radial/thru_hole insertion

Since you got no reply, I will give it my best shot but we do not have a radial inserter because they are really expensive. I would start with Universal instruments. I think its http://www.uic.com. I think they still make them in New York. TDK and Panasonic also have made them but not sure if they still do. There is a TDK radial inserter on E-bay now for $4,500.00 I think but its a 1989. I have been told the older ones need a lot of expensive maintenance and to stay with a newer Universal RAD-8 which we can not afford. You should be able to find Panasonics sight by searching Google for "panasonic factory automation". Good luck.

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Hi Long,

Cmiller is right, check out the vendors and ask for lots of info, they'll flood you with it. You also mite ask to see their equipment working in a facility near you.

Also check out IPC-A-610 and J-STD-001. Get to know the different terminology and proper insertions for soldering. This will be very beneficial.

Next determine how you will auto insert your parts and have an inventory of your parts. All machine vendors will require a list of all the parts you want to insert and their complete dimensioning. They'll also need to know how you plan to introduce the part to the machine (tape and reel, bulk, etc). A key thing here is ask how critical you need to be when you introduce the part. An example would be tape and reel. Some machines don't care how you tape and reel your parts, some machine are very specific about how you tape and reel and could force you to spend extra money to get your parts reeled properly for your new machine. This is a major hidden point most people forget.

When looking at machines for thru hole, a lot depends on you board too. Are your hole tolerances designed for machine placement? You HAVE to look into this. I've seen a few machines fail because the board was not designed for machine insertion. Everything form surface mount part location to the thru hole part (too close and you can damage he SMT part)to the size of your board has to be investigated. Big boards may need support for proper insertion . Multi-up boards also may need more webbing or they too can bounce and bend during insertion. Some machines require a special size tooling hole to transfer or locate your boards. You may have to have this hole put on every one of your boards. This brings us to board alignment. Some "dumb" machines that use no vision are OK for simple boards. Your board may require a machine that has a form of vision to it for proper alignment. This is another critical parameter to look into. Nothing worse than having a technician spend all day out on a new machine to constantly adjust it for a mixed lot of boards.

Next look into the software. Do you need to program off line? Can you program on the machine while it runs another job? How easy is it to add or take away a part to the program? This last point is something you may do a lot of especially if your purchasing dept. decides to save a few bucks by buying a normally T&R part as a bulk item. Oppps, if your new machine doesn't do bulk, you'll have to remove this part from the machine and put it in the manual insertion line. Then next month, when purchasing buys the same part in T&R, you'll have to add the part back to the machine. Normally, you will find this info out right when the work order hits the machine, so programming on the fly may be something you need.

Well, that' just the tip of the ice burg. Good luck with your new endeavor!

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Do you already have machines or are you shopping? If you're shopping and looking at used machines from Universal, get AT LEAST a Radial Lead III and preferably a V or VIII. The Radial Lead II is well past it's prime, especially for someone that's just getting started.

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Hello,

At the risk of using the forum as an advertising venue, we specialize in through hole assembly equipment. Please contact me off the forum at matt@easiky.com and I can help you with some questions you may have - if interested, we can schedule a demo for the equipment and during a visit, let you judge for yourself.

Thanks,

Matt Grimes EAS Inc.

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Of course, if the number of required component codes ( = feeders) is not very great, you might want to look into odd-form assembly machines. With them you can insert a much greater range of components than just simple radial components and you can get all kinds of special feeders for special components. They will also give you much greater flexibility than dedicated radial inserters but the downside is throughput: the speed is much lower. Pre-used equipment is not necessarily very expensive from companies like Cencorp etc.

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