Laser Co-planarity, Conformal Coating

A modern AOI system is expected to perform at a very high level, with approaching zero false calls, easy programming and adaptable programming to account for changes in components used and board modifications/design changes. The DCB Automation systems have always delivered this capability with customers consistently being impressed by the speed of programming and the short time taken to get up and running with a new system.

But DCB Automation believe strongly that just providing this capability is not good enough, so there are many other features available on their system that address a number of areas that would otherwise be ignored, or require difficult to integrate work arounds. These features are listed below and are avaiable on all machines in the range, either as standard in the case of UltraVision or as add on options on EasyVision.

Laser IC & BGA co-planarity inspection capability

Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) has become a "must have" for any PCB process. However, no matter what lighting or how many cameras are used, the need to provide consistent co-planarity inspection of IC legs, BGA’s or other important parts remains.
We are providing an ideal solution to this by directly measuring the height of each IC leg using a Scanning Laser Triangulation system. Lifted Legs is one of the hardest problems to pick up and this solution provides excellent results with both photographic and numerical data to help an operator decide how to resolve the issue. This capability within our Automated Optical Inspection system requires no additional programming as the system will "automatically" determine where to undertake the Laser Height profile from the optical inspection results. BGA devices can be inspected for absolute seated height and co-planarity. This unique way of inspecting IC pins makes the solution to this difficult issue, and investment in our Automated Optical Inspection system,  "future proof" at an acceptable cost.

Conformal Coating Inspection

Using special additional lighting and bespoke software the AOI system can look for areas that are coated or non coated using a unique pattern matching algorithm. It is also possible with extra thick coatings to look for variation in thickness of the coating.

Gerber File Import

Enabling the user to input the gerber pad data allows the DCB systems to reduce programming time by locking the areas of interest to the pads.This option can reduce overall programming time significantly, and will increase the consistency of areas of interest.

Bar Code Reading

Many organisations now utilise barcodes, either just for production purposes or as a lifetime tag on their boards. The DCB system can read most formats of single or 2 dimensional bar code used in industry today allowing automatic reading of serial number as a minimum. It is possible to read the board data from the bar code, and have the AOI system select the right programme for inspection. This could be especially useful in a product line with a number of different variations being produced simultaneously or sequentially. The ability to provide almost hands free operation of the inspection process is a great benefit in both time and data entry accuracy.

Tally Roll Printer

The AOI system can be used as part of a network but this is not essential. Where boards are not bar coded so serial numbers are not easy to pick up for re-work the Tally Roll Printer can be used to output the results of each board to pass to re-work, or for more manual quality control systems.

(It should be noted that there are great benefits in connecting the system to a network including: Data back-up, re-work station connectivity and statistical data management)

Additional off-line licences

Every DCB system is provided with an off-line licence for programming or re-work, but occasionally users require additional licences for multiple users. It is easy to order more licences for any system, at any time, before or after delivery.

Automated Optical Inspection from DCB Automation
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