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Board Washer, In-line vs Batch

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#89202

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 14 April, 2023

Hello,

Our company is looking at replacing a very aged inline board washer. Closed loop DI water source. We run primarily aqueous based flux products. There are numerous structural and mechanical issues with the line, held together with bailing wire and duct tape. We want to replace before catastrophic failure and unplanned down time.

We wash about 100-200 assemblies daily, post SMT and post THT.

The batch wash equipment companies make a strong case for energy and water efficiency, reduced operator time, reliability, ability to switch between water and solvent cleaning. They claim a lot of sales over the last few years are replacing in-line with batch.

Any thoughts on one system vs the other? If you were replacing, what would you consider and why.

Thanks for feedback.

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#89203

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 14 April, 2023

Without get too deep. The biggest drawback of batch washer, you can't pack too many boards into same batch. If you are washer very larger boards, that's the bottleneck. If you are washing No-Clean board, then you wait even much longer, more than double. That's only based on what I used Batch washer for (wash No-Clean) from my past experience.

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#89204

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 14 April, 2023

You must leave space around the boards in a batch cleaner or else you will not get them clean enough. About half of what you think you can put in is all that you will end up running. Very hard to get any real through put. Drying times are high also.

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#89205

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 14 April, 2023

Exactly, I had an program that ran almost 2hours to clean a batch of 5 boards only.

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#89208

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 15 April, 2023

When looking at a similar problem, as I go along I a have a buy list in the back of my head and visit the local scrap metal dealers on a regular basis. I had a machine in mind that was going to take about 8 specialists. and a pile of cash to build and that would probably require a bunch of iterations through the design till it even starts to perform. So we are talking millions of dollars, and a backer with deep pockets. And the design and the physics are a bit conjectural!

So I turn up at the scrappys and a lot of CD manufacturing plant is there at a reasonable price, which would easily cost half a million, probably a lot more to replicate. this makes up about half of the design, at least for the experimental phase.

You are in a similar situation, go and look and see if there is some baths or other equipment that would be easily adapted to your situation.

regards sarason

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#89210

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 15 April, 2023

Curious, why was the batch duration so long? If the extra long duration was atypical from other batches, how did you determine the batch was complete?

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#89211

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 15 April, 2023

Thanks. I heard the same thing polling a few contacts today over the phone.

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#89215

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 17 April, 2023

That's depend on how many wash cycles you would need to completely cleans the board within 1 batch. Most of times you would need more than 2 wash cycles (that's already about 30 mins just 2 wash cycles), it can be up to 5 wash cycles alone. Also keep in mind, batch washer has to be completely finish each washing step before starts the next. i.e. for rinse cycles, you have to wait for the water completely drains before another rinse. The estimate wash completion time is never correct (those extra in-between wait time never being calculated into the total time).

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#89237

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 21 April, 2023

Endless conveyor against specific arrangements in batches? Still wonder what they mean by reduced operator time?

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#89240

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 21 April, 2023

The only time actually saved is operator doesn't need to wait at the exit end to pickup the boards for batch washer if washing the same qty boards.

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#89248

Board Washer, In-line vs Batch | 23 April, 2023

This may be helpful:

https://youtu.be/_QyilFiyGn4

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Reflow Oven

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