the Modula Wave® Solder Extraction System - Kirsten Soldering AG

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Newsletter 01/2012
EU-Directive 2002/95/EC
EU Directive 2002/95/EC, better known in its short form
RoHS (Restriction of (the use of certain) Hazardous
Substances), which came into force on July 1, 2006,
defines the permissible maximum concentrations of
hazardous substances in homogenous materials used
in electronic and electrical equipment.
A maximum permissible concentration of 0.1% by
weight was prescribed for lead, mercury, hexavalent
chromium, polybrominated biphenyles (PBB) and
polybrominated diphenylether (PBDE) and 0.01% by
weight for cadmium. To prevent the new directive from
negatively affecting safety and industrial areas, a
comprehensive catalogue describing a wide range of
exceptions was compiled. Most exceptions have/had
an expiry date indicating when corresponding products
are no longer allowed to contain the listed hazardous
substances. The most prominent example was
automotive electronics, for which the RoHS exception
expired on January 1, 2011.
New legislation, Directive 2011/65/EU, also known as
RoHS 2, abolishes the following exceptions as laid
down in Directive 2002/95/EC:
Area Expiry date of the exceptional rules
Medical equipment July 22, 2014
In-vitro diagnostics July 22, 2016
Monitoring and control instruments July 22, 2016
Industrial monitoring and control instruments July 22, 2017
Implanted active medical equipment scheduled for review in 2020
All other electrical and electronic equipment July 22, 2019
The directive of RoHS 2 will particularly affect lead as a
soldering constituent or metallic elements. The product
families, which must now be soldered without lead,
have to be reliable. This also raises concerns regarding
reliable operation and corresponding process problems
(lead-free soldering has small process windows).
Kirsten Soldering AG has extensive expertise in the
field of process adjustment and is therefore able to
actively support customers and prospects to this end.
Tips and Tricks for wave soldering
Find the correct transport direction through wave
Wave soldering of SMD’s
The right design of a PCB in every soldering process is
very important. Sometimes small adjustments can lead
to a much better soldering result.
Unfortunately most of process specialists
have no or only small influence on the
design. However a rotation of the PCB and
other consideration can reduce the amount
of soldering defects.
The defects rate on wave soldered of
SMD’s is strongly influenced by the direction
on which they are transported through the
wave. The following figures show the known
orientation for certain SMD’s.
Further details can be obtained from EU Directive
2011/65/EU, which is available online:
German: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/de/index.htm
English: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm
French: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/fr/index.htm
The basic rules are:
- Avoid solder bridges formation with the shown
tranpsort direction
- Solder smaller prior to larger components to
avoid shadow effects
“the Modula Wave ® Solder Extraction System” by Kirsten
Kirsten has developed the new vortex jet wave ® with a bigger solder pot capacity, meaning that solder volume has
increased from 60 kg to 180 kg. Thus manual draining of solder on bigger solder volume will be a hassle, that’s
why we developed a new system, "the modula wave ® solder extraction system“, to ease our customer on the
solder draining process.
This "the modula wave ® solder extraction system“, is used to collect molten solder from the solder pot outlet in an
aluminium mould (cavity) and therefore producing reusable solder bars.
.
Picture A: “the modula wave ® solder extraction
system”
Once the first cavity is full, the solder is then moved
to the next empty cavity by manually turning the
rotating handle. This system is also equipped with a
compressed air cooling system which is used to
solidify the solder in each cavity. That is the way
how the whole alloy of molten solder is easily
drained out by producing reusable solder bars.
A
B
Picture D: Solidified and cooled solder bar
Picture B: Molten solder flowing through a stainless
steel gutter to fill up cavity.
Picture C: Molten solder solidified after cooling
down by air
The benefit of this solder extraction system is to allow customer to change quickly the solder alloy type when there
is a request from their end customer or during replacing their old wave solder machine by re-use the alloy inside the
solder pot. By using “the modula wave ® solder extraction system”, customer can perform by their own the change
of the solder alloy type without needing to engage third party to drain the alloy as what is practice by our
competitors.
On top of that, “the modula wave ® solder extraction system” provides more safety concern concept where
everything is mechanically engineered which makes it robust. The solidified solder bar can easily be retrieved as a
top up solder when needed compare to dumping the alloy into a bin and send it to third party to cut into small
pieces in order to re-use.
In addition, the “the modula wave ® solder extraction system” is using compressed air as a cooling media which the
air outlet is located at modular wave out conveyor, this eliminates additional electrical connection.
D
C
green wave soldering systems
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