People -- don't complain that I don't give straight answers... How do you get more straight than this?
The new stencils will be in on Monday, and production will resume then. THAT MEANS PRODUCTION WILL RESUME ON MONDAY.
For those of you who need further clarification... That means that we will start building Monster Max controllers again on Monday.
If that isn't clear enough for you -- here's some more details.
On Monday, about 9:00am, UPS will deliver a pair of MMM stencils. A stencil (in the electronics world) is a large piece of nickel plated stainless steel, about .006" thick, stretched tight into a 29" x 29" tubular aluminum frame. The thin sheet of stainless has apertures cut out of it with a laser, and is used for putting solder onto a circuit board. The solder is printed onto the circuit board using a machine called a "stencil printer." Our stencil printer is a Dek Horizon printer. You can click on the link below to get more information about the Dek Horizon stencil printer:
http://www.dek.com/web.nsf/us/product_horizon
Our machine operator, Shawn Messmer, will load the Horizon printer with the solder stencil for the top side of the Monster Max first. He will then load solder paste (which is a paste made of microscopic solder balls suspended in flux), and start production.
After the solder is printed on the circuit boards, they then move out of the Dek Horizon (by conveyor), and into our Universal Instruments Advantis Lightning (AC-30L). Our Advantis AC-30L is our chip shooter, and will place about 32,000 parts per hour onto the MMM circuit boards.
After leaving the Advantis Lightning AC-30L, the board will move by conveyor to our Advantis FlexJET AX-72. The Advantis FlexJET is a little slower than the Advantis Lightning, but can place larger, more difficult parts. This type of machine is usually called a "flexible placer", where the AC-30L is called a "chip shooter."
To see more information about the Universal Instruments Advantis, visit this link below:
http://www4.uic.com/wcms/WCMS2.nsf/i...oducts_18.html
After leaving the Universal Instruments Advantis AX-72, the MMM boards will move through the reflow oven, a Heller 1707EXL. The reflow oven solders the board (all at one time!) by raising the temperature of the board slowly until all of the solder paste (stenciled on by the DEK printer!) melts, or
reflows. To see more information about the Heller 1707EXL reflow oven, visit the link below:
http://www.hellerindustries.com/h1700EXL.htm
After reflow, the boards cool for about an hour. Then it is off to the inspection station, where we employ a MIRTEC 5 camera automatic optical inspection machine, which checks all the parts and solder joints to be sure everything is perfect after assembly.
To see more about our Mirtec 5 camera AOI, please see below:
http://www.mirtecusa.com/desktop3.html
Once all is checked and found to be OK, the MMM will then move into soldering, where our soldering technicials will add the switches and receiver connector (with love, of course!)
Then the boards move on to final assembly, where they are placed in cases and stickers are added to the case.
Next, the nearly complete MMM move into functional testing -- where each and every MMM is calibrated, and tested with loads of up to 100A. During functional testing, the output waveforms, throttle response, and cutoff voltage settings are all throughly tested.
After passing functional testing, the MMM move to finishing and packaging, where they are carefully placed into a box along with a CD, cable and Castle Link.
Then the MMM are moved into stock, where they will await final packing and shipping.
Hope you found that interesting!
Patrick