March, 2014
www.us-tech.com
Page 69
Nortech: How ezLOAD Board Support Boosts Revenues
By the Staff at Nortech Systems
related to the printing process? Obviously, a solu- tion has to be found, and implemented quickly. The failure rate had become a serious and growing problem for Wayzata, Minnesota-based Nortech Systems Inc., a full-service EMS provider of wire and cable assemblies, printed circuit board assem- blies (PCBA) and higher-level complete box build assemblies for a wide range of industries. Markets served include industrial equipment, aero - space/defense and medical, and the company’s expertise includes medical device, industrial equipment, military/aerospace, machine vision, EMS contract manufacturing and wire and cable assembly solutions. There are also in place a wide
W
range of specialized, high-tech facili- ties used for the customized design, manufacture, testing and repair of its contract manufacturing solutions and cable assembly operations. Circuit board designs have con-
tinued to become smaller and more densely populated, using many fine- pitch components on both sides of the PCB. With these changes have come challenges in achieving ade- quate solder transfer during the
hat happens when a highly experienced and respected EMS provider starts getting an abnormally high number of failures
with the increased quality of its product. Next, came a 100-piece production run of a 6-up
assembly array (6 x 1) with extensive routing requirements and S0-8 package components located at the edges of the circuit — parts that were known to produce solder bridging. The test run was com- pleted with zero defects on the S0-8 components. Not only did the ezLOAD reduce or even elim-
SMT production line at Nortech.
inate defects, it also decreased the amount of changeover time. It’s called “ezLOAD” for good rea- son, and provided exactly the printed circuit board support system that Nortech needed. The EMS company has now tested the board support system on four different assemblies known to have solder
Continued on page 71
ezLOAD PCB support system.
screen printing process. After ana- lyzing the process, Nortech Systems discovered that one of the biggest difficulties was providing adequate support for double-sided boards.
Growing Failure Trend “We began to notice a growing
failure trend related to the printing process. Solder bridging, solder void- ing and inconsistent printing causing line stoppages prompted us to start looking at our options for achieving consistent and efficient printing,” said Michael Fritz, Main tenance Techni - cian at Nortech Systems. “Several of the options that were tested came with new challenges, including in - creased setup times and rubber tool- ing tips that would wear out and cause component damage. We also tried reducing array sizes to reduce the need for boards; however, this option can increase board costs and reduce throughput.” To deal with these issues, the
company looked to Count On Tools (COT) for its ezLOAD universal board supports. Fritz confided that he was fairly skeptical that the flex- ible fingers would be adequate when used with printed double-sided boards. So “Show-me” became the operative request; Nortech Systems asked for a demo and tested it for two difficult applications. First, a 150-piece production
run of a 14-up assembly array (7 x 2) with 10 mil BGA apertures was made. This test resulted in zero defects on the BGA. This was great news and the customer was pleased
See at APEX, Booth 434
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