Selective Soldering

Selective soldering has found a wide application with the  increasing use of SMT technology, which has significantly changed the ratio on electronic boards between surface mounted components, soldered by reflow, compared to traditional through hole (TH) insertion components, which are usually not soldered by reflow. Seica solution: Firefly Line.

Automated selective soldering was born to help in those cases where neither wave soldering nor soldering by reflow (combined with the pin-in-paste technique) can be applied, and as an alternative to hand-soldering which has issues in terms of repeatability, is too subjective and in many instances cannot provide the targeted levels of throughput and consequently is not cost effective.

Seica’s solution for automating the selective soldering process is the Firefly, the most complete, high-performance laser-based selective soldering system currently available. Laser-based soldering offers the capability to exploit a high energy beam that can be focused exclusively on the solder joint, without involving the board substrate and the surrounding components (even with the high temperatures required for lead-free alloys).

In-line soldering on electronic gas meters

In the context of electronic processes, soldering is one of the most delicate stages, specifically the manual soldering.
This issue becomes really important when solderings are made on electronic boards already mounted in plastic or metal semi-finished.
In order to automate this application, Seica has designed a module completed with soldering head, to be installed on existing handling lines.
The use of laser technology provides a very accurate and consistent soldering.
The lack of contacting mechanical parts makes the existence clearance areas or adjacent components less critical.

Realization:

  • Final completion of an electronic gas meter for domestic use
  • The electronic board is already mounted within a semi-finished item conveyed by an automated line
  • It is necessary to guarantee that the overall heat of the board does not exceed specific levels in order to preserve the features of the sealing gasket
  • Use of FireFly T60 with top soldering head integrated in the existing transportation line

Benefits:

  • automation of the soldering cycle, operator-free running
  • monitoring of the thermal profile applied to each solder joint
  • compliance with the requested temperature limits
  • adaption to the customer existing transportation line, maintaining the same layout