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Grid lok system

Grid lok system

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Ran across this at APEX Show in California, seems like it ha... - Feb 15, 2006 by

It's cumbersome. Also if it catches a part partially after ... - Feb 15, 2006 by

hi, we tried to introduce form-flex a few years back and ... - Feb 16, 2006 by

> hi, > > we tried to introduce form-flex a few ... - Feb 16, 2006 by Mark Gillespie

I tried this as a demo, sweat like a pig putting this in but... - Feb 16, 2006 by

We have just had gridlock installed on 4 DEK screen printers... - Feb 28, 2006 by

Gel Flex works for Dek, just a slight modificaion. Works 10... - Feb 28, 2006 by

In my last life we had pretty good luck with the Grid-lok sy... - Feb 28, 2006 by BillyD

Gel flex is crap! If you put enough in to actually support t... - Feb 28, 2006 by

JNJ made a nice tooling plate for MPM Hi-E series. Its inte... - Feb 28, 2006 by

Yep Grid-Lok sucks for thin boards. We have it set up in 4 ... - Feb 28, 2006 by

Why don't you try it for yourself. It won't cost you anythi... - Feb 28, 2006 by

Alpha-numeric suck! Just kidding. We had a guy that was in... - Feb 28, 2006 by

Well see you wrong. I've done this kind of thing for 12 yea... - Mar 02, 2006 by

Personally I think Grid lok is inferior to the new Vacunest ... - Mar 12, 2006 by

Hi Steveo, What sort of products are you using the vacune... - Mar 13, 2006 by criso

Sang Jun Kim

#39731

Grid lok system | 15 February, 2006

Ran across this at APEX Show in California, seems like it has good potintial for supporting PCB Boards good. We are assigned project to find solution to support PCB. Anybody have exerpeince with this?

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Spilly McNugglets

#39732

Grid lok system | 15 February, 2006

It's cumbersome. Also if it catches a part partially after initial set-up, you'll get missprints. We had one and caused about 15% missprints. Once removed and hard pin in place, no missprints. Defeats vacuum board hold down too, from all of it's hoses.

Gel Flex works good for vacuum or edge clamping machines. Got rid of missing component problem we always seemed to find prior to wave 100%. Although it has it's drawbacks with large boards where you will need one center support. Also if you have a lot of tall components on the bottom and vacuum board hold, the Gel might defeat the vacuum and raise the board. Still over all, I'd go Gel over anything I've seen to date.

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#39735

Grid lok system | 16 February, 2006

hi,

we tried to introduce form-flex a few years back and it caused more problems than it fixed.

Switched back to pins and no problems.

It might have improved since but I would be reluctant to get them again unless I was given a 6 month trial!!

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Mark Gillespie

#39742

Grid lok system | 16 February, 2006

> hi, > > we tried to introduce form-flex a few > years back and it caused more problems than it > fixed. > > Switched back to pins and no > problems. > > It might have improved since but I > would be reluctant to get them again unless I was > given a 6 month trial!! > > aj

Grid-Lok and Formflex are different products. Formflex uses hydraulics to raise the pins and maintains the pressure using hydraulics. Grid-lok uses air to lift, and an air operated mechanical latch to lock the pins in position.

Formflex can suffer from sticking pins and leaks from the unit. Grid-lok does not have these problems.

Grid-Lok has 2 modes of operation, Automatic and Manual. Automatic mode can re-adjust the pins on each PCB into the machine, to cater for differences between each PCB' underside components.

Hope this helps somewhat

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Rich Paulson

#39746

Grid lok system | 16 February, 2006

I tried this as a demo, sweat like a pig putting this in but my employer didnt like it.

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Mity-C

#40052

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

We have just had gridlock installed on 4 DEK screen printers. I agree that if it partially catches a component you will have misprints. In the same respect, if a hard pin is placed in the wrong location, you will get misprints and or damaged components. We are a CM and perform 8-10 changeovers a day. They provide better support than other products we have tried and are less cumbersome to set up than hard pins for the most part. If we do have a support problem, it is identified within the first couple of pieces and corrected. All in all, the best system we have used so far.

My $.02

Good Luck

reply »

Chunks

#40061

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

Gel Flex works for Dek, just a slight modificaion. Works 100% better than any Grid type of system. We had missprints from Grid Lok and Form Flex - about every 5th or 6th board. Until we modified the Gels, we would take the time and some peelable solder mask to assure a hard pin is correct any time. Not to mention you operator board cleaning most of his day, so after a couple hours of this he just wants to hug you with his messy hands. Accepting misprints from a set-up like this shoule be considered unacceptable.

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BillyD

#40062

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

In my last life we had pretty good luck with the Grid-lok system. Just not very good for extremely large boards, or very thin ones. (Tends to push thin ones up and bend them before the table rises. **On DEK printers, mind you) Form-flex was a nightmare, in every version. DEK reccomends the Grid-lok for their printers now.

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#40067

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

Gel flex is crap! If you put enough in to actually support the board, it bows. Apparently MPM knows this because they include hard pins with the set (kinda defeats the purpose huh)! I trialed the grid-lok and it worked fine and operators loved it. There is an issue with it interfering with the vacuum but that can be worked around, pretty easily. Form flex was no good and I went through about 4 revs of it.

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Brick

#40068

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

JNJ made a nice tooling plate for MPM Hi-E series. Its intent was to replace MPM's "Universal Nest" with an alpha-numeric grid type system. I looked on their website, and they don't make it anymore. Worked great as long as you documented your setup and put it in your work instruction.

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vdizzle

#40071

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

Yep Grid-Lok sucks for thin boards. We have it set up in 4 Dek Horizon 01s. Grid-Lok is actually strong enough to snap really thin boards. Other than that, the system has been great, especially if you have to do 10-12 changeovers per line per shift. I'd recommend having the machine signal the Grid-Lok to fire the pins instead of the sensor. I know Dek has a solution to this, but I'm clueless about the other vendors.

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charlie

#40076

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

Why don't you try it for yourself. It won't cost you anything in most cases. Anyone with a negative impression about the product may want to contact Grid-lok (support@grid-lok.com or sales@grid-lok.com) for applications or tech support to be sure that the system is installed and operating correctly. Also, there are a couple different methods of setup for different boards(thick, thin, etc.). Very simple once you use it a few times.

Just my humble, unbiased comments. Charlie

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Wave Master Larry

#40086

Grid lok system | 28 February, 2006

Alpha-numeric suck! Just kidding. We had a guy that was in charge of our waves who said the same thing. Never two sure what he meant by that. I've been runnning wave solder for 12 years and them Gels seem to get rid of the broken parts at wave. Now that I'm in charge of runing waves, i looked back at our history at wave. Our number one defect was missing parts. This was never cause by the wave maCHINES BUT WE NEVER LOOKED AT A BOARD UNTIL AFTER WAVE. Since we started using the gels our only problem have been skips and top side wetting. Mostly cuase the fluxer programs are messed up on our Soltec machine. It took me a couple of months, but I got it all right now. The gels work and the guy who tried to to introduce the other stuff never stuck around to see 3 boards run at the printer. They other things may work, but no one ever stuck around to make sure. They just slapped it in and expected it to work. From what I'm told they cleaned alot of boards.

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Wave Master Larry

#40137

Grid lok system | 2 March, 2006

Well see you wrong. I've done this kind of thing for 12 years and I cna tell you that suporting boards with anything else will cause more problems. wave is an art tha needs to be respected even by engineers at AI. Once you get the process down then the rest will fall into place. its very simple.

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Steveo

#40361

Grid lok system | 12 March, 2006

Personally I think Grid lok is inferior to the new Vacunest system, especially in screen printing. Vacunest is basically a bean bag that conforms to the shape of the PCB and then holds this shape indefinatley under vacuum, until the vacuum is released. It only cradles the boad and doesn't put pressure on it like the gel system.

Unlike the pin support systems, it actually supports the stencil outside of the PCB as well which you can't do with the Pin systems, therefore reducing wear on your stencil and giving you a superior wipe with the squeegee.

I have used this system for a few weeks and it has definately improved my yield and taken out the operator error of pin set-up.

Cheaper than Gridlok too!

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criso

#40392

Grid lok system | 13 March, 2006

Hi Steveo,

What sort of products are you using the vacunest on? ie: PCB thickness, panel size, complexity etc...

What brands and types of screen printers are you using? -

Did you have to modify your printers?

Do you also use it in your placement machines?

I have been offered the gridlok system for a 6 month trial should I bother?