Blundell Blog

The much anticipated new M8 slimline SMT placement machine is now available, and a demo machine will soon be installed in our Coventry showroom. The M8 is designed to provide maximum pick and place flexibility and maximum productivity per square metre of floor space. The unique design places up to 19,000 components per hour (IPC rating) within a 1 metre wide cabinet.

New manufacturing support software - known as ‘I-Plan’ is incorporated into the M8. This has been designed by iPulse in conjunction with Valor, who are a market leader in this field. I-Plan is a very powerful CAM tool which will provide iPulse users with fast, accurate information and data processing for CAD translation, optimisation, vision data creation and setting up programs to run on the M8 and other iPulse machines. 

The Ersascope 2 under BGA inspection system has become well established as the industry leader for optically inspecting hidden solder joints under BGA’s and in other inaccessible places. It now comes as standard with a metal halide light source, giving a clear, crisp image of the solder joints underneath a BGA.

Different optical heads are supplied for looking under Flip chips, CSP’s, BGA’s and 0201 components.   

Image processing software compares the view of the component currently being inspected with a vast library of images containing all known fault conditions. Using this powerful database it is a simple matter to identify faults and to establish what corrective action needs to be taken.

For more information see our Website or contact Paul Cooper on 07880 546380 or Keith Gummer on 07770 615405

We’ve just got back from the Southern Electronics and Manufacturing show in Farnborough, and it was a really good exhibition. All the stands were small, so the exhibitors’ costs are low, and it was well attended. It really had a “buzz” about it, and attending it was a good antidote to the gloom and doom that we have to endure daily from the media.

Our stand featured the Ersa rework equipment, PCB inspection and hand tools, fume extraction and SMT prototyping kit. We also had a DVD of the larger equipment that we could’t fit on the stand. We took a lot of enquiries and talked with many of our regular customers. To be honest I think the days of big exhibitions with big stands have gone, and these smaller shows are probably what we will be seeing in future.

If Southern Electronics is anything to go by, I’m fully in support of small shows. It was a real tonic to be involved with it.

We will have a stand at the Southern Electronics and Manufacturing Show, Farnborough Airfield this week on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th February. The southern show has grown steadily over the past few years and was very well attended last year. The stands are all small so it is quick and easy to get around in half a day if you are tight for time. It’s just off the M3 on the Surrey/Hampshire border.

The Blundell stand is C35, and we will be showing a selection of equipment for printed circuit board assembly, rework, inspection, soldering, conformal coating and cleaning. We will also be running a continuous video of our larger equipment such as pick & place, reflow ovens, wave and selective soldering and stencil cleaning.