Custom Interconnect Ltd installs the latest LPKF 2115 P Automatic Laser Depanelling machine

Custom Interconnect Ltd installs the latest LPKF 2115 P Automatic Laser Depanelling machine.

After a lengthy trial period looking at various PCB depanelling systems including routers, nibblers and Laser based systems, CIL settled on the most expensive but optimum system for its products. Increasingly CIL finds itself manufacturing 0201 and now 01005 component sizes on very small flexi’s, Flex-Rigids and normal PCBA’s and the breakout now being the major manufacturing hurdle to overcome. In the last 3 years CIL has replaced nearly all of its older SMT assembly equipment, flying probe testers and X-Ray in a drive to manufacture small but highly complex assemblies for its customers in high reliability environments. Monthly quantities being manufactured are circa 25,000/month and all have them have 4 to 6 breakout pips that have to be removed cleanly and with precision. This requirement for upwards of >100,000 pip removal/month and increasingly smaller assemblies have driven the requirement to invest in the £200K machine. In its product portfolio CIL now has 8 products which cannot be manufactured without the laser depaneller. These 0201 based flex-rigids are so complex that pre-routed/lasered blank PCB’s suffer so much movement during assembly they were previously un-manufacturable. Now CIL is supplied with blank PCB’s with no previous routing/laser on the panel, completes the SMT/test and other assembly operations and then utilises the laser depaneller to remove the entire finished assemblies from the PCB card.

As well as PCB depanelling, the same machine has been purchased with laser marking software. Advanced trials are taking place on PCB, box, panel labelling for unique product traceability mainly for its medical and military customers.

Custom Interconnect Ltd, (CIL), based in Andover, Hampshire, is a long-established electronics manufacturer engaged in producing some of the most technically challenging electronic assemblies in the UK. This capability allows them to meet the functional, environmental and dimensional demands of high-reliability, mission-critical applications in sectors like medical, aerospace, oil & gas and others.