RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

Teradyne Connection Systems in San Diego, USA set PAL an interesting summer challenge – a challenge relished by Stephen Leung and his team at PAL West.

The object of the exercise was to take out five big Copper tanks (Nos. 24-28) from the middle of an enclosed Pattern plating line, remove the solution tray and the bottom structures so the chemically damaged floor could be re-coated, an un-used trench filled up and a cracked solution tray could be repaired.

 

Sounds simple?

Wrong! Stephen Leung, Operation Manager at PALWest, lists four key obstacles that lay in wait for the team.

• Lots of DC cable and piping attached to the tanks and the agitation frame was in the way too
• No chance of using a hoist to lift the tank as the spreader and drip tray would be in the way
• An external train hoist could not be used to lift the tank out because of the limited space available for any heavy duty equipment around the line
• There were just two and a half days in late June in which to remove the tanks and the same amount of time in mid-July to put them all back together.

It was time to put on those proverbial thinking hats!

  

The 11-step PAL solution that was devised worked superbly…….

• Two steel “I” beams were used to link two hoists together, one “I” beam ran across the middle of the two “I” beams with two wheel trolleys on it, each trolley had a 1-ton manual pulley hanging from it.
• By moving two-linked transporters together, the pulleys could be lined up to the middle of the tank position, then the tank was lifted up with lifting belts and pulleys and slid out
• When the tank was half way out, it was put on a moveable spacer – a steel shelf sitting on a heavy-duty dolly
• One lifting belt was removed so the inner trolley could be used to slide the second half of the tank out
• The second half of the tank was then sat on another moveable spacer
• The lifting belt was disconnected from the pulley
• The tank was pulled all the way out with the moveable spacer
• A forklift picked up the tank
• The spacer was removed, leaving the wheeled dolly on the floor
• The forklift lowered the tank on to the dollies
• The tank could then be moved manually anywhere without the use of a forklift which couldn’t be used in the limited space available

The machine was successfully back in full production right on schedule much to the delight of the customer. “We were delighted by the ingenuity PAL showed in dealing with our particular challenge,” said Andy O’Hara of Teradyne. “We asked them to work to a very tight schedule in difficult surroundings. They came up with a splendid solution and finished the job within the time scale we set them - what’s more they seemed to thoroughly enjoy rising to our challenge.” Many congratulations to Stephen Leung, Mike Saunders, Martin Chan, Simon Tang and Simon Li!

NEWS IN BRIEF

Gold Circuit at Su Zhou (PRC) has ordered one Panel and one Pattern line, delivery will be November this year.

Installation of the three machines supplied to Unicap at Kun Shan (PRC) for their joint venture project with JVC for HDI production has been successfully completed.

Two Panel lines and a Pattern plate line have been successfully commissioned at Wus at Kun Shan in China.