Patent ID: 8162199

Claim:
An apparatus for shaving excess solder from the surface of a mold plate containing a multiplicity of cavities each filled with a volume of solder, said apparatus comprising: a flat plate-shaped support member, a movable horizontally extending table mounted on said support member, an operative mechanism connected to said table for imparting a horizontally selective displacement to said table in x-y directions; a vacuum table being supported on an upper surface of said moveable table, a flat mold plate having a multiplicity of cavities formed in an upper surface thereof for filling with solder material being mounted on said upper surface of said vacuum table; a bridge-shaped frame comprising a pair of spaced vertically extending uprights and a transverse beam member connecting the upper ends of said uprights mounted on said support member, said frame extending over and having the transverse beam member straddling said mold plate in spaced vertical relationship therewith, the lower ends of said uprights being respectively fastened proximate opposite edges on the surface of said support member; a cross beam adjustably coupled to said transverse beam member, said cross beam extending substantially perpendicularly from said transverse beam member; a heating device having a depending arm and counterweight pivotably on said frame suspended from said transverse beam member for pivotal motion relative thereto, said heating device having a heatable shaving blade that is attached to a lower end of the arm of said heating device for displacement in surface contact across the upper surface of said mold plate; said heating device being constituted of a nitrogen heater for heating said shaving blade to a temperature softening the solder in said cavities in the absence of melting while scraping excess solder from the surface of said mold plate during movement in surface contact therewith; a cylinder movable in a z-direction connected to, respectively, said bridge-shaped frame via being coupled to said cross beam and to an operative structure having a rotary plate attached thereto for imparting rotational movement to said shaving blade, whereby said shaving blade is contactingly movable across the upper surface of said mold plate to facilitate scraping any protruding excess softened solder from the cavities thereof, and wherein said cylinder enables said operative structure to impart a control over speed of movement, variations in the cutting edge of said shaving blade, and temperature control over said shaving blade in correlation with the selected type of material and composition of the solder; wherein said counterweight and said depending arm are substantially parallel and are coupled to and extend upward from opposite terminal ends of the shaving blade.