Nov 21, 2013 
Ersa, the specialist for electronic production equipment, announced that it was awarded a 2013 Global Technology Award in the category of Soldering Equipment – Selective for its ECOCELL in combination with the FIFO TOWER C. The award was presented to Ersa’s Vice President & Sales Director Rainer Krauss during a Tuesday, November 12, 2013 ceremony that took place at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre in Munich, Germany during productronica. Combining the ECOCELL selective soldering and FIFO cooling tower with integrated buffering introduces new ways of raising quality while reducing manufacturing costs.
The ECOCELL selective soldering system is designed as a compact U-layout, an ideal layout for operating as flexible production island or as “side line” system to production lines. Valuable floor space in the production area can be saved. The ECOCELL is available with flexible mini-wave or high volume dip-solder modules. Product change on the dip-solder module is performed while the system operates – no down-time – raising the availability of the unit for production while lowering the cost of individual assemblies.
Quality improvements are achieved with the FIFO TOWER. Disruptions in production lines frequently terminate the processing of assemblies in selective soldering systems. Normally, these assemblies need to be scrapped because of their undefined process status. To prevent the need to scrap assemblies, a FIFO TOWER is installed after selective soldering. It accommodates all assemblies in the soldering system when a line stoppage occurs. Assemblies will undergo the standard process, to be buffered in the FIFO TOWER.
During normal operation of the FIFO TOWER, assemblies are actively cooled in three buffering stations, exiting „first in first out“. During buffering (for triple cycle time of solder process) the boards cool down to below 35°C. At these temperatures, assemblies can be handled by the operators or they can pass on directly to AOI or ICT processes.
Established in 2005, the Global Technology Awards program from Global SMT & Packaging magazine is an annual celebration of product excellence in electronics surface mount assembly. Premier products based on the finest examples of creative advancement in technology are chosen by a distinguished panel of industry experts.
For more information, visit www.globalsmt.net/awards or www.ersa.com.
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