Xuron 670 Cut And Crimp Tool

Jay Ts Inscribed thus:

I have a frame with two adjustable rails that grip the PCB. It has a

30mm thick soft foam pad that is used as a cushion to hold components in place while soldering. I must admit that I don't use it much nowadays, preferring to use surface mount components.

By the way if you do any RF work the extra inductance introduced by the cut & crimp tool may need to be accounted for.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.

There is a better way. Shape your component leads so that they drop straight into the hole, ideally centered in the hole. If the components don't fall out easily when the board is turned over, you've done it wrong. Goes for DIPs also; form the leads by bending them over on a flat surface so that the DIP just drops in place (and will drop out if the board is inverted).

Use tape to hold the components in place before inverting the board for soldering. Masking tape works okay, static-free Kapton may be called for in some situations. Vinyl "electrical tape" works too, but avoid "cellophane" tape as it does tend to pick up a lot of static and it's rather fragile for this application.

Work "up" by size, starting with the components that sit closest to the surface; resistors, diodes, etc.

Doing it this way minimizes stress on the component body and leads, and also makes it much, much easier to remove the component if rework is ever required.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

It is a serviceability issue to solder a crimped lead, so it is NOT within accepted specs ANYWHERE, but the practice does occur, and if you never intend to service the assembly, crimped leads pose no problem.

I would question your inability to solder one joint, reposition (if required), then solder the second joint, leaving the leads straight, allowing for easy servicing in the future.

To complicate things by crimping, or using a tool which requires specific placement for each cut take me further still down the road of not necessary.

Find a sheet of ESD foam, and place the low level (profile) parts, then lay the foam on top of them, flip the assembly and solder the back side. Flip back over, remove foam, and repeat for the next profile level of parts until all parts are placed.

So, they get placed in order of profile height, and you do not have to cry due to lack of finger dexterity or knowledge of how to solder a part without doing weird things like crimping the leads.

Wrong. It is incorrect to use plated thru hole interference fits to hold parts any more. Perfectly centered in the hole so that they DO fall out if inverted is the right way. ESPECIALLY if it is not a production scenario. Plated thru holes are as cheap as it gets if it is not a real multi-layer board.

If you are building a board by hand, you should be able to figure out how to solder a loosely held part without special scraping of the sides of the holes it sits in or crimping its leads, and if you cannot, you should be a street sweeper, because you have all the dexterity of a slug.

And if you use a crimped over lead and it increases your inductance, you have done something wrong as well, because that crimped lead sit INSIDE the solder joint, and the inductance should be the same whether the lead sits in the solder joint straight, or bent over as its length remains unchanged.

Let me clarify. My main concern is actually not a matter of whether I can do it, it is more about speed and reducing the steps in the manufacturing process. It is a secondary issue that I do actually have "the dexterity of a slug." LOL

This is similar to the method I've been using, and I find it ok for making one or two boards, but it's too complicated for making many. By "too complicated", I'm referring to the multiple steps of place, flip, solder, repeat.

I'm looking for a method that will allow all of the parts to be placed at one time, and soldered in one operation.

From what people wrote so far about the cut and crimp tool, I think I am starting to understand how it works. This was not apparent from looking at the product photo, but by "crimp", do they mean that after being cut, the remaining end (tip) of the lead is bent over to hook into the bottom side of the PC board?

If that is the case, the serviceability issue is not a problem for me. Just last night I disassembled a speed control board removed from a c. 1980 Dremel tool, and the way they made that was to bend the component leads 90 degrees, so there was about 3 mm lying flat on the copper side, and they soldered them in place. The board was ugly as hell, with resistors being used to make point-to-point connections to the potentiometer. But at the time, they used that for volume production, and I guess guess the product even had a warranty. I guess they covered "serviceability issues" by charging $30 more for the variable speed feature. haha

I managed to work with that, so I think I can handle a little crimp at the ends of the leads, if that is all it is, in the rare event I have to fix one.

BTW, it was fun to see a tropical fish capacitor again.

FWIW, I'm doing audio frequency circuits and am not worried about anything over about 100 KHz, except to get rid of it. ;-)

Jay Ts

Thank you for that remark. That made my day, and I'm still laughing!

Cheers,

Jay Ts

That is commonly referred to as a wave solder machine.

For hand soldering, you are going to HAVE to build it up in stages, if you want reliable, repeatable results.

And IF you think that it takes some huge amount of time, you are wrong again. That is the way hand assembled PCBs are done. Period.

If you are in a manufacturing environment, and you are attempting to streamline costs somehow with this crap, you are making a mistake, and are too inexperienced to be running such a process.

You need to consult in-house with someone that has at least ten years experience with hand assembled circuit boards in a production level realm.

It's actually required for non-plated-through holes [NASA-STD-8739.3 fig

8-8B], but who uses non-plated-through these days?

Not allowed with plated-through.

I've had a similar tool for years. I think I used it once. Not seen it in ages. Waste of money.

That's what I do. It also ensures that components sit down snugly to the board.

The most useful tool I have is a fixture for bending axial component leads to the correct pitch.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

Yes, but that standard, along with single layer and dual layer board without plated through holes are archaic and even non-existent, and especially so in mil or space applications.

Folks used to worry about via count because PTHs were less reliable at first as well.

Now, boards can and do have hundreds of vias on them.

NASA-STD-8739.3 with change 3 revalidated 2008, expires 2013

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

I am not stating that the standard is non existent. I am stating that there are no products that either entity would ever buy, so the items are non existent. The standard IS archaic, however, regardless of the fact that it still gets included. They still include wire wrap standards as well, but do you know anyone using wire wrap processes? They certainly cost way too much to incorporate into any new designs.

Practically that way at the consumer level too, unless you are buying a video camera Barbie. There are very few single sided applications left. The LED flasher in your bicycle tail light. Not too many others. Dumb stuff like garage door openers and sensors. Anywhere low pin counts exist garden lighting, interior lighting (cfl), etc.

Actually, there are plenty of places... just none that the mil or space boys would be interested in, or would ever buy, COTS or not.

I am sure it is in some OEM wall wart power devices though.

Even those can be made in "ruggedized production runs" if you order enough of them.

Masking tape....

Good call. Another is the masking goop itself. That stuff can be used to "glue" down parts in a string just like the tape, and after soldering, you remove it (it must be fully hardened as well). There is a wait time for it to polymerize a bit first or you could warm it up, which is better for soldering anyway.

"life imitates life" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Power supplies are a big one.

I think there's more consumer electronics out there that's single-sided than you might expect too... e.g., DVD players.

You might be surprised... we've sold the military COTS products that include a bog-standard (not "ruggedized" or any special handling) wall-wart or rug-wart power supply that contains a single-sided PCB.

---Joel

make one, cover with tissue paper, put it in a box, fill box with polyester foam. (or plaster of paris etc...)

remove, coat tissue paper with lacquer or varnish.

you now have a mold that can hold the parts as you invert and solder the next unit.

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?? 100% natural