Blundell Blog

Ersa benchtop solder pots are small solder baths for dip soldering and tin dipping and coating of component leads, wire braids and cable terminations.  

They have side mounted ceramic heating elements thermally insulated from the external metal housing for safety. They can be switched to half power operation when not in constant use. Each pot has its own temperature regulator.

For more information contact Keith Gummer on 07770 615405 or Paul Cooper on 07880 150864, or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk

Back in 2005 we installed 2 Ebso SPA 400 selective soldering machines at Ultra Electronics Manufacturing facility in Weymouth where they have been used on a wide range of contract manufactuing tasks.

When Ultra recently opened a new high technology engineering and production hub in Sawston, Cambridge, they once again specified an EBSO 400 for the new production facility there. The machine was installed in April 2010.

The Cambridge site is dedicated to high competence rapid prototype electronic assembly and the Ebso machine is very well suited to this kind of work. Providing SMT and through-hole PCB assembly as well as full system assembly, the operation at Sawston features 2 SMT lines, AOI and flying probe and functional testing capabilities.

Ebso machines are supplied and serviced in the UK exclusively by Blundell Production Equipment. For more information contact Paul Blundell on 02476 210276.

A new iPulse M6ex assembly machine for PCB surface mount component placement has been ordered by Leicestershire based customer information display manufacturer Infotec Ltd.  

The M6ex has recently launched by i-Pulse to replace the mid range M4 machine which has been very popular in the UK over the past couple of years. Infotec’s machine has an IPC placement speed of up to 12,500 components per hour for 0603 chips and will assemble QFP’s at the rate of 3,700 per hour.

Infotec is the UK’s market leader in the design and manufacture of electronic displays to the transport industry. and has just completed work on a customer information system for the channel tunnel high speed rail link in Kent. The installation comes in advance of the 2012 Olympics when the line will be a key transport link for visitors to the Games.

For more information on the iPulse M6 please contact Nick Clarke on 07786 150864 or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk

Hampshire based Intercole Sub Contract Services has placed an order with Blundell Production Equipment  for two Fritsch PA510 surface mount pick and place machines.

The decision to purchase Fritsch machines was taken after extensive trials of the Fritsch system at Intercole’s factory.The machines feature optical centering, a CAD converter for easy offline programming. 

Fritsch have always been well known for their manual and semi automatic SMT equipment but with UK support from Blundell, they are fast becoming one of the leading names in small footprint high accuracy automatic pick and place machines. The Intercole order is an important milestone in expanding the UK user base.

For more information contact Paul or Neil Blundell on 02476 210270 or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk

Essegi PC controlled  SMT component storage cabinets offer a highly practical solution to the problems of surface mounted component storage and retrieval. Component reels are automatically identified and managed by the system, saving time and relieving operators of the task of identifying and locating  the correct reels to be loaded onto the pick and place machine at any one time.

The cabinet can handle reels, sticks and waffle trays. The system updates cabinet stock quantities, allows control of low and under-stock levels, provides inventory control and full component traceability.

Essegi intelligent reel storage cabinets are available in the UK from Blundell Production Equipment Ltd. Contact Nick Clarke on 007786 150864 for more details or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk.

The “Extra Eye” is a First Article Inspection system used to verify printed circuit boards after assembly to ensure that all parts have been correctly assembled.

It is ideally suited to prototype and small batch runs where 100% inspection is necessary. AOI (Automatic Optical Inspection) systems do a similar job but they are more expensive, and you cannot guarantee 100% inspection using AOI.

Extra Eye programming is very quick and simple. The PCB is scanned and typically it takes around 5 minutes for data input and to produce a working program. It allows you to compare each placed part against the drawing reference. All that is needed is a drawing of the PCB and the Bill of Materials (component list), the Extra Eye will do the rest. Payback is very fast based on customer experience.

For more information cantact Keith Gummer on 07770 615405 or Paul Cooper on 07880 546380, or email sales@blundell.co.uk.

Reasons to clean printed circuit boards are as follows: (1) Reliability - cleaning removes all contaminants and prevents corrosion (2) For conformal coating - if the PCB is to be coated, all residues of flux need to be removed to prevent unseen corrosion taking place under the coating (3) for in-circuit testing, some test jigs with pins that contact the leads are affected by flux residues and form a bad connection if the PCB is not cleaned (4) for military, aerospace and high reliability applications cleaning is compulsory and is demanded by the end user.

The Blundell System 1000 and 2000 are aqueous PCB cleaning machines which are ideal for removing flux residues and general contamination from PCB’s. They are compact and well priced. Please contact us for details.

Call Keith Gummer on 07770 615405 or Paul Cooper on 07880 546380 for more information or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk

PVA has added an active fiducial camera to their full range of selective conformal coating spray application machines. The new camera system enhances the positional accuracy of the PCB by aligning it against a fixed reference point on each board. Each coating cycle is corrected automatically to adjust for any misalignment.

The new camera also allows for automatic pattern verification, so the sprayed PCB can be automatically checked by the machine after the coating operation is completed. This is done by having a black UV light inside the machine. The camera scans the board to detect the coating pattern which flouresces under the UV light.

For more information on PVA conformal coating robots call Paul or Neil Blundell on 02476 210270 or email us at sales@blundell.co.uk.

I am very pleased to announce that we have been successful in tendering for three important items of equipment for the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC). The MTC is a collaborative partnership between industry, universities and research and technology organisations. The MTC was formed in response to the Government’s manufacturing strategy: ”New Challenges, New Opportunities” published in September 2008.  

Funding for the capital equipment for MTC came from Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA). The equipment to be supplied by us at Blundell is a Dage XD7500NT X-Ray machine, an Ersa Hotflow 3/20 convection reflow oven and an IBL VAC645i in line vapour phase soldering plant.

For more information please contact Paul or Neil Blundell on 02476 210270.

The new iPulse M6 smt mounting centre is the latest development which moves iPulse even further ahead of the competition in the mid volume high precision surface mount placement market.

Now in its 10^th year since being bought by the Yamaha Motor Group, iPulse is powering ahead its development development program, and the M6 is the product of continuous evolution of the high precision manufacturer’s range.

In the knowledge that they are fully backed up by Blundells’ well trained and qualified engineers, more and more UK electronics assemblers are turning to a placement machine solution from iPulse.

Unique on-the-fly scanning technology combines with unbeatable build quality to provide a placement solution that is ultra-reliable and durable for the long term in the most demanding of production situations.

For more information call us on 02476 210270 or email sales@blundell.co.uk