Kathie: What you are proposing will certainly work. However if you are a small volume operation can you really afford to put inline cleaners on each line? Sounds expensive from a capital $ outlay and like a lot maintenance. Don't forget even a "small footprint" inline cleaner must be sized right to do a proper job of both cleaning and drying the assembly. My guess is management after looking at the real cost will opt for better coordination between the reflow and wash areas. We considered this approach a while back and it didn't make good sense at the time. Just my thoughts Regards Michael Barmuta Staff Engineer Fluke Corp. Everett WA 425-446-6076 -----Original Message----- From: Lambert, Katherine A. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 6:11 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Where's your cleaning equipment? Hi folks, We are in the process of rethinking the configuration of our automated lines. Currently, after reflow, boards are loaded into magazines and onto carts and transported to the cleaning room, which houses our cleaning equipment including an in-line cleaner. Although no one wants to admit it, it may be several hours or several days before the boards get cleaned (big shudder). Several of us are giving thought to putting small footprint in-line cleaners at the end of the reflow ovens. We are fairly small volume, but high mix house. On a good day, boards come out of the reflow ovens once every 2-3 minutes. We know that there are some technical issues to resolve - making sure boards aren't too hot going into the cleaner, aligning them after cleaning & before the magazine loader, etc. The questions I have are: 1. Does anyone out there actually have this sort of cleaning configuration & how has it worked? 2. Is this totally crazy? 3. Is there anything else I need to consider (other than the safety & industrial hygiene sorts of things)? Thanks, Kathie Lambert SMT Process Engineer Northrop Grumman Baltimore, MD --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------