Electronic component mounting method

An electronic component mounting method for pitch-feeding, by a tape feed mechanism, a carrier tape that is loaded on a tape feeder and that houses an electronic component and lowering a pickup nozzle at a component pickup position in accordance with component pickup height data stored in a storage unit, thereby picking up the electronic component by the pickup nozzle and transferring and populating the component onto a substrate, the method comprising:

• an electronic components supplying step of supplying electronic components housed in an already-loaded carrier tape and a newly loaded carrier tape spliced to the already-loaded carrier tape at a joint;
• a joint detection step of detecting the joint at which the newly loaded carrier tape is spliced to the already-loaded carrier tape and outputting a detection signal of the joint;
• a component pickup height measurement step of measuring, at the component pickup position, a component pickup height for electronic components housed in the newly loaded carrier tape by a component pickup height detection unit in accordance with the detection signal output in the joint detection step, thereby determining a new component pickup height;
• a component pickup height update step of updating the component pickup height data stored in the storage unit by means of the new component pickup height;
• and
• a component mounting step of lowering the pickup nozzle in accordance with the updated component pickup height data and picking up the electronic component from the newly loaded carrier tape and transferring and populating the electronic component onto a substrate.