HMD Engineering B.V. ensures strong connections
To provide its products with the highest quality and durable solder joints, the engineering firm HMD Engineering located in Nieuw-Vennep recently invested in the new Pillarhouse selective soldering machine type “Pilot”.
In spite of the rapidly evolving market and the need to provide more and more functionalities on a small surface, it is impossible to obtain all components in SMD package. As an engineering firm that makes tailor-made developments for the customer and, as a rule, does not have to produce large quantities, HMD Engineering has years ago made the choice to do everything in-house; from development to production.
"When it comes to THT soldering, we get confronted with more and more double-sided PCBs on the one hand, and on the other hand our traditional wave soldering machine did not produce enough satisfactory results," says Rob Huiberts, owner of HMD Engineering. "Especially for smaller companies it is important that we can differentiate ourselves through flexibility, customer service and top-level quality."
The Pillarhouse Pilot machine is a table model selective soldering machine, which gives the same quality soldering results as its larger brothers Jade and Fusion. It uses a precise dropjet fluxer, a global and local preheating and a soldering pot that can be equipped with a wide range of nozzle types to handle any kind of soldering. The PCB remains completely horizontal and the patented return spiral and settings of the pump ensure a repetitive and high quality soldered connection.
"The products we develop include applications such as line scan cameras, data loggers and sensors that are used in extreme conditions. The electrical connection of the components than endure a mechanical force is therefore indispensable for a reliable product. " according to Rob Huiberts. "We are very satisfied with this investment, and we experienced that by replacing the manual soldering we can also free up more time to realize other projects."
The purchase of a selective soldering machine is an investment that is difficult to calculate for many companies according to Tom Van Tongelen, owner of Smd-Tec. "This Pilot machine offers a financially interesting solution and from the experience of our Pillarhouse customers we can see they benefit from using this process. Apart from a repetitive result, the soldering is stronger because you can give each pin its own setting, and the PCB is much cleaner without flux residues. As a bonus the reduced consumption of solder and flux is not only good for the wallet, but also for our environment."he concludes.
