The system is made of the following units contained in a welded frame structure
completely enclosed with protective panels. Access points are protected and
suitable for easy operation and maintenance.
1) Magazine Input Conveyor
Magazine or stack holders are placed on an input conveyor which feeds them into
the system aligning them at the appropriate pick point and clamping them in
position. Either magazines or stack holders can be placed on the conveyor. Once
positioned at the pick point they will be automatically recognized as magazines
or stack holders, triggering the appropriate pick procedure of the pick and
place system. Magazine and stack holder’s orientation will be checked and in
case of wrong orientation this will be notified to the operator for removal.
More than 4 magazines or stack holders can be placed on the input conveyor. The
conveyor height is within CE standards.
2) Substrate pick up procedure
In case of stack holders, the Pick and place system will directly pick a
substrate from the stack holder and place it for centering on the substrate
handling station (see below) and from there to the boat. In case of magazines,
the magazine will be collected by a clamping system placed on Y-Z controlled
magazine lift.
3) Magazine Lift
In case of magazines, once the magazine has reached the pick point in the input
conveyor, it will be clamped by the magazine handling system. This system allows
collecting the magazine and clamping it in a precise X-Y and Z position. Once
the magazine is in the clamp, the handler will take the magazine to a position
which is in front of the substrate handling system. Once a substrate has been
delivered to the substrate handling system, the handler will index to the next
slot. Slot pitch is programmable by recipe. This handler features 2 controlled
axis, namely Y and Z. X position is fixed.
4) Substrate handling station
This conveyor is manually adjustable in width to accommodate different substrate
sizes. Its function is that of picking the substrate from the magazine and
aligning it to a fixed pick up position. A centering jig will raises the
substrate and keep it flat by vacuum. Once the substrate is in position it will
be checked for orientation. In case of wrong substrate orientation, the
substrate will be picked by the pick and place system and placed on a reject
conveyor. The reject conveyor will bring the substrate to the front of the
machine for the operator to remove. There is a second conveyor parallel to the
first one, for pushing back a loaded substrate in to a magazine. This dedicated
pushing system equipped with anti-jam is dedicated to push back the substrate in
the magazine.
5) Magazine or stack holder output conveyor
Once the magazine or the stack holder are empty, the magazine handler will place
them on an under laying output conveyor which will bring the magazines of stack
holders to the bottom front of the system for the operator to remove.
6) Boat Magazine Input conveyor and Boat Magazine + substrate conveyor
On the opposite side of the system a conveyor is present and it allows the
loading of magazines with Empty boats. This allows continuous feed of boats to
the system. The magazines will be conveyed to the pick point where the magazine
will be placed in a fixed position. The orientation of the magazine will also be
checked and if incorrect, the operator will be notified for removal. The Boat
with be picked from the Boat handling Station.
7) On the back side of the machine there is a conveyor to load empty
magazines
Under this conveyor there is another one that will receive Magazines with empty boats which are collected from partial substrate lots that otherwise, would leave empty boats mixed with full ones. When there are no substrates available and the boat magazines are empty, these will be removed from the partially loaded magazine and placed in a buffer empty magazine. Once full with empty boats, the operator can remove it and place it in front for normal operation.
8) Boat Magazine Lift
Similar to point 3 of this section a Y-Z, controlled axis handler with a
clamping device is available to clamp the magazine and place it in between a
boat push out system and a boat receiving conveyor
9) Boat Handling Station
Similar to point 4 of this section, a pick and place system is made available to
receive the boat. The boat will be placed in a fix position and clamped. The
boat will be checked for position, orientation and flatness. In case of wrong
orientation or flatness, the boat will be picked and placed in the reject
conveyor and the operator will be notified. This station also has a pushing
system with anti-jam to push back the boat to the magazine.
10) Reject Conveyors
The function of the front conveyor is to receive wrong substrates ( by
orientation or product type) and to receive the substrate separators. Both will
be stacked for the operator to remove when necessary. The function of the back
conveyor is to collect wrong boats ( by orientation or flatness). Although the
conveyor is placed on the back, the boats will be brought to a front reject box
for operator collection.
11) Pick and place system
The pick and place system is a 4 axis system of which Y, Z are servo controlled.
The function in this mode is to: a) Hold the pick up tool; b)Pick from the stack
holder; c)Or as alternative to b) pick from the substrate handling station;
d)Place the substrate on the boat.
12) Pick up tool
The pick up tool is a custom made tool suitable for one geometry of substrate
only. Different sizes of substrates need different tools. It will be
manufactured to cater empty and loaded substrates vacuum picking only in those
areas that are free from components. It is designed to keep the empty or loaded
substrate always flat. Vacuum is monitored so to detect missing or dangling
substrates.
