Dismantling strategy for capacitors placed on printed circuits boards: challenges and preliminary results

Abstract

The present paper describes the challenges and preliminary results obtained during the design and implementation of a disassembly system for capacitors placed on printed circuits boards. This research is included in an attempt to reduce the impact of the electronic waste. The proposed architecture includes a six axis multipurpose industrial robot, dedicated sensors and a custom built tool. An originally designed rotary tool, with a specific type of drill bit, was used to dismantle each capacitor on the board. A sensor triggers the tool for the drill rotation when the perforation is accomplished accordingly, so that the friction force is big enough to initiate the dismantling procedure. Using the rotation movement of the drill, at a calculated number of rotations, the capacitors are successfully dismantled from the printed circuits board. An artificial vision system composed from a stereo camera and an image-processing algorithm, provides data with regard to the position of each capacitor on the printed circuit board. A vacuum cleaner was integrated in the scheme to recover the capacitors after dismantling. The scheme design was perpetually optimized using dedicated simulation software. Also, preliminary results obtained on the physical system underline the potential advantages of the proposed approach.