Offshore Electronics Ltd | PCB Assembly Services

Offshore Electronics operate from a modern purpose built 20,000 sq ft electronic manufacturing facility in St Peter Port Guernsey. We specialise in providing PCB assembly services and the best offshore contract manufacturing solutions for UK companies based on the south coast.

We employ a varied staff with many different areas of expertise and our highly qualified senior managers all have engineering backgrounds and are responsible for providing exceptional PCB assembly services as well as the day to day running of operations.

We provide competitive component procurement and offer our customers competitive pricing and technical support. We are RoHS compliant and provide efficient supply chain management to achieve minimum product cost.

Controlled processes are essential to achieve a high quality finished product from our three surface mount production lines. Our surface mount assembly facilities comprise of three flexible Philips surface mount lines for 0402 - BGA placement. Each automated line includes a DEK screen printing machine, Philips SMD chip shooter, Philips fine pitch placement machine, and forced air reflow soldering equipment.

All three high specification DEK265 screen printers provide a fully automated, repeatable perfect solder paste print on the PCB to be assembled, and with an enclosed air conditioned environment the solder paste retains optimum consistency.

Once printed the board is transported by conveyer into a GEM Topaz high speed chip shooter. Using 8 heads the Topaz is capable of placing 15,000 components per hour down to a size of 0402. The board then passes to a GEM Emerald which places the high precision parts such as BGA, QFP and TSOP.

The process is completed when the board is passed through a forced air reflow oven reflowing the solder paste and forming a perfect soldered joint.

Traditional through hole assembly is automated using two Amistar axial insertion machines together with Universal DIL and Universal Radial insertion machines. Component insertion is achieved in three stages. To insert 0.3 and 0.6 inch dual-in-line packages we have a Universal Multi-Mod 6772a and an Amistar CI3000. This enables us to insert over 5000 components per hour.

For axial component insertion we have 2 Amistar AI6448 axial inserters capable of inserting 6000 components per hour. As the parts are transported they are verified for value, inserted, crimped, and the leads cut. This results in an efficient and accurate building process.

Our Universal Rad5 radial component inserter allows the fitting of 0.1 and 0.2 inch pitch Radial components including LEDs transistors and capacitors, with an insertion rate of 6000 components per hour.

Through hole soldering is undertaken on one of our two Blundel CMS400 flow solder machines. One is dedicated to lead free soldering, the other to tin lead soldering. We have also recently installed Pillarhouse soldering equipment for complex mixed technology double sided assemblies.

We have a purpose built 20,000sq ft factory and the main production area is impressive. The clean and tidy environment is populated with modern anti-static benching and full anti-static flooring in order to create a static safe working environment to help ensure the quality manufacture of your products.

We employ 65 experienced and dedicated staff and all of our manufacturing staff are qualified to the relevant IPC-A-610 workmanship standard.

Whether you are looking for PCB board build or a complete turnkey instrument build we have the resource and experience to meet your requirements.

Mechanical assembly and instrument build is embarked upon using our well equipped, anti static workstations and by our highly skilled, experienced staff.

Throughout the company from enquiry to delivery we operate a quality assurance system audited by Lloyds Register of Quality Assurance and the British Approvals Board for Telecommunication.

We offer WEEE and RoHS compliance advice as well as electronic and production engineering support for product development, cost reduction and engineering change control.

Our extensive testing facility is equipped with two Teradyne Z1890 ATE in circuit test machines, AOI automated optical inspection, J-Tag boundary scan, full functional board and instrument test together with calibration, and QC and soak tailored to meet an array of customer requirements.

We pride ourselves on offering low cost test tooling using our fixturing partners, FABMaster translation software and experienced programmers. We also offer J-Tag testing and a variety of functional test solutions using modern test equipment and highly trained, experienced test engineers.

At the core of our testing facility are two Teradyne Z1890VP in-circuit test machines. With a maximum node count of 2048,
comprehensive analogue and digital device coverage and vectorless test techniques, we can achieve a very high level of fault coverage within a short test time.

Whatever your requirement we can develop a test solution to meet your needs.

We have excellent network of freight and passenger links by sea and air for all deliveries and destinations, as well as daily shipments being made through our Portsmouth hub for UK customers.

We have a fully integrated Quality Management System certified to BS EN ISO9001:2000 by Lloyds Register of Quality Assurance.

We also hold BABT Approval for the production of telecommunicating product. The QMS implemented by Offshore ensures our customer's requirements, as well as quality assurance and control are addressed at all levels, providing high levels of confidence in the functionality and reliability of our manufactured equipment.

During manufacturing, workmanship standards comply with the requirements of IPC-A-610 class 3 and provide the consistently high build standards required by UK, European and International OEMs and end-users.

We are currently working towards BS EN ISO140001 environmental accreditation.

For an idea of what we can offer the below list illustrates our manufacturing facilities. Visit our website for further details on any of our services and products.

• BS EN ISO9001:2000, IPC-A-610 and BABT quality accreditation
• Competitive component procurement
• WinMan - Fully integrated MRP / ERP manufacturing system
• 3 x DEK265 precision screen printers
• 2 x Philips Topaz chipshooter for high speed SMD component placement
• 2 x Philips Emerald placement machine for fine pitch SMD components
• 1 x Philips Emerald based ‘short run’ and prototype line
• 2 x Forced air reflow soldering machines
• 2 x Amistar AI6448 high speed axial component insertion machine
• Universal Multi-mod 6772a high speed DIP insertion machine
• Universal RAD5 high speed radial component insertion machine
• Blundel CMS400 'no clean' tin lead flow soldering equipment
• Blundel CMS400LF 'no clean' lead free flow soldering equipment
• Pillarhouse selective soldering equipment
• 2 x Teradyne Z1890 ATE, J-Tag and full functional testing facility
• Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) equipment
• Kerry ultrasonic board washing process
• Asymtek automated conformal coating machine
• Mixflow epoxy potting machine
• Shipping and logistics

RoHS compliance and leadfree manufacturing has been in action at our facilities since 2005, and we have lead free and tin lead manufacturing processes running in parallel throughout the facility. Where customer products have not been designed to the RoHS guidelines or are exempt, we are able to offer considerable support and help.

We have installed all the items of capital equipment required and have formal processes and completed extensive IPC training with respect to lead free production. We currently produce 4,000 plus RoHS compliant assemblies per month but still have many exempt, legacy and non compliant products in production in need of updating and compliance.

Component manufacturers are still migrating to SnAgCu terminations and PCBs from HASL to a Tin HASL, silver or gold plated finish. This has been the most difficult part of the project and considerable investment and effort has been made to collate and integrate the manufacturer’s component compliance data into our manufacturing system. We are currently able to advise customers on the state of individual BOMs, and will support the conversion to RoHS compliance when requested.

We rely on the manufacturer’s declaration of RoHS compliance for the conformity of individual components and sub assemblies.