May 23, 2011 
The new Tower-XL from Essemtec offers 70 percent more space for 13" reels than a conventional Tower, and is only 12 cm (4.7") wider.
Tower is a fully automatic, modular and secure storage system for SMD components. Electronics manufacturers can reduce logistics cost by installing Towers near the pick-and-place machines. As such, machine operators can store components and retrieve them from stock just where they are needed.
The Tower-XL can store a maximum of 336 reels with 13" diameters, where the conventional Tower can store only 196. The footprint of the Tower-XL is 12 cm (4.7") wider, which offers the additional room for larger reel storage cassettes. In total, the new Tower can store 406 trays and reels (7 and 13"). When storing a reel, the Tower controls reel diameter and barcode. The access time for each reel is less than 12 seconds.
The Tower system includes stock management software with modules for job planning and tracking of MSL classified components in addition to other features. With one mouse click, it can dump all components for a machine, resulting in significantly fewer hours of setup time compared to conventional storage methods.
The Swiss machine manufacturer Essemtec is a market leader in manufacturing flexible production systems for industrial users. Essemtec has been developing, manufacturing and marketing equipment and machines for all processes in the electronics industry since 1991: printers, dispensers, pick-and-place and soldering systems. Manual, semiautomatic and fully automatic systems are available. The range of products also includes transportation and storage systems, as well as software solutions for planning, simulation optimization and documentation of manufacturing. All Essemtec systems are optimized for maximum flexibility. Users can switch quickly from one product to another, making maximum use of available production capacity. Essemtec - Be more flexible.
