Absolutely No Room For Defects

The original contact to Eaton MTL was established by Ersa’s longstanding sales partner Blundell Electronic Production located in Coventry, about a good hours drive away from Eaton. The 12-year-old wave soldering system installed at Eaton needed to be replaced by a system based on current technology. The engineers responsible at Eaton for the processes selected two suppliers for their short list – one competitor and Ersa GmbH from Wertheim. The equipment specification prepared put forth what capabilities and features the wave soldering system was to possess. It was specified that the unit should be an “open system” and operating “without N₂”. “Many of the world’s most security-critical processes are monitored, controlled, visualized and protected by our Eaton MTL products – applications such as offshore oil and gas platforms, power plants and refineries. On account of our own global network of sales and services, our customers are always in the best hands – our own hands, everywhere in the world”, states Dipen Dixit, the manufacturing engineer at Eaton MTL in Luton. He continues: “During the equipment evaluation process, it turned out that Ersa is not only the market leader in soldering technologies, but it also presented itself to us as a supplier that will use poka-yoke solutions – inadvertent error prevention – when striving to fulfill its customers’ requirements, always following the health and safety guide lines of Eaton MTL. Ersa possesses excellent know-how – and this, combined with the service and support based in the UK, made Ersa – Blundell the perfect match for us!“

For the initial tests on the wave soldering system, Eaton’s engineers visited the Ersa demo center in Wertheim. Extensive tests were performed on the equipment, processes were evaluated, and the hard- and software was scrutinized under different scenarios. During the course of this evaluation sessions Ersa, with its singular knowledge for optimal manufacturing solutions, could demonstrate to Eaton that the nitrogen version of a wave soldering system would offer substantial benefits when compared to an open system. Not only in higher process safety and the corresponding improvement in product quality, but also in regards to a saving in operating costs. A saving of more than € 70,000 per year was estimated, a sum which convinced the engineers of Eaton MTL as well as its economists to change their specs. In addition, the quick and easy access to the fluxer unit and to the solder waves was very much appreciated by all. In the course of the discussions during the trial phase, it turned out that Eaton MTL was also in the process of purchasing a reflow soldering unit. A main criterion for the reflow process was the need for an exit temperature of the boards of less than 35 °C. Here also the Ersa HOTFLOW 4/14 with its high availability for production (through offline profile creation, for example), its excellent thermal performance and its superior energy balance could offer convincing arguments. These arguments were substantive enough that Eaton MTL decided to order the reflow system also from Ersa, pulling back the purchase order that had already been issued to one of Ersa’s competitors. “We were very pleased to have received these two purchase orders from Eaton MTL, even though we now had to install not only one but two systems under difficult conditions: the installation of the systems and the conversion to the lead-free process was to take place on one single weekend only! There was to be no loss in production, meaning that at the start of the new week following the weekend of installations production was to continue with a safe and stable lead-free process on both systems, the wave soldering as well as the reflow soldering system. There was no Plan B that could be reverted to in case of problems”, states Ersa’s Area Sales Manager Christian Ott, responsible for the British market. The main issue centered on the fact that for lead-free processes completely different temperature profiles are required, so that the process parameters could not simply be transferred from the old to the new systems. It was also required that all safety systems remain functional and effective. This essentially meant that all products had to be parameterized and processed on the new systems in advance to their installation at Eaton, so that, after the installation of the units at the customer, production could smoothly commence. To achieve this, some unconventional and drastic steps had to be taken: Once the systems were ready for shipment to the customer, they were forwarded initially to Ersa’s sales partner Blundell in the UK. At Blundell’s facility, the systems were installed, the lead-free processes based on the customer’s products were established and the operators trained on the new equipment.

Only by taking these very important preparatory steps was it possible to perform the changeover as planned on a single weekend. And indeed – it was successful! The wave soldering system with two solder waves and a preheat length of 1.5 meter, installed at Eaton, features – instead of a finger type conveyor as in the old system – a pallet-type conveyor, which now allows that boards of different sizes and geometries can be processed one after the other, without having to run idle for a conveyor adjustment.