(January 2008) - BeamWorks releases the new tip cleaning station option for the Spark 400 Automated Selective Assembly system.

Occasionally customer application requires fluxing during the soldering process. The flux fumes accumulates and may cause components to stick to the Pick and Place (P&P) nozzles.  Moreover, dispensing needles may clog and become unusable.  Until now these problems required operator intervention and wasting of precious time for cleaning the nozzles manually or replacing them.

The new Tip Cleaning station comes to address these issues and automate the cleaning process as follows:

1. The process engineer determines once how often he would like to clean the nozzles and dispensing needles depending on the process.

2. Once the cleaning time is reached, the system moves to the cleaning system and removes the flux using a cleaning solvent.

3. If the system doesn't use the nozzles or dispensing needles it will not waste the time for cleaning them.

4. Every day the operator should check and add some more cleaning solvent to the station. No disassembly is required for this operation and a standard operator can do it.