Placement machine eases board assembly

Newbury Electronics' installation of an iPulse M4 surface mount placement machine doubled its capacity overnight.

Newbury Electronics runs a board assembly shop, where an iPulse M4 surface mount placement machine was recently installed by Blundell Production Equipment.

Philip King, Newbury's Managing Director said "Although a great deal of PCB manufacture has gone offshore, there is still demand for good quality bare board manufacture in the UK" he says.

"The market demands very high-quality standards and that isn't always forthcoming from offshore companies".

"The downside is that the bare board side needs a great deal of capital investment".

"The assembly side is simpler".

"If you've got the work you can justify the equipment quite easily".

In 1999 Newbury bought a Tenryu FV7100 placement machine which has always worked well and has been very reliable.

When the time came to add a second machine, Tenryu had been taken over by the Yamaha Motor Group and renamed iPulse.

This happened in 2001 and at the same time, Blundell Production Equipment was appointed as iPulse's sole UK distributor.

It was not long before the Berkshire based company started thinking about installing a second placement machine.

"When capacity on a single machine starts to feel the strain, you really have to to buy a second machine before you reach the limit and start losing orders" Philip King said.

"When we installed the iPulse M4 it doubled our capacity overnight".

"We went for an extra feeder trolley so that we can prepare kits in advance".

"The plug in feeder trolleys work really well and make changeovers very quick and easy".

"The stability of the M4 is very impressive".

"We learned from the PCB manufacturing side that if you buy a lightweight machine, problems start to show after a few years of operation".

"The rigidity of the M4, like the Tenryu, means that it will have a long working life".

"The installation was pain-free".

"We were up and running very quickly and there were no significant teething problems".

"The M4 has been a great asset to the business and has enabled us to take on several new orders that we couldn't have handled without it".

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