Automation Improves Adhesive Application for Motorsport Electronics
Automated adhesive dispensing helped a motorsport electronics manufacturer improve repeatability, reduce scrap, and expand production capacity.
Need to Know
- A silicone potting process that previously had a 10% scrap rate completed 400 to 500 cycles with zero waste after robotic dispensing was implemented.
- The three-axis robotic dispensing system can position adhesive to within five microns and deliver 99.9% volumetric dispensing accuracy.
- The manufacturer incorporated a silicone encapsulant, a UV-curable adhesive, and a thermally conductive, electrically insulating epoxy.
- Reducing reliance on specialized manual dispensing skills helped the manufacturer expand production capacity and outsource previously specialized work.
The challenges of designing and manufacturing race cars are many, but when considering the bonded assembly of race car parts, one of the key challenges is designing components that survive constant vibration and exposure while adding as little weight to the car as possible. For a supplier manufacturing custom electronics for motorsport applications, every adhesive bead has to function as intended and be placed exactly where specified.
Additionally, companies across the board are striving to reduce waste. Reducing product scrap rates allows companies to save money and create a more sustainable manufacturing process. A maker of exterior LED lighting and display panels for a motorsport supplier saw roughly one in 10 parts involved in a silicone potting process end up in the scrap bin. New technology and processes have allowed the company to reduce that scrap, saving money and improving its production processes.
This article outlines how a race car manufacturer utilized automated dispensing technology and adhesives to reduce scrap while meeting customer expectations for precise, lightweight parts.
Under pressure to use smaller components and meet tighter tolerances in search of quicker lap times, motorsport manufacturers must upgrade their processes accordingly. For one such electronics manufacturer, manual bonding and encapsulation reached their limits in throughput and repeatability. Working with adhesives supplier Intertronics, the company rebuilt its approach around automated dispensing and controlled UV curing, improving production repeatability, eliminating a scrap problem, and enabling the business to grow.
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The automotive electronics producer makes custom exterior LED lighting and displays for the top level of motorsport. It discovered the limitations of its processes as its customers searched for smaller, lighter products. Increasingly precise requirements for the encapsulation protecting its assemblies from the racing environment began to expose problems.
“The bonding and encapsulation stages were heavily reliant on specifically skilled individuals, meaning our business model was vulnerable to disruption and limited from expanding,” explained the company’s managing director. “In our silicone potting step, around 10% of products had to be scrapped due to human error. The impact on profits led us to seeking Intertronics’ help in summer 2020.”
The first step in the partnership between Intertronics and the electronics manufacturer was a demonstration, followed by the purchase of a three-axis dispensing robot at the former’s Technology Centre in Oxfordshire. The robotic dispensing system is capable of positioning adhesive to within five microns and delivering volumetric dispensing accuracy of 99.9%.
“During discussions, it became clear that the issue was not whether the adhesive could be dispensed, but whether it could be dispensed consistently enough to meet the customer's repeatability and accuracy requirements,” said Darren Rea, lead sales specialist.
“Automating that process allowed the customer to remove operator error and reach their repeatability targets. It also supported quality and traceability efforts, using consistent adhesive volumes, movement speed, and flow rates,” Rea continued.
Six years on from the initial enquiry, Intertronics has supplied multiple robotic dispensing systems to the manufacturer, each introduced in response to a new production requirement, as well as three bonding and sealing materials. These included a silicone encapsulant that was used to pot electronics in part of a display panel, a UV-curable adhesive used on a plastic substrate, and a twin-cartridge, thermally conductive, electrically insulating epoxy used to dissipate heat from electronics and mitigate leakage current, moisture, and chemical ingress.
With the introduction of automation to the manufacturing process, the company was able to become less dependent on skilled employees for dispensing and encapsulation. This change allowed the company to expand its production capacity, and its business has grown with the more robust production model.
“The simplicity that these robotics bring to the manufacturing process allowed us to outsource previously specialist work, like PCB assembly, making our expansion organic and natural,” said the managing director. “The same encapsulation step that had a 10% scrap rate has since run through 400-500 cycles with zero waste, perfected by the robotic system.”
To find out more about how automated dispensing systems future-proofed the manufacturer’s business model, read the full case study on the Intertronics website. Learn more about Intertronics at intertronics.co.uk.
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