The focus of our work is customer satisfaction. We give 100 % focus to this every day at our production locations. Our expert team will advise you comprehensively.
Thanks to years of experience and in-depth know-how, will be able to implement your orders smoothly.
And if we need to act quickly and flexibly, we will always find a good solution.
Without any additional costs we offer you the shortest lead and reaction times.
But when it is really urgent: for orders received before 10 AM, we will dispatch your stencil on the same day so you will have it ready for printing in your production site in the following day.
Sparks SMT stencil foils also referred to as Frameless SMT Stencils perform the critical task of depositing solder paste, adhesive or flux onto the PCB. The material that the foil is made from influences its dimensional accuracy, solder paste release properties and useful life.
Foil Stencils do not require a rigid frame to hold them, making them an economical alternative that saves on storage space. Tension is generated from a self-tensioning frame, which can be either pneumatic or mechanical.
Sparks produce the following types of Self-tensioning Stencil foils:
Alpha Tetra
TetraBond
Vectorguard
Zel-Flex
Quattro-Flex / Stencilman
Essemtec
Frameless SMT Stencil Features:
* Reduced storage space requirements
* Significantly less expensive than framed stencils
* Excellent for prototype printed circuit board assembly or short runs
* Smooth aperture walls, can be used for 16 Mil pitch and below and for Micro BGA's
SPARKS Mesh mount stencils meet the high quality requirements with optimum registration accuracy and cut quality.
Guaranteed tolerance of aperture dimensions to ±5μm over the entire printable area of the stencil makes for consistent and accurate replication of board features, even with large panels.
The pads have a slightly conical aperture towards to the circuit board side so that the stencil guarantees optimum release characteristics of the paste.
Our frames are sealed liquid-tight and sandblasted or roughened for good mesh adhesion and made from high grade aluminium profile with re-enforced wall thicknesses to avoid the so called “Arc-effect”
With the Automatic Stretching machine the entire tensioning process is controlled and compensated electronically, to ensure uniform tension of the mesh during the drying process.
SMT Multi-level stencils provide practical, workable solutions in a number of different applications.
Component miniaturisation and increasing component mix lead to the fact, that the paste application can no longer be regulated by the aperture alone. Stencils with different step heights are the answer. With these different paste heights can be printed efficiently in one blade cycle.
Sparks produce multi-level step stencils in one continuous operation creating stepped stencils without distortion or burrs. Micro-Milling is the most flexible stepping method, able to create unlimited shapes, patterns, wall profiles and cavities.
Benefits of Sparks Multi-level stencils:
• Flexible local adaption to any component mix
• Flexible design of pressure-sensitive areas
• Improved quality by optimized solder joint volume
• Higher first pass yield
• Reduced rework and touch up
• Eliminate need of solder preforms or paste add-on techniques such as jetting and dispensing
• Compatible with all Mesh mount and Pneumatic stretching frames.
Material: PHD Stainless Steel, FG Fine grain Stainless steel
VPC - Vacuum Plasma Coating
Our VPC - PLASMA coatings can help you make substantial savings within your electronics production processes, while increasing process reliability and, in turn, the profitability of your printing process. VPC Plasma Coating is a functional surface coating that decreases the surface energy on the printing tool and in apertures. In other words, adhesion is significantly reduced. Thanks to the coating, paste comes away much more readily, minimizing contamination.
Our VPC Plasma coatings therefore ensure that the volume of paste is consistent throughout the entire printing process. This leaves plenty of scope for many more prints before the underside needs to be cleaned again.
FAQs
›› Where exactly on the stencil is the VPC – Vacuum Plasma Coating?
The coating is applied on the underside (circuit board side) and in the apertures. Coating the inner walls of the apertures ensures that paste comes away from them much more readily. The underside is coated
to lower the chance of flux getting stuck.
›› How resistant is the VPC – Vacuum Plasma Coating?
Over the last 2 years, we have managed to continually improve the resistance of our VPC – Vacuum Plasma Coating. When used properly, our VPC – Vacuum Plasma Coating can be relied upon to deliver a consistently high level of process reliability – even after more than 100,000 prints.
›› Which cleaning media are suitable for the VPC – Vacuum Plasma Coating?
Please get in touch if you would like us to send out a detailed list of the media we have already tested.
Nanocoating SMT stencils
The underside of solder paste stencils can be nanocoated to provide a non-stick surface which:
• reduces the number of cleaning cycles required during the paste printing process
• improves paste transfer efficiency for fine pitch apertures
When to use nanocoatings?
There are a number of factors to take into account when considering whether to nanocoat a stencil:
1. What is the smallest aperture and pitch on the stencil and what is its thickness?
In the case of a large board with large apertures, the benefit of nanocoating is insignificant.
On the other hand, stencil performance can be considerably improved in the case of a dense image with fine pitches and small apertures.
2. How many prints are you using the stencil for?
If you’re simply printing a prototype, nanocoating is not necessary but where volume runs are concerned, nanocoating significantly reduces the frequency of cleaning cycles even after more than 60,000 prints
3. What paste are you using?
In the case of SMT stencils, the denser the paste you are using, the greater the benefit of nanocoating.
Individually adapted production parameters, regular maintenance of all systems and production in air conditioned rooms are important components of our quality assurance. So we can guarantee you an exact cutting performance as well as very high repeatability and positioning accuracy, always with reproducible results.
Our system for quality assurance in the final processing phase is augmented by means of a scan check. This checks the stencil and compares 100% the CAD data with the cutting pattern.
Location, completeness and dimensional accuracy of the laser-cut pads are very closely controlled.
ISO9001
Our top priority is the quality of our products and services. This is how we ensure that we provide our customers with products of consistently high-quality and to be successful in the long term.
Since 2008, our quality management has been DIN EN ISO 9001 certified. The certification is an important element in the continuous optimization of our business processes and helps to sustainably strengthen our position in the market against
competitors.
