Design and development of an automated pinning machine for the surface mount electronics industry

Abstract

This thesis describes the development of a concept for a pinning process and the associated machinery to handle odd-form pins specific to a company in the surface mount electronics industry. The developed pinning machine will reduce manual labor requirements, increase flexibility over current automated systems, and allow for greater part traceability. A brief history of industrial automation is presented to establish a background of the industry, followed by a more detailed look at robotic tooling. The design of the automated pinning machine is described in detail, as well as the design methodology behind the sub-systems and components themselves. Finally, the performance of the machine is documented in a testing chapter, comparing machine performance to the original design specifications. The final pinning machine is capable of processing pins with cycle times of 850ms, and has a mean time to failure of 0.24 hours.