Phil
Welcome to Board Talk. We're the Assembly Brothers, Jim Hall and Phil Zarrow. Today's questions is from a KA and KA asks, "Are there standard SMT pick and places that can also insert radial lead devices?" Now what an interesting question.

Jim
I think before we go any farther, my general opinion is no.

Phil
I would rate it a qualified yes.

Jim
That's all right, and we're not here to agree. We're here to give information. The reason is that handling radial parts which have either two or principally three leads, most radials have three leads, takes a lot of lead preparation and lead handling, and typically there are dedicated machines to do this, radial inserters made by Universal and some of the Japanese companies, Panasonic, TDK, Sanyo.

And having been with Dynapert many years ago when they were attempting to and never successfully built a radial machine, I understand how difficult it is to do this reliably in an automated machine. So my feeling is, yes, there are placement machines that can do some insertion. They typically call it odd-form insertion. But we're usually dealing with connectors and things like that that have fixed, very stable leads that don't need any lead handling.

A radial package needs a tremendous amount of lead preparation and typically you have to hold the leads in alignment while you insert them. It's more extra mechanism than is practical to provide in a pick and place machine. Pick and place machines achieve significant speed and cost effectiveness because they're doing a relatively simple operation, whereas insertion machines have been more expensive and much more limited because of the dedicated nature of handling leads.

Phil
So what you're going to want to do is ask among the different pick and place manufacturers out there to see if they can do odd form, and most of the time the odd form they're referring to is exactly what Jim was talking about, connectors, things with rigid, fixed lead patterns.

If they can and do radial, you're going to have to ask what the care and feeding of said components are going to have to be. How are you going to have to prep them within specific tolerances for the machine to handle it and also in terms of how are you going to feed it? Then you've got to ask yourself, as Jim was saying, whether it's all worth it or, gee, whiz, let's hand insert, or if there's high volume, look at getting a machine purposely designed for doing that, mainly a radial inserter.

Jim
I doubt very sincerely that you will find a pick and place company that will just say, Yes, here's a piece of off-the-shelf hardware that will take a variety of radial parts, form them, lead prep them, and insert them for you as part of the normal pick and place program. Don't know for sure, haven't looked in a long time, but I really doubt it.

Jim
Don't solder like my brother.

Phil
Don't solder like my brother, either.

Jim
Keep the kids away from the flux pot.