one advantage of the SRT is that it had an adjustable "nozzle" which
permits use on several sizes of similar parts without exchanging nozzles.

The lower preheater (hot platen with air blown through hole in the top
surface) on our Air-Vac DRS22C is about 9.5" x 11.5". The system profiles
well, has good software, and seems to be well designed and built. It cost
$53,200 complete with custom table (with laminated ESD surface), HP PC,
digital camera and an excellent Leica zoom microscope and mount. We have
had no trouble with it in the first 6 months of operation.

I believe you will find it to be the most popular rework station of its
type on the market.

IMO, the rework station market includes some equipment with impressive
names and prices which are out of proportion to the utility of the
equipment. To some extent, this is true of the Air-Vac, too.

I have seen skilled operators who laugh when they see the latest "Cosmic
Mark 5,000 Infinity Ultimo" machine demoed, then proceed to neatly take a
QFP 208 off a board with a $300 solder iron and a spool of wick in half the
time of  the $100K behemoth which takes a tech and an engineer to program
and operate. I have heard that the reason elaborate repair stations exist
is so that clumsy engineers (like me) can safely take a part off a board.
;-)

The reason we replaced our old Pace Craft 25 rework station was that we
believed there was no choice due to BGA introduction here on several new
products.

I'm sure most manufacturing engineers believe they have made the most
intelligent choice in selecting a piece of equipment. I certainly do.


cheers,


Jerry Cupples
Interphase Corporation
Dallas, TX USA
http://www.iphase.com
(nothing to do with Pace, Air-Vac, SRT, and nothing against them, either)


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