Actuators stand the test of reliability
A
SMAC Europe product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Dec 5, 2007
Electric actuators replace pneumatics in QC and switch test applications thanks to the high degree of precise force control and programmability.
SMAC electric actuators (based on moving coil technology) are replacing conventional pneumatics in standard QC and switch test applications thanks to the high degree of precise force control and programmability.
Major global manufacturers of mobile phones are replacing their in-house pneumatic production and test systems with SMAC electric actuator systems.
The major reason for the change is the precise force control which allows the testing of different parts of the phone key pad with different forces - extremely difficult and costly to do with old fashioned pneumatic devices.
Also highly accurate positioning control - within 20um - is possible and the SMAC electric actuator solution also delivers a more compact and neater solution with lower installation, maintenance and running costs.
One customer required a fully programmable motion control profile which allowed the actuator to find the required initial contact point on the mobile phone key pad by using the unique "soft-land" function.
The actuator then returned to its "home position".
Depending on its position it then performed its test within a set of allowable parameters - each with different forces and a different number of strokes and also different pressing distances.
This was impossible to achieve using a conventional pneumatic system and therefore parts of the test were carried out manually which was subject to trial and error, time consuming and costly all of which was highly unsatisfactory for the customer.
The SMAC electric actuator systems provide 100% feedback and data provision for the manufacturers QC checking, SPC and quality systems.
This significantly improved quality, reduced waste and increased profitability during production.
The SMAC solution was chosen by the customer as a relatively low cost "off the shelf" solution with a proven and unrivalled pedigree in similar applications.
The SMAC system can be easily customised and enables 100% feedback of both force and position and also the ability to be able to verify hysteresis and switch differential in a single compact unit.
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SMAC actuators prevent dust build up
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SMAC creates tapping process for watch maker
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