Board support tooling has universal appeal

A novel universal board support tooling system offers optimum support as it takes and maintains the exact shape of each board.

Novatec has designed and patented a new universal board support tooling called VacuNest.

The system offers optimum support as it takes and maintains the exact shape of the board.

Currently available flexible support tools are all based on pins that touch the bottom side of the board and so offer only a limited support area.

With those existing systems, the forces induced during the print stroke may be very important and may damage components.

They are also very sensitive to contamination with solder paste or adhesives.

These drawbacks have dissuaded many manufacturers from using flexible support tools and have continued to use dedicated machined tools which are expensive and time consuming to create.

VacuNest combines the flexibility of universal tools with the support quality of dedicated tools.

The system combines a vacuum unit with a range of support modules that are combined to fit the board width.

Each module is made of a flexible antistatic chamber filled with particles.

As a board is pushed onto the modules, each chamber takes the shape of its portion of the board.

Then the vacuum is applied, locking the particles without shrinkage.

When the vacuum unit is turned off the modules reset to their initial positions.

VacuNest can be used on printers and also on placement and dispensing equipment.

On printers, VacuNest also provides lateral stencil support.

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