System for determining contamination coefficients and/or degrees of contamination in particular during the reflow soldering of printed circuit boards, and associated evaluation unit
AssigneeERSA GmbH
InventorsMichael Haas, Benedict Fleischmann, Harald Grumm, Lukas Thanhäuser
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for determining a degree of contamination of production units of a production line for the printing, equipping and reflow soldering of printed circuit boards, and evaluation unit.
Claims19
A system for determining at least one of a contamination coefficient of products to be soldered and/or a degree of contamination of production units of a production line for soldering products,
- the production units each comprising actuators and a dedicated production control unit for generating control data for controlling their respective actuators,
- wherein a production planning unit is provided which is configured to generate production data for soldering orders for soldering the products and to communicate the generated production data at least partially to the individual production control units,
- wherein the production units comprise sensors for monitoring state changes, and
- wherein the sensors are configured to generate sensor data as a function of state changes,
- wherein an evaluation unit having a controller and a memory is provided,
- wherein the production data, the control data and the sensor data of at least one production unit are transmitted to the controller of the evaluation unit, and
- wherein the evaluation unit is configured such that its memory stores commands which, when processed by its controller, cause the controller:
- on the basis of the production data generated by the production planning unit, the control data generated by the respective production control unit and the sensor data generated by at least a plurality of sensors
- to determine the contamination coefficient of the products and/or of the soldering order and/or
- to determine the degree of contamination of at least one of the production units and/or of at least one function of a production unit,
- and
- to execute a control algorithm in order to generate control signals representing the contamination coefficient and/or the degree of contamination.
The system according to 8, wherein, when an inspection unit is provided, the sensors comprise one or a plurality of inspection sensors in or on the inspection unit which generate sensor data comprising information about:
- the amount of solder paste printed,
- the number and volume of equipped components, and/or
- the use of additional materials on the assembly.
An evaluation unit for a system, comprising a controller and a memory, and an interface for transmitting production data of a production planning unit, control data of production control units and sensor data of sensors to the controller, wherein the evaluation unit is configured such that the memory stores commands which, when processed by the controller, cause the controller:
- on the basis of the production data generated by the production planning unit, the control data generated by a respective production control unit and the sensor data generated by at least a plurality of sensors
- to determine the contamination coefficient of the products and/or of the soldering order and/or
- to determine the degree of contamination of at least one of the production units and/or of at least one function of a production unit
- and
- to execute a control algorithm in order to generate control signals representing the contamination coefficient and/or the degree of contamination.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.