An Analysis of the Errors Involved in Component Pick Up and Registration for Automated Printed Circuit Board Assembly

In the high-speed, automated assembly of printed circuit boards, sufficient accuracy of the assembler system is required to enable proper component insertion without jamming. An important intermediate step in the assembly process, particularly with a general-purpose (flexible) assembler, is the registration of a component. The various error sources contributing to component mis-registration are identified and mathematical relationships between them are developed in this study. Using these relationships in a computer program, appropriate sizes and tolerances for the critical system parameters can be determined for successful component registration and assembly.