Cut Tape vs. Tape and Reel: What’s best for Packaging Solder Spheres

Today, the elec­tron­ics indus­try has made tremen­dous advance­ments in every aspect. It’s easy to spot new and inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy enhanc­ing the cost effec­tive­ness and reduc­ing the pro­duc­tion time at every stage. One such exam­ple is today’s place­ment machines that are capa­ble of pick­ing and plac­ing thou­sands of com­po­nents per hour with extreme accuracy.

But in order to lever­age this incred­i­ble per­for­mance one needs an equal­ly com­pe­tent com­po­nent deliv­ery sys­tem. Cut Tape and Tape and Reel are the two major com­po­nent dis­trib­u­tors when it comes to pack­ag­ing sol­der prod­ucts. In this post, we will dis­cuss which one of the two is bet­ter suit­ed for sol­der packing.

Cut Tape vs. Tape and Reel: What’s best for Packaging Solder Spheres?

“Cut tape” and “Reel” are both great pack­ag­ing solu­tions. But, when it comes to pack­ag­ing sol­der prod­ucts, tape and reel pack­ing is only pre­ferred. The rea­son for this is cut tapes deliv­ers com­po­nents in small cuts of tape, where­as “reel” is long and continuous.

The dif­fer­ence in both the solu­tions is basi­cal­ly their length. But, that alone affects the effi­cien­cy and time con­sumed in the process. While cut tape will deliv­er 20 indi­vid­ual strips that will require an oper­a­tor to load a feed­er again and again, reel and tape pack­ing only requires being loaded once and enables con­tin­u­ous feed. How­ev­er, cut tape can be help­ful when only a small num­ber of sol­der spheres is required for the board.

In addi­tion, tape and reel sys­tem also offers very high degree of pro­tec­tion against elec­tro­sta­t­ic dis­charge and helps pre­vent jam­ming. It allows man­u­fac­tur­ers to eas­i­ly achieve high vol­ume. And, auto­mate process­es by enabling pick and place machines to eas­i­ly access pre­forms in a sim­i­lar man­ner as the com­po­nents. Also, the appli­ca­tions that require a pre­cise amount of sol­der are best accom­plished with tape and reel.

Packaging solder spheres on tape and reel

At CAPLINQ, we offer high qual­i­ty pack­ag­ing sol­der spheres on tape and reel as well as in jar with inert gas. You can choose from a wide range of sol­der ball diam­e­ters start­ing from 60 micron to 890 micron. In addi­tion to that, our tape and reel are com­pat­i­ble with almost all the exist­ing pick and place feed­ers and are also suit­able for BGA, plus flip and chip pack­ag­ing techniques.

To learn more about all our sol­der prod­ucts includ­ing our sol­der spheres you can vis­it caplinq.com or con­tact us direct­ly for assis­tance regard­ing pack­ag­ing sol­der spheres on tape and reel.