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44 The PCB Magazine • May 2016 Most manufacturers select horizontal con- veyorized machines for etching, developing and stripping, and cantilevered programmed hoists for electroless copper, black oxide, and smear removal, with a multiple overhead programmed hoist for electroplating. Vertical and horizontal conveyorized electroplating machines have be- come very popular for mass-produced rigid PCBs, high-density interconnects (HDI), panel plating and reel-to-reel (RtR) flex applications [1][2] . Vertical Conveyorized Vertical conveyorized mechanization has become increasingly popular, especially for thin materials and HDI. Vertical electroplating of panels for panel-plate or pattern-plate is also popular. The electrified panels slide continu- ously next to solution ejectors that supply fresh solution at a high agitation and behind them are the titanium baskets with copper slugs that supply cations to the solution and cell. Alter- natively, if insoluble anodes are used, copper oxide or copper sulfate dissolution and makeup tanks can supply the copper. In 1974, one of HP's nine prototype facilities developed their own low-cost automatic panel transporter. Figure 7a shows the electroless copper processing line built over the manual tanks. This transporter and frame costs only about $7,000 to manufacture. It is simple enough for any PCB material HandlinG innovations: sHould you automate? Figure 7: (a) Constructed transporter for manual PCB process line; (b) production output curve of PCB panels as a function of the cost of various transporters (annually); (c) cost-effective commercial pro- grammed hoist system.