Automated quality control for printed circuit boards
The customers of Four Stars Engineering Systems GmbH demand cost-effective solutions to automate testing systems for printed circuit boards. With the help of a low-cost articulated arm, Bernhard Driller and Seth Sheades are able to offer precisely that to their customers: RoboStar - a machine for the automated electrical testing of printed circuit boards, which rejects defective printed circuit boards.
Profile
- What was needed: an automation solution to place circuit boards in a test unit.
- Requirements: the solution had to be very cost-effective and suitable for changing the format of the printed circuit boards.
- Model: robolink D
- Success for the customer: cost-effective automation, elimination of errors by operators and high continuity in the entire process
Interview on the application with Bernhard Driller
Bernhard Driller is CEO of Four Stars Engineering Systems GmbH, which specialises in developing solutions for producing printed circuit boards. With RoboStar, his company offers a low cost robotics solution, which enables a cost-effective and fully automatic quality control of printed circuit boards. In the interview, he talks about his reasons for using low cost robotics and the advantages of automation.
Which process have you automated with RoboStar? With RoboStar we have automated the loading and unloading of electrical test systems for printed circuit boards, i.e. our robot transports printed circuit boards into a test system for electrical testing and out again after the test, including good/bad sorting depending on the test result and attaching a test printout to the tested board.
Why did you decide that this process should be automated with the help of RoboStar? The electrical test equipment is mostly operated in Asia and loaded manually there. The automation primarily helps eliminate errors of the operators and ensures the continuity of the entire process. Saving personnel costs is merely a secondary goal.
Why did you decide to use robolink? Our Chinese customers base the investment volume for automation on the cost of the test system. Nobody there is prepared to pay a similar price for an automation as for the testing system itself. The robolink components have made a cost-effective solution possible.
Why did you decide to use robolink? Our Chinese customers base the investment volume for automation on the cost of the test system. Nobody there is prepared to pay a similar price for an automation as for the testing system itself. The robolink components have made a cost-effective solution possible.
Did you encounter any difficulties during the implementation with the help of robolink? If yes, please let us know! We are a company primarily involved in the electrical testing of printed circuit boards. Robotics were new to us and therefore the project contained many new tasks with a number of problems that had to be solved. The robolink components basically caused the fewest problems.
What did you particularly like about the implementation with robolink? Due to our own competence we are able to provide the complete motion control of a multi-axis system and to extend it in this application to a robot application. Together with our drives, the mechanical interfaces of the robolink joints enabled a simple and fast integration.
Have you combined the robot arm with your own components? If yes, why? It was important to us that our automation could handle printed circuit boards with very different formats without an operator having to make any mechanical adjustments during the format change. That led to the general decision that only one robot solution came into question. Furthermore, a universal format-independent suction gripper was developed that is produced via 3D laser sintering and can simply be connected to the robot.
In what ways do you benefit from automation today? With automation we have an innovative product that will allow our company to grow in a new area in the coming years. By using automation in the electric printed circuit board test, our customers benefit from higher efficiency and from higher security as errors caused by people are eliminated.
What did you particularly like about the implementation with robolink? Due to our own competence we are able to provide the complete motion control of a multi-axis system and to extend it in this application to a robot application. Together with our drives, the mechanical interfaces of the robolink joints enabled a simple and fast integration.
Have you combined the robot arm with your own components? If yes, why? It was important to us that our automation could handle printed circuit boards with very different formats without an operator having to make any mechanical adjustments during the format change. That led to the general decision that only one robot solution came into question. Furthermore, a universal format-independent suction gripper was developed that is produced via 3D laser sintering and can simply be connected to the robot.
In what ways do you benefit from automation today? With automation we have an innovative product that will allow our company to grow in a new area in the coming years. By using automation in the electric printed circuit board test, our customers benefit from higher efficiency and from higher security as errors caused by people are eliminated.
