Axialbestückautomat S4000 für die smarte EMS-THT-Leiterplattenbestückung

Axial parts are the last hand-loaded operation on most THT boards

SMT took the chips. Radial inserters took the capacitors. What is left on the bench is usually the axial band — resistors, diodes and the jumper wires that tie a board together. Those parts are cheap, they arrive on tape, and they are still being placed by hand because the volume never looked high enough to justify a machine. That calculation changes when you cost it per board instead of per part.

• One cycle instead of four hand movements. A hand operator picks the part, checks the polarity, bends the leads to the hole pitch, inserts it, then turns the board over to clinch. The S4000 does all of that inside one insertion cycle: the head cuts the leads off the chain, forms them, pushes them through the holes, and the lead cutter beneath the board clinches them. The insertion head carries three symmetric tool pairs — upper cutter,…
• Any angle, not just 0 and 90 degrees. The PCB sits on a servo-driven rotary table. The R axis turns the board to the programmed angle for each line of the insertion program, so a layout that needs a 30-degree diode or a diagonal jumper no longer forces that part back onto the bench. The manual describes it as insertion at any angle in a prearranged sequence, with the rotation angle stored per program line.
• Jumper wire without a taping step. Barrel-fed jumper wire is straightened in the Z and Y directions and delivered to the lower cutter by a dedicated W-axis motor, then inserted by the insertion shaft. The 2024 brochure states the machine supports direct jumper-wire insertion without tapes, and that a dual-feeder arrangement handles two wire specifications — 0.5 mm and 0.6 mm — at the same time. Southern Machinery documents this…

From a taped reel to a clinched lead in six stages

The sequence below is the machine's own description of its mechanism, taken from the S4000 series manual. Each stage names the subassembly that performs it, because when a line stops you need to know which of them to look at.

• The seven axes, in the machine's own names. Verified material Axis names and functions: S4000 Series Manual V1.1 section 2 and Software & Programming Manual V2.6.0.0 section 6.1.3. The manual notes that the absolute servo drive removes dozens of photoelectric switches, and that soft adjustment removes the need for mechanical adjustment of the span.

Where the documents disagree, both values stay on the page

The 2024 brochure and the series manual were written for different purposes and were not updated in step. Seven figures differ. Rather than average them or silently pick the friendlier one, Southern Machinery prints both and names the source, so you can put the right number in your own project file and ask us to confirm the rest at quotation stage.

What 20,000 points an hour actually buys you

The headline speed and the number you can plan a shift around are not the same number, and the S4000 documents are unusually honest about that: the brochure prints both. Here is how to use them without over-promising to your own production manager.

• 20,000 points per hour. This is the machine's stated ceiling — the axis speeds and cycle timings at their design limit, with an ideal component and an ideal board. It is the right number for a datasheet comparison and the wrong number for a capacity plan.
• 10,000 CPH actual. The 2024 brochure prints a separate actual-speed figure of half the ceiling. Use this one for shift planning and payback arithmetic. It is also the figure that survives contact with a real mix of parts, board transfer time and operator intervention.
• Your board's number. Neither figure tells you what your specific board will run at, because insertion count, part spread, span changes and board size all move the answer. That is what the free demo is for: ten of your bare boards, your component list, and a measured rate at the end of it.
• The throughput levers, ranked by how much they usually move the answer. Verified material To be confirmed Speed figures are quoted from the two source documents. The lever ranking is Southern Machinery's engineering judgement from the machine's mechanism description, not a measured throughput table — treat it as a discussion order for the demo, and confirm the real numbers on your own board.

Six decisions that shape the machine you receive

The S4000 is configured, not ordered off a shelf. These are the choices that change the price, the footprint and what the machine can run — and the ones worth settling before a purchase order rather than after.

• Feeder bank size. The feeder bank is modular, so the station count is specified at order and expanded later. Southern Machinery lists combinations from 5 to 60 stations; the manual lists 10, 20, 30 and 40 as configurable. Count the axial part numbers across the whole product family you expect to run in the next three years, then add two spare stations for the parts nobody has designed yet.
• Dual jumper-wire feeders. Two jumper-wire feeders let the machine run two wire specifications — 0.5 mm and 0.6 mm — without a changeover. The brochure states the machine supports direct jumper-wire insertion without tapes, and that it handles both reel-style and drum-style jumper wire packages with anti-jam feeding. If your boards use more than one wire gauge, this is the option that keeps both in the program at once.
• Automatic PCB loading. A standard automated PCB loading device is offered so the machine can sit in an in-line flow rather than being hand-fed. The brochure states this arrangement lets a single operator manage three to five machines. Conveying direction is selectable left-to-right or right-to-left, and a custom manual version is available if you want to start without the loader.
• Built-in air storage tank. The brochure lists a built-in air storage tank as a standard feature, described as smoothing the air supply so insertion quality stays consistent and maintenance effort drops. It matters most where the house air supply is shared with other machines and the pressure dips when a neighbour cycles.
• Built-in 3 kVA regulator. A built-in 3 kVA regulator is listed as standard, described as reducing circuit failures and downtime by holding the supply steady. The manual adds that the control system requires all electrical systems of the machine to be reliably grounded, and that the protection set includes an isolation transformer.
• Component height and board size. Standard component height allowance is 15 mm and the manual notes it is customisable on request. Maximum board size is listed as 330 x 300 mm in the manual and 400 x 300 mm in the brochure, and the manual adds that board size is customisable. If your panel is outside the standard envelope, say so at enquiry stage rather than at installation.

What commissioning actually involves

Most of the risk in an axial line sits in the two weeks around installation, not in the machine. The software manual documents the commissioning sequence in enough detail that you can see what your engineers will be asked to do.

• Axis zeroing and limits. Each axis is zeroed from the engineer page and the procedure differs per axis: the X axis moves to the far right and releases the coupling, the Y axis moves to the topmost position, the H axis needs the timing belt removed, the U axis the timing belt, the R axis the timing pulley, and the C axis the reducer coupling. Soft limits are then set from a displacement operation. This is also the…
• Program creation on the machine. A new program starts by marking the insertion positions on the board at 0 degrees and then at 90 degrees, positioning the board on the middle rail, and stepping the camera to each hole to confirm coordinates. The program list stores insertion sequence, coordinates, rotation angle R with sign for direction, span, feeder number, component model and a program function code where OS is an offset…
• Panelisation for multi-board panels. Where several small boards share one panel, the software builds the program from one board. You complete the first board's program, enter the panel count in X and Y, acquire the top-left and bottom-right coordinates, calculate spacing, preview the result, choose the sorting method and execute. Automatic coordinate correction then re-checks every generated position.
• Diagnostics and feeder testing. The equipment status page shows the live state of every input and output signal, so a stuck cylinder or a blocked photoelectric sensor is visible as a state change rather than a guess. Each station can be driven individually from the feeder test page, one operation per click. Production information is counted automatically and saved into a record folder.

What happens after the machine lands

Southern Machinery has been selling and supporting auto insertion equipment since 2011, and has shipped more than fifty automatic insertion machines into Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina. The support model is the same one that kept those machines running.