Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1221561
MARCH 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 37 Johnson: It sounds to me like the independent adjustment on the multi-head unit is mostly to take care of panel-to-panel registration. Palmer: Exactly. It's a natural part of circuit board processing, where you're going to have different movements of inner layers for a variety of reasons. You have registration, and no two panels are registered the same. Each spindle and table has its own camera, looking at targets on the panel and saying, "This panel is a little different. I'm going to drill it this way." Then, it goes to the next panel, looks at it the same way, and drills it independently. It's for different registration within the same lot. Matties: If you look at the strategy as I described at the beginning of this discussion, you could have a drill department running 24 hours a day, virtually on-demand, short of stacking up the feeders. In the case I was speaking to earlier, the initial design that we put in place—which, of course, is subject to change—used six sin- gle-spindle machines. Beyond that, we put in three five-spindle machines and a couple of two-spindle machines. It depends on the mix. It's not efficient to go to most board shops, across the board, with all single-spindle ma- chines. Matties: I heard about a six-spindle machine, but each area of the table was independent in the movement for each spindle. Palmer: We were the pioneers of that technol- ogy at Schmoll. Their MXY series of machines have been around for 20 years. We're very good at it, and it's primarily what we sell in the North American and European markets. But you can't drill six different part numbers at the same time. They all have to be the same part number. Matties: Why wouldn't you be able to indepen- dently operate a six spindle as single-minded units? Palmer: Keep in mind that, as a board's be- ing drilled, those tables are all moving around in different positions, and then the spindle is coming down and creating the hole. If they were doing six different jobs, those tables would crash into each other. The tables are only roughly an eighth of an inch apart, so they're far enough apart to move differently on the same job. They move differently for scal- ing, shifting in growth in the panels, but you're talking mils—not inches. Dick Crowe: Kurt, wouldn't the modul be more in tune with what Barry's thinking about? Palmer: The modul is exactly what we were talking about earlier: a single-spindle ma- chine that's very compact with nothing on the side so you can put them right up against one another in a series. That's what GreenSource has. They have the same thing going on both sides. The compact Schmoll Maschinen Modul series. Optional dual head enables drilling and routing in one station for flexibility.