Which depaneling option?

[loki42]

We need better depaneling for v scored boards.  We can think about switching to tabs if there's a major improvement.  What are you using for depaneling?  I'm looking at the CAB and FKN machines. The circular blade machines are what I've mostly been looking at but can look at punching.  Are their good Chinese options in this space too? How about laser depaneling?  I've got a Epilog co2 laser and a Trumpf fiber. I've also got a few punches for other tasks I could put tooling on if that's a better approach. 

[Doctorandus_P]

We need better depaneling for v scored boards. 

So, what are your current tools you're looking to upgrade from?
What sort of volume do you have in your production runs?
How many different panel sizes?

The circular wheels have been around for ages and apparently they work well for small to medium production runs. But those wheels have never been too gentle with brittle ceramic SMT parts (resistors and capacitors)

On the low end of the market, there are handheld tools that nib out tabs, and the next step up is a pneumatic tool that does the same (often mounted in a table).

But we're also living in the 21 century. If you do a search on youtube for fully automatic depaneling tools then routers with a carbide bit seem to be used quite often. You can get a reasonably quality 6040 CNC router for around EUR2000. You can combine that with milling a custom trays for your panel that work with a vacuum system (you can mill these on the 6040 itself) then the vacuum holds all the PCB's and you route around them.



For bigger production runs, I would put those trays onto some sort of pallet system with a conveyor belt so the machine itself can load and unload the pallets.

[loki42]

Using hand tools at the moment.  Only 100 boards per day.  All our panels share the same outside dimensions but rail width changes.  About 4 total different.  Is punching / nibbling less likely to damage ceramics than circular blades?