Recent improvements of the Kloften & Kloften

Carrier Strip Splicer.

Issue No. 5. January 1994

The following improvements have been made since our fourth "list of improvements" of December 18, 1992 was issued.

1. Tungsten Carbide electrodes.

By using Tungsten Carbide rather than Tungsten electrodes, enough heat is created to allow the use of this type of electrodes for wider carrier strips.

2. "Place and close" procedure.

When an external cutting device is used, only the right hand tooling bar is moved (to close the gap between the two carrier ends) as the heat is applied. This movement is automatic.

However, before starting a new splice, it was neccessary to move the bar by hand to the right (against the stop).This movement is now also automatic, so that all that is required by the operator is, to borrow from the computer world, to "Place and Close". Place the carrier strip on the guide pins and close the jaw.

When the left jaw is closed the solder is fed (as before) and the right tooling bar moves to the right. When the right jaw is closed the bar is moved to the left (to close the gap) and the heat is applied, as before. The bar, however, stays in this position also after the jaws have been opened, for easy removal of the strip.

The above feature will not work if the cutters on the splicer are to be used. To go back to manual operation, all that is needed is to replace the "pulser" which controls the movement of the step motor with the type used in the earlier model, and remove the "fork" attached to the cylinder piston rod which fits behind the head of the coutersunk screw at the end of the tooling bar.

3. New Top Unit.

A completely new top unit is now available with the main body made of anodised Aluminum

and with stainless steel lower jaws and tooling bars. The new unit is particularly well suited for operation in plating areas.

4. Automatic Retraction of the Solder Strip (or Wire).

The retraction feature used up till now has required that the operator adjust the step motor to make one reverse step just as the solder strip or wire started to melt.

The new feature, which has been patented, allows the stepmotor shaft to make the reverse step before the solder melts, since this movement only tightens a spring which makes a sleeve (on the motor shaft) exert a certain pull in the solder wire.

As the solder weakens due to the heat, and before it actually melts, the solder is torn loose. This greatly reduces the tendency of creating protrusion at the edge of the carrier strip. For added friction, and long life, the sleeve has been coated with diamond powder.