HEEBRUGG, SWITZERLAND - ESCATEC, one of Europe's leading contract design and manufacturing companies, has installed an Elite EM-5700N PCB Separator. This milling machine enables PCBs to be automatically separated from each other after production. The camera vision system provides a cutting accuracy of 100 microns providing customers with a very high quality of PCB finish.
"Here in Switzerland, we specialize in high quality products so being able to provide this level of precision and finish is important to customers," explained Dr. Martin Muendlein, ESCATEC Switzerland's Engineering Manager. "Normally such machines require a special jig to be created to hold each set of PCBs securely. This is expensive for high mix, low runs so we have done it by hand up to now. This machine, however, can be programmed to create temporary jigs using magnetic pins for simple configurations or it can even mill a jig for more complex ones. As a result, we can use it for almost all jobs and reduce manual finishing costs, giving an ROI of less than a year."
Another benefit of the machine is that it has two working tables so that one can be loaded or unloaded while the other one is separating PCBs. This gives a continuous operational flow to speed up PCB production.
"This is the latest purchase in our on-going, continuous investment programme that is designed to ensure that we can provide customers with outstanding quality and precision production at competitive prices," added Martin Kingdon, ESCATEC's Director of Business Development.
ESCATEC's high volume manufacturing facilities in Malaysia have the same model of PCB Separator in line with the company's policy of having the same production facilities in Europe and in Malaysia so that manufacturing can be quickly and easily transferred to Malaysia when production volumes become too high for the Swiss facility.