Saline Lectronics Expands Its Juki Lines with an FX-3XL Chip Shooter

The FX-3 XL is a high-speed modular chip shooter that delivers high productivity and cost performance, and is capable of handling 22 x 24 boards. The chip shooter provides an upgrade in speed for Saline Lectronics ― from 15,000 cph to 60,000 cph.

“Juki has consistently provided fantastic, reliable equipment. We wanted to continue with that brand. So when we needed more speed to help us meet our increased demand, we contacted Juki. The FX-3 XL is a good acquisition,” commented Mario Sciberras, President of Saline Lectronics.

The FX-3 XL features two placement stations, each with two head beams. In each placement station the two heads are arranged in front of and behind each other, alternately carrying out component picking and placement. The four high-speed assembly heads each support six nozzles, giving the FX-3 XL a total of 24 nozzles. The component placement range on the FX-3 XL is from 01005 (0402 metric) through to 33.5 mm sq. Each head is driven by an overhead X-Y dual gantry positioning system with closed-loop independent linear servomotors and magnetic linear encoders. The Y beam has dual synchronized linear motors for each station, both left and right.

Each nozzle is controlled with independent Z and Theta AC servomotors featuring new encoders that have a resolution of 260,000 pulses per revolution and that contribute to extremely high precision, reliability, and accuracy. Precise control of each nozzle is possible without affecting other nozzles. This helps improve machine uptime as well as time between repairs. The design offers highly efficient operation, resulting in a placement rate of 60,000 components per hour (cph) (0.06 sec/chip), according to the IPC9850 standard.