We use a mix of racks and carts. The racks with vertical slots are used for post soldering and test operations since space is at a premium. These racks must be dedicated to the product line to alleviate constant adjustments. We identify them with Customer and board number - the Product Engineer adjusts the top and bottom rails for height and parallelism (It must be the same width at each end of the rack or you end up with some slots being tight and some loose). Heaven help the assembly person who changes these adjustments! The racks are foam lined and have drag chains that contact the ESD flooring. We also have foam trays that have angled edges so through hole components have clearance at the bottom. I am unpopular in my opinion that these angled foam trays cause a lot of missing components. (The leads of edge components get jostled and it's SUPPOSED to be the wave solderer's responsibility to check for that!) We handle a mix of boards that range in size from 4-6 square inches to 648 square inches. The much smaller boards are usually panelized prior to soldering operations and will be placed on trays. Once depanelized though, we use hand held angle slotted racks and place them on shelves. Customer and product dedicated lines/equipment is the KEY to reducing handling defects! (My humble opinion) Jan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: [TN] PWBA Handling Author: Kenny Bloomquist <[log in to unmask]> at 0UTG0ING Date: 7/31/98 6:53 AM We manufacture a high mix of PWBA's that have a large range of sizes, heights and weights. We are looking for a better way to handle them to help prevent damage during assemblies handling. This includes boards banging into each other, components getting bent over and assemblies being dropped. We currently have a large mix of totes with dividers, which seem to always have the dividers removed, racks that hold multiple assemblies vertically, but they are unstable and deform parts along the edges of the boards and individual boxes with foam inserts that prevent seeing the assembly for identification. It seems that adjustable racks always need adjusting, flat trays take up too much space, and a special box for each assembly requires a warehouse of storage space. I have seen some clear clamshell boxes that look somewhat versatile but can't find the manufacturer. I'm curious as to what other people are doing that have a high mix of board types. Thanks for any replies. Ken Bloomquist Sr. Principal Process Eng. PRIMEX Aerospace Company <www.primextech.com> Show Director for Northcon <www.northcon.org> ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################ ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################