Patent ID: 7165318

Claim:
An apparatus for producing a mounted-board, comprising: electronic component placing devices for placing electronic components onto boards having a length L, of at most 250 mm, along a board carrying direction, each of said electronic component placing devices including (i) an electronic component feeding unit operable to feed some of the electronic components, (ii) a carrying unit operable to carry corresponding ones of the boards in the carrying direction from a board retreat position to a component placement position, and from the component placement position to a position outside the component placement position, (iii) head units operable to hold a respective some of the components received from said electronic component feeding unit and then to place these held components onto the corresponding ones of the boards, and (iv) a drive unit operable to move said head units between said electronic component feeding unit and the corresponding ones of the boards, wherein a substantial width of said each of said component placing devices is between 450 mm and 1000 mm inclusively and is equal to 4L+SL along the board carrying direction, with 4L denoting a length equal to the sum of the lengths of the retreat positions associated with the corresponding ones of the boards and the lengths of the component placement positions associated with the corresponding ones of the boards, and with SL denoting a length equal to the sum of the lengths of spaces necessary for positioning a board stop mechanism at each of the board retreat positions and at each of the component placement positions, wherein a distance between adjacent ones of said component placing devices is equal to at most L.