Electro Scientific Industries, Inc.

Evart David Shealey

Douglas John Garcia

Vernon P Cooke

Steven David Swendrowski

Mitsuaki Tani

Malcolm Vincent Hawkes

Jeffrey L Fish

Martin J Twite, Iii

Hsang Wang

Martin S Voshell

One or more concentric rings of component seats are rotatable about the rings' center. The seats are uniformly angularly spaced and the rings are incrementally rotated, the increment of rotation being the angular space between adjacent seats. The rings are inclined at an angle and a stream of components is poured onto the rings as they are rotating. Stationary fences adjacent to outboard sides of the seats, confine unseated components to tumble randomly, due to gravity, over empty seats passing through arcs of the rings' rotation paths. The random tumbling results in seated components. In the paths of the rotating rings are electrical contactors for coupling the components to a tester. Preferably there are five contactor stations to permit five different kinds of tests to be performed simultaneously. Tested components pass beneath an ejection manifold which defines a plurality of ejection holes which register with a set of seats each time the ring is rotated an increment. Ejection tubes are coupled to the ejection holes. The components are ejected from their seats by blasts of air from selectively actuated, respective pneumatic valves. Due to the blast of air and gravity, the ejected components travel down the tubes and are directed into sorting bins according to a tube routing plate. The stream of components can be selectively directed to each fence in response to a signal from a detector indicating that the fence is deprived of components. Sensors detect seated components that were not ejected by the ejection manifold.

Electrical circuit component handler

A dipping head dips planar arrays of electronic components, disposed in carriers, into sheets of termination paste that are conveyed to a dipping site by a conveyor having an upper planar surface. The sheets are produced atop the conveyor by a doctoring device. The conveyor can be a belt, preferably an endless belt of stainless steel. A wear plate provides vertical support for the belt at the dipping site in order to maintain the planarity of the sheet of termination paste. Preferably the wear plate is perforated with a vacuum source below to hold the belt snug against the plate. The doctoring device is located before (referenced to the direction of belt travel) the dipping site and can be a reservoir of paste riding atop the belt with the paste selectively metered out by raising or lowering of the blade against the belt. A scraper blade can be located after the dipping site to recover leftover paste and guide it into a device which pumps the paste through a filter and back to the reservoir. A tape of cleaning material rubs against a run of the belt, after the scraper blade but before the doctoring device, to further cleanse the belt.

Apparatus for applying termination paste to electronic components

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Jamul, CA, United States of America

Evart David Shealey