Screen printer aims for solar-cell production

The X5 Solar inline screen printer is especially suited for solar cell and/or hybrid production, with very high throughput rates where high precision at maximum speed is a must.

The X5 Solar inline screen printer is especially suited for solar cell and/or hybrid production, with very high throughput rates where high precision at maximum speed is a must.

Short cycle times of less than 3.0s are achieved, with the optical alignment system achieving a repeatability of 12.5um at 6 sigma.

Drawing on more than 30 years experience in screen printing machine manufacture, Ekra designed this completely new printing system that sets new standards in terms of speed and precision, in less than six months.

This was made possible by the development of the innovative, patented "optical print nest".

In combination with Ekra"s patented vision alignment system EVAT, the "optical print nest" makes the X5 Solar unique.

In the first print run, a fiducial is printed onto the board.

Instead of a mechanical print nest, the system uses an "optical print nest" which is equipped with up to five integrated cameras, from which it can view the substrate that was fixed by vacuum and very precisely from below.

Therefore only a z-axis movement, with a range from 0.5 to 1.0mm is necessary to position the substrate.

As the camera does not have to drive between screen and substrate, extremely short cycle times of only 3 to 4s can be achieved.

Roland Heynen, Executive Vice President of Ekra, is proud of the new machine and his team: "The development of the X5 Solar in only six months shows that Ekra is able to react fast and flexibly to the requirements of a changing market.

The use of our patent allows us to offer this "unique system" to the market, which no-one else is able to offer".

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