clipping through-hole leads

[Walter Harley]

In commercial through-hole PCB manufacturing (I know, this is like asking
about commercial horse-and-buggy manufacturing...), how are the component
leads clipped off after insertion and/or soldering?

Is there some sort of spinning-saw-blade arrangement, or a dozen underpaid
workers with wirecutters, or ... ?

 

[Glenn]

Walter Harley wrote:

In commercial through-hole PCB manufacturing (I know, this is like asking
about commercial horse-and-buggy manufacturing...), how are the component
leads clipped off after insertion and/or soldering?

Is there some sort of spinning-saw-blade arrangement, or a dozen underpaid
workers with wirecutters, or ... ?

Yes, each of the above, depending upon where the board is fab'd.

Glenn

 

[Peter A Forbes]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 11:05:03 -0800, Glenn <this@isnt.it> wrote:

Walter Harley wrote:
In commercial through-hole PCB manufacturing (I know, this is like asking
about commercial horse-and-buggy manufacturing...), how are the component
leads clipped off after insertion and/or soldering?

Is there some sort of spinning-saw-blade arrangement, or a dozen underpaid
workers with wirecutters, or ... ?

Yes, each of the above, depending upon where the board is fab'd.

Glenn

Still lots of companies use non-SMT components, including our place. We don't
need to use SMT and for the low volume stuff that we do it's fine to use hand
assembly.

We have a couple of ladies that do all the PCB assembly work, and make a very
good job of it.

Strangely enough, in my first job at Mullards in the early 1960's we were doing
identical assembly then, only they were single-sided SRBP boards, double sided
were probably not in common use then, and glass-fibre material was very
high-tech and only used on MIL spec stuff.

Peter
--
Peter & Rita Forbes
Email: diesel@easynet.co.uk
Web: http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel

 

[Jim Yanik]

"Walter Harley" <walterh@cafewalterNOSPAM.com> wrote in
news:eqKdnVPhU6Q-wj3enZ2dnUVZ_s-dnZ2d@speakeasy.net:

In commercial through-hole PCB manufacturing (I know, this is like
asking about commercial horse-and-buggy manufacturing...), how are the
component leads clipped off after insertion and/or soldering?

Is there some sort of spinning-saw-blade arrangement, or a dozen
underpaid workers with wirecutters, or ... ?

Machine-inserted parts have their leads bent over slightly and
simultaneously clipped,to retain them during wave soldering.
For low-volume runs,assemblers do it manually.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

 

[James T. White]

"Walter Harley" <walterh@cafewalterNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:eqKdnVPhU6Q-wj3enZ2dnUVZ_s-dnZ2d@speakeasy.net...

In commercial through-hole PCB manufacturing (I know, this is like
asking
about commercial horse-and-buggy manufacturing...), how are the
component
leads clipped off after insertion and/or soldering?

Is there some sort of spinning-saw-blade arrangement, or a dozen
underpaid
workers with wirecutters, or ... ?

Walter,

For high volume work there are Lead Saws that are used to trim the
component leads after the board has been wave soldered. You can see one
here -> http://www.esuinc.com/lead.asp. The board is secured, solder
side up, in a jig and the cutting blade moves over the top. It's called
a saw but some have "blades" that more resemble a surface mill.

For low volume stuff simple wire cutters are used. For somewhat higher
volumes, air powered cutters are used to minimize operator fatigue and
repetitive motion injuries.

I suspect that where labor costs are low and worker health isn't an
issue, even higher volumes may be done by hand.

Hope this helps.

--
James T. White

 

[KC]

Why cut the leads after soldering ?
Most common I know is that the components are bend and cut before
soldering.
The leads are not bend to keep them in place for wave soldering like
some said. They are bend to keep in them in place for the insertion
machine.

If you want to make high quality then don't stress the components with
a inserter. Bend and cut them with a good machine place the components
by hand.

But as always there are more solution possible depending on the
situation.

KC