Reading time ( words)
Nolan Johnson follows up on his original interview with Sunny Patel, engineering manager at Candor Industries, about the economics of this new InduBond X-Press 360 lamination press. It sounds like Sunny has hit the “easy” button with the installation of this machine.
Nolan Johnson: You recently installed the InduBond X-Press 360 lamination press. There’s a lot of hype and promise around this particular technology regarding energy savings and versatility. What are your impressions in using this press?
Sunny Patel: Well, the hype is real. It’s such a great machine. Because of its simplicity and the flexibility of use, I find it a lot easier to work with than our previous press. The energy savings speak for themselves; the capabilities of going up to 375°C and 65 kg/cm2 pressure allows us to do pretty much any kind of pressing. The name of the game right now is to try to increase your available capabilities; the press does that without many difficulties. You don’t need a PhD on the machine and it’s very easy to use. We’re very happy with it.
Johnson: That’s great to hear. Capabilities and energy use are two of the things that are significantly better. Is there a positive impact on throughput?
Patel: Yes. The system that we used before was a good system. But the nice thing about the InduBond is you can control both the heating and the cooling. Because everything is so dialed in, the time we used to take to wait for the cooling has dramatically decreased. There’s a lot of throughput increase as well, not only on that side, but also the layout process, because previously we had used a continuous copper foil lamination system. Other people may not have the same problem; they would have problems with pinning. Our headache may not have been pinning, but other board shops may find this a lot easier because it’s a pinless system.
You don’t have to move around bulky press plates. Just build your book, put in your stainless steel, and just keep stacking; it’s simple to do. I can do it and I never ran a press before this one. Overall, throughput has increased, just because of the capability. The smaller your press stack is, the faster you can heat up because there’s less load. You can even do the small quick-turns pretty fast.
Johnson: Have you had a chance to put together some numbers on how the operating costs have changed? For example, you said that the energy savings are dramatic. What are the numbers?
Patel: I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I believe I calculated one press before to be $40 or $50 a lamination press cycle. Now it’s around $5. If you add up all the presses, it’s quite a significant savings. Not only that, but we’re using less copper. And because the layout is easier, we’re saving on time.
To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the May 2022 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.
