Custom SMT nozzle and gripper

From a component sample to a validated tool, in nine steps

Every step below produces something you can look at. Nothing is quoted from a written description alone.

• Receive the component. Send the part itself, ideally four to six inches of tape or a tube, or a drawing with the critical dimensions called out.
• Measure what matters. Outside profile, the face the tool has to bear on, mass, centre of gravity and any lead or pin pattern.
• Choose the handling method. Vacuum, friction jaws, a hybrid of the two, or a slot. The method follows the part, not the machine.
• Model the jaw. CAD geometry with the chamfers and radii that let the part enter the jaws without being pushed off centre.
• Check the structure. Thicker sections where the jaw sees the bending load during acceleration, so the head does not have to compensate for a flexible tool in software.
• Machine and fit. Body and jaw are cut to the interface your head expects, so the tool seats and repeats at the same height every cycle.
• Test on your component. Pick and place cycles on your own part, at production speed, with the pickup rate recorded and shipped with the tool.
• Validate the material. Tungsten steel, ceramic, diamond steel or a soft tip, chosen against wear, static and how fragile the component is.

Three families of custom tool, and the parts each one is built for

These three cover most of what an EMS quote asks for. The photograph library further down carries the rest.

• Custom gripper nozzles on a machined body. Three gripper nozzle bodies photographed on the bench, each showing the two-prong jaw that closes on the component.
• 500-series vacuum nozzles. Two 500-series nozzles: the green cap, the spring that keeps the tip compliant, and the machined aluminium body that seats in the head.
• JUKI gripper nozzle, 2071. The tool that supplies this page with its numbers: arm width and height 7 mm, jaws closed at 8.5 mm, open at 18.5 mm, for components from 9.5 mm to 17.5 mm.

Where our own documents disagree, printed side by side

These are the places where two sources we hold give different figures. We have not averaged them and we have not picked one. Ask us for the current drawing for your configuration before you order.

Which tool handles which component family

A quick map from the part in front of you to the tool that picks it. Where a figure is published it is printed; where it is not, the row says so.

What can be changed on a custom tool

Each of these is a decision you can make before the drawing is released.

• Handling method. Vacuum, friction jaws, hybrid suction plus jaws, or a slot, chosen from the shape of the part.
• Tip and jaw material. Tungsten steel, ceramic, diamond steel, or a rubber and silicone tip for delicate faces.
• Body length and interface. Cut to the interface your head expects, so it seats without an adapter.
• Coatings and surface finish. A coating to stop sticky or soft parts adhering to the tip.
• Error-proofing. Asymmetric keying on jaws that look alike, so a tool cannot be fitted the wrong way round.
• Marking and identification. The part code engraved on the body, so a tool on a bench can be identified without measuring it.

What happens after the tool lands

Six steps, and the first one is the only one that normally causes trouble.

• Fit and check the seating height. Seat the tool, then check the tip height against the head datum before running a cycle.
• Teach the pickup position. Set the pickup point in the machine's component data, then verify it with the head camera.
• Set the placement force. Start low for a fragile part and raise it until the placement repeats, not until it seats once.
• Run the pickup-rate test. Fifty cycles at production speed, with the misses counted, before the tool goes into the program.
• Write the inspection interval. Decide how often the tip is checked, and put it in the maintenance schedule rather than reacting to a fault.
• Keep the spare. A second tool on the shelf converts a tool failure from a line stop into a changeover.

What you get after the tool ships

Four things, and none of them are conditional on a service contract.