Automation of 3" drive boardmate station

Abstract

The manual assembly process at 3" Drive Boardmate station consists of loading of drive HDA, Insulator, PCBA and Shield, into a fixture, and fastening of five screws. Unloading of the fastened drive and Visual Inspection, are also done at the same station. The total cycle time taken for this station is above 60 seconds. The aim of this project is, to automate this boardmate station's assembly operations economically, within the company's budget of 60K, to reduce the cycle time by more than 50%. The critical parameter to be controlled in this assembly is the torque applied by the screwdriver. This torque should be 1 kgf-cm with a variation of +/- 5%. If the torque exceeds this value, the shallow torx recess will be sheared away, which will cause difficulty in demating the drive parts for rework. A comparison of different brand screwdrivers was made and Technart SF 1200, which has servo feedback control was selected for our application.