What is the ultrasonic tinning machine?

What is the ultrasonic tinning machine?

Ultrasonic tinning is a tinning process assisted by ultrasonic technology. Tinning is a process of coating tin on the metal surface. It is often used in the pins, wire joints and other parts of electronic components to improve conductivity, solderability and corrosion resistance. The ultrasonic tinning machine applies ultrasonic waves to the tin liquid, which will produce high-frequency vibrations of more than 20,000 times per second and cause cavitation effects; once the metal workpieces that need to be tinned or soldered are immersed in the tin liquid, the oxide layer on the surface of the workpiece will be stripped off and removed, and the gap air will be precipitated, so that the tin liquid will be more evenly and firmly attached to the surface of the metal workpiece.

In the traditional tinning process, flux is usually required to remove the oxides on the metal surface so that the tin can be well attached to the metal surface. Ultrasonic tinning introduces ultrasonic vibrations during the tinning process. When ultrasonic waves propagate in a liquid medium (such as tin liquid), cavitation effects, mechanical stirring effects and thermal effects will occur. The tiny bubbles generated by the cavitation effect will produce local high temperature and high pressure when they burst, which can effectively remove oxides and impurities on the metal surface, make the metal surface cleaner, and facilitate the wetting and adhesion of tin. Mechanical stirring helps to evenly distribute the tin liquid and improve the quality and uniformity of tin plating. The thermal effect can make the temperature of the tin liquid more uniform, promote the alloying reaction between tin and the metal surface, and thus improve the bonding strength of the tin plating layer.

The tinning process does not require the use of flux, which improves the solderability and ductility of the metal; the workpiece parts that need to be tinned only need to be directly immersed in the tin bath for 3 to 10 seconds.

It is commonly used for surface treatment and welding of metal parts in the electronics, electrical, automotive, new energy and other industries, such as tin plating or welding of silver, copper, nickel, aluminum and other wire harnesses, tabs, and sheets.

Characteristics of ultrasonic tin plating:
Improve the quality of tin plating: It can more thoroughly remove oxides and impurities on the metal surface, make the bond between the tin layer and the metal matrix closer, reduce defects such as cold soldering and leaking soldering, and improve the quality and reliability of the tin plating layer.

Enhance solderability: The metal surface treated with ultrasonic tin plating has significantly improved solderability, which is beneficial to the subsequent welding process, can reduce the occurrence of poor welding, and improve the strength and conductivity of the welded joint.
Environmental protection and energy saving: Compared with the traditional tinning process, ultrasonic tinning can reduce the use of flux and reduce the pollution of flux to the environment. At the same time, the energy consumption of ultrasound is relatively low, which has a certain energy-saving effect.

Wide range of applications: It can be applied to the tinning treatment of various metal materials, including copper, aluminum, iron, etc., especially for some metal materials that are difficult to tin, ultrasonic tinning technology has better effects.

Ultrasonic tinning equipment is mainly composed of the following parts:
1. Ultrasonic transducer vibration system: including ultrasonic generator, transducer, etc. The ultrasonic generator generates an ultrasonic electrical signal, and the transducer converts the electrical power into ultrasonic mechanical energy to form ultrasonic vibration, providing the required high-frequency vibration energy for the tinning process.
2. Tin tank with heating device: used to hold tin liquid, the heating device can keep the tin liquid at a suitable temperature, generally higher than the melting point of tin 20-30°C, to ensure the fluidity of the tin liquid, which is conducive to tinning.
3. Temperature control device: accurately control the temperature of the tin liquid in the tin tank to ensure temperature stability and avoid affecting the tinning quality due to excessively high or low temperature.
4. Transducer cooling device: Since the ultrasonic transducer generates heat when working, especially in a high-temperature tin-plating environment, the cooling device can cool the transducer to prevent it from overheating and ensure its performance and service life.
5. DC polarized power supply: Some ultrasonic tin-plating devices will have a DC polarized power supply, which can improve the propagation effect of ultrasonic waves in the tin liquid and the effect on the metal surface to a certain extent, which helps to improve the quality of tin-plating.

In addition, some ultrasonic tin-plating equipment may also include control components such as foot switches to facilitate operators to control the operation of the equipment; and water tanks to provide a water circulation system for ultrasonic transducer cooling 5. For special-purpose ultrasonic tin-plating equipment, such as special equipment for ultrasonic tin-plating of aviation aluminum cables, two identical ultrasonic transducer vibration systems may be used, and the end face of the amplitude rod is an arc-shaped concave surface, so that the cable surface can be evenly tinned.