Printed circuit board assembly: The Complete Works (Open University Press Robotics Series) - Tapa dura

Assembly of 'difficult' components onto printed circuit boards is emerging as an important application area for small, fast industrial robots. For other robot tasks - for example paint spraying or arc welding - the applications engineer can rely on a body of published information representing decades of accumulated knowledge about the actual process being automated. But for the process of assembly relatively little systematically presented knowledge exists, mainly because so much manual assembly depends on extremely subtle co-ordination of hand, eye and brain which is hard to represent directly in engineering terms. As for the particular processes of electronic assembly, they have hardly been covered at all in the literature. Yet the design of a good PCB automation system depends crucially on the responsible engineer fully understanding every aspect of the process he or she is automating, whether working for the electronics manufacturer, an automation company, a research laboratory or a machine builder. The author of this book has had extensive practical experience in all these roles: as a source of great detail on most aspects of the electronic assembly process it will be of unique value not only to the robot specialist but well beyond that to anyone needing to understand how printed circuit boards are manufactured. P. G. Davey Acknowledgements The author is indebted to many companies and individuals from within the pcb assembly industry.

Here is a comprehensive guide to the modern techniques available to the company or organisation wishing to assemble printed circuit boards. It covers both manual techniques for the small operation and the fully automatic systems which take the components, assemble them under vision control, solder them in place and produce the finished high quality board. It includes the programming of the machines, a description of the machines and their operation, the various vision correction systems and the economics of assembly. Incorporating material on manual, semi-automatic and robotic assembly, design, component selection, planning and staff training, it is essential reading for the engineer, student accountant and designer - in fact anyone who needs to understand the complexities and economies of printed circuit board assembly. This book should be of interest to engineers; second and third year engineering students; accountants and designers.