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www.us-tech.com
June, 2017
Rapid Finds a Niche: Quick-Turn Automated Conformal Coating
By Jake Grom, Industry Consultant
is too good to pass up. Automated conformal coating services provider Rapid Coatings, Inc. found a niche for itself in a segment of the in- dustry that has, for decades, been a manual process.
S Even with today’s advanced technology,
automating the conformal coating process is a challenge. For this reason, automation is al- most exclusively limited to companies with very low-mix, high-volume product lines. Rap- id Coatings’ seminal idea came from four am- bitious individuals who challenged themselves to provide a quick-turn, contract conformal coating service for all types of electronics man- ufacturers.
The Road to Automation In 2014, the company was founded in
uccessful companies often begin with a single good idea. Sometimes it is a mat- ter of capitalizing on an opportunity that
the coating. As it enters its third year of business, the
company is proud to have accomplished this task and then some. The majority of the first year was spent developing the process, becom- ing familiar with the TTnS equipment and doc- umenting what worked and what did not. The second year focused on sales growth
and on developing a customer base that would learn to trust and rely on Rapid. The compa- ny’s main priorities are, first and foremost, the quality of the coating, and secondly, on-time delivery. The company understands that a lot of
From left: Rapid Coatings’ Charvon Sous, process engineer, Harrison Brown, director of business development, and Adam Williams, director of quality.
Woburn, Massachusetts, with the goal of be- coming the go-to conformal coating house for any manufacturer looking for short lead times. The startup was originally equipped with a leading-
The challenge for Rapid Coatings was locking in a program for a new board and taking it to production quickly, while ensuring the quality of the coating.
edge, fully-automated selective conformal coating line from TTnS, a Korean manufacturer of confor-
mal coating equipment. The intent was to use the TTnS technology to
coat and cure boards quickly, with cycle times from 20 minutes to a few hours. The market for quick- turn was there, but automating the process was more of a hurdle. Available software was not de- signed to support this type of work. Instead, the common practice was to spend as much time as necessary to tweak and perfect the program. Large-volume manufacturers using this tech-
nology found it to be worth their time due to the volume of boards they would be coating with one program. The challenge for Rapid Coatings was locking in a program for a new board and taking it to production quickly, while ensuring the quality of
manufacturers, by the time they reach confor- mal coating, may already be behind on delivery — precisely the kind of customer they pride themselves on helping out.
Reducing Lead Times “We established Rapid Coatings to pro-
vide automated conformal coating services
with reasonable lead times,” says Harrison Brown, Rapid’s director of business development. “Our management team has extensive electronics man- ufacturing experience and customer feedback indi- cated a need for more automated and robust con- formal coating processes. Automating using selec- tive coating eliminates the need to handle the PCB during coating and reduces the amount of masking required. This improves our lead times, providing a significant benefit to our customers.” The company provides services to a diverse
group of electronics manufacturers, some of which include the military, medical, industrial, and con-
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