Solder Ball Feeder Imaging for Reliable Cavity Pickup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Solder ball feeders face challenges in ensuring that all cavities are accurately filled with solder balls, leading to potential collection failures by the component mounter.
Innovation Solution
A solder ball supply device and method that includes an imaging section to capture images of the cavity unit, a determination section to analyze the images, and a conveyance control section to adjust the conveyance path's excitation, allowing for precise identification and collection of solder balls in suitable cavities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If vibration is imparted to the ball conveyance member to convey solder balls, then the solder balls can be supplied to the supply target container, but it is difficult to accommodate the solder balls in all cavities and the component mounter may not necessarily collect the solder balls
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary imaging and determination of solder ball accommodation status before the component mounter attempts collection. The imaging section captures images of cavities, and the determination section identifies which cavities contain collectable solder balls in advance, allowing the mounter to target specific cavities rather than attempting random collection.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by using imaging data to determine cavity occupancy status and communicating this information to control the component mounter's collection process. The determination section provides real-time feedback on which cavities contain solder balls, enabling the mounter to adjust its collection strategy based on actual cavity states.
2Reliability
If the component mounter attempts to collect solder balls from all cavities, then complete coverage is achieved, but time is wasted on empty cavities and throughput is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The imaging section and determination section perform preliminary identification of cavities containing solder balls before the component mounter begins collection. This preliminary action creates a target list of valid cavities, allowing the mounter to skip empty cavities and directly target those with solder balls, significantly reducing unnecessary movement and collection attempts.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of attempting to service all cavities equally, the system applies partial action by focusing collection efforts only on cavities that actually contain solder balls. The determination section identifies the subset of relevant cavities, and the component mounter concentrates its actions on this reduced set, avoiding waste on empty cavities while ensuring complete collection from occupied ones.
3Measurement precision
If imaging is performed on all cavities to determine solder ball presence, then accurate identification is achieved, but device complexity and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the necessary information from the imaging data - specifically, which cavities contain solder balls - rather than analyzing all possible properties of each cavity. The determination section processes images to identify occupancy status and extracts this key information to control the component mounter, avoiding unnecessary processing complexity while maintaining detection accuracy.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables accurate determination of collectable solder balls in each cavity, improving the component mounter's throughput by reducing collection failures and optimizing the conveyance of solder balls to the correct locations.
Implementation Method 1
The excitation device excites the track member to convey the multiple solder balls on the conveyance path to a supply region
Data Source
AI summary
A solder ball supply device is applied to a solder ball feeder including a feeder main body section, a track member, an excitation device, and a cavity unit, and includes an imaging section and a determination section. In the supply region, the cavity unit includes multiple cavities in which one of the multiple solder balls conveyed to the supply region is to be accommodated. The imaging section causes the imaging device to image the cavity unit to which the multiple solder balls are conveyed. The determination section performs image processing on the image data of the cavity unit acquired by the imaging section to determine whether the solder ball can be collected by the component mounter for each of the multiple cavities.