Easy upgrade for legacy through-hole lines

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Mar 25, 2003

The new line of CE-compliant Generation 8 axial and radial inserters offers manual loading, in addition to greater throughput and reliability.

Universal Instruments has developed a new line of CE-compliant Generation 8 axial and radial inserters that offer manual loading, in addition to greater throughput and reliability.

These new machines are specifically designed to replace older, manually loaded machines that due to age, tend to be slow and unreliable.

Previously, European electronics manufacturers who did not wish to change their manufacturing process from manual load, stand-alone through-hole machines to an automated process had no alternative than to continue running older, less reliable insertion equipment due to a lack of available CE-compliant machines.

Often, several of these older machines are being used to meet production requirements.

Universal's new equipment now enables manufacturers to remove several old machines and replace them with one new machine while maintaining the same manufacturing process to which they are accustomed.

Universal Instruments' Generation 8 axial and radial inserters: allow manufacturers to keep their current manufacturing process, thereby eliminating the retraining of their production staff, the expense of purchasing magazines, and the trouble of changing their floor layout; enable use of existing inventory of PCB workboard holders without requiring modifications; offer CE safe operation for maintenance technicians and operators; provide production and machine performance management information at the click of a mouse for instant performance/process feedback; reduces investment costs for new, replacement machines compared with the previous solution of fully automated PCB handling; require much less floor space compared to fully automated PCB handling machines; offer excellent performance with low-volume/high-changeover products that are so popular with through hole technology driven designs; significantly increase customers' productivity over their existing aged fleet of manual load machines - in many cases one new machine can replace three to four older machines; and reduce overall cost of ownership compared with existing, old manual load machines due to the significantly higher throughput levels and lower maintenance requirements of the newer Generation 8 products.

"Thanks to this new development, as well as the significantly higher throughput and machine reliability of the Generation 8 through-hole products, the new CE manual load axial and radial products offer best-in-class technology without turning a customer's factory upside down to achieve it", says Marty Saracino, Universal Instruments' Through Hole Product Manager.

He adds, "The result is higher throughput, greater machine utilisation, and modernisation of the factory to today's standards while positioning customers for through-hole insertion continuance".

Universal offers a complete line of through-hole products for every market, from high volume/low mix to low volume/high mix, as well as mixed technology that combines surface mount and through hole in the same process line.