The Virtual Tour of Bittele Electronics' Production Facility
Parts Warehouse
The Parts Warehouse is where we receive and sort all parts shipped to us from our dealers. Our parts team sorts each shipment according to their respective PCB orders, before scanning each part into our tracking system and storing them. When a client’s project is ready for assembly, the parts team will locate all the parts belonging to that project and prepare them for our assembly technicians, who will feed all surface-mount (SMT) parts into our SMT placement machines, or assemble them using selective soldering techniques.
Surface Mount Production Lines
We have three surface-mount (SMT) production lines, which we use for prototype, small- and medium-volume assembly of SMT boards. We use state-of-the-art equipment from Yamaha, Kohyoung and ASM SMT Solutions for solder paste application, 3D solder paste inspection (SPI) and 3D automated optical inspection (AOI). We also have a first article inspection (FAI) machine, which allows our assembly team to fully analyze production quality and, should any issues arise, to reconfigure any machine along the production line to produce better results.
Solder Reflow and Inspection Area
Once they have passed through the SMT assembly lines, each circuit board is then fed into one of two programmable solder reflow ovens (courtesy of Juki Corporation). Every SMT component will be soldered onto their board, thanks to the ten heating zones and 2 cooling zones of the machines, after which they are inspected for possible issues during the reflow process. All boards are inspected using specialized automated optical inspection (AOI) and, in the case of high density interconnect (HDI) PCBs and boards with BGA, LGA and other leadless components, x-ray inspection machines, to ensure the quality of the final product, before it can undergo further selective soldering of through-hole (THT) components, functional testing and final inspection.
Selective Soldering Area
We are equipped with a state-of-the-art, programmable wave soldering machine from Kurtz Ersa, which our assembly team uses to solder the most common of through-hole (THT) components onto various PCBs. However, as wave soldering is not feasible in all cases, we also have six manual soldering workbenches, each occupied by a technician. Regardless of the technique, our selective soldering stage still undergoes the same level of inspection with AOI as every other board, before proceeding to functional testing and final inspection.
Final Inspection Lab
The final inspection lab is where our technical staff cleans, visually inspects, and tests all PCBs upon completion of the assembly stage. Once cleaned of all flux, every single board is examined closely for any physical defects, both cosmetic and functional; visual inspection, functional circuit testing (FCT) and in-circuit testing (ICT) are done. If any touch-ups are required, our staff will make the necessary reparations before cleaning and testing once more; no board ever leaves the facility until its quality level and fitness is confirmed 100%.
Shipping Office
After ever order has been fully assembled, cleaned and tested, each PCB is individually wrapped in anti-static bags and packaged in heavy-duty boxes with the utmost protection measures, to protect from physical impact, static discharge and all other hazards that can occur to a client’s product in transit. All anti-static measures taken in the packaging of circuit boards are the same as those taken by the rest of our production staff, including packing materials. Every order is shipped with a manifest, any electrical test results the client may wish to include in the box and finally labelled with the client’s shipping address before courier pickup.
back to top
