CELEBRATING OUR 4TH YEAR OF PUMANEWS™ |
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As I see it. . .
January begins a New Year for us all and the big news is our participation in IPC APEX EXPO in San Diego and the end of this month. Throughout this edition of PumaNews™, you will find articles about our exhibit as well as details describing our famed Power Chats™ - 13.5 minute presentations given every 30 minutes by executives from DuPont, Isola, InduBond®, EMD Electronics/Ormet®, and our own team of subject matter experts.
It's part of Insulectro's commitment to training and education.
Always Learning. Eager to Teach.
Patrick Redfern
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JOIN US AT IPC APEX EXPO IN SAN DIEGO JANUARY 25 - 27,
BOOTH #3233
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January is a great time to be in San Diego and the 2022 IPC APEX EXPO is where the excitement is in the electronics industry.
IPC APEX EXPO is the largest event for electronics manufacturing in North America attracting more than 9,000 professionals from 45 countries. From the industry’s leading technical conference and application-focused professional development courses, to the innovation-driven exhibit floor, year after year IPC APEX EXPO is packed with far-reaching ideas and insights .
Insulectro once again hosts the largest exhibit in the materials section at the show with 1800 sq feet partnered with suppliers DuPont and Isola. You'll experience over 35 Power Chats on trending topics like mSAP, 5G, automotive electrification, balancing the supply chain, new materials & new technologies, giving you all you need to know in 13.5 minutes flat.
You can talk one-on-one with our team about what's new with our best-in-class suppliers: Pacothane, EMD Performance Materials, LCOA, CAC, Denkai, Focus Tech, Shikoku, JX Nippon Mining, Industrial Brush, Shur-loc, and TADCO.
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Insulectro will be exhibiting advanced materials for high technology PCBs. Come by our IPC Booth #3233 for any of our thirty-five 13.5 minute POWER CHATS on topics from key suppliers highlighting new products from RF to flex.
These unique Power Chats, a standing room only function last year, will be presented by key suppliers who share their insight on material selection, new products, new technology, design education, printed electronics, and more .
Learn from presentations given by:
- Michael Creeden CID+ MIT, Technical Director, Insulectro
- Victor Lazaro Gallego, Technical Director and InduBond® Inventor at Chemplate Materials S.L.
- Michael Gay, Director of High Performance Products, Isola Group
- Jim Hartzell, VP OEM Marketing, Isola Group
- Chris Hunrath, VP of Technology, Insulectro
- Andy Kannurpatti, Global Business Director, DuPont ICS Films & Laminates
- Ed Kelley, Chief Technology Officer, Isola Group
- Travis Kelly, President & CEO, Isola Group
- Erik Reddington, Strategic Engagement Leader, DuPont Electronics & Imaging
- Steve Sekanina, Director High speed Products, Isola Group
- Catherine Shearer, EMD Electronics
- HV Tran, DuPont MCM Technology
Our partners continue to develop technology for the electronics industry and we will have them all together at APEX. In addition to the POWER CHATS, you can meet with these folks to get more in-depth on many subjects such as high speed/low loss, new copper foils, z-interconnects and advanced conductive inks.
The Insulectro “Technology Village” is a great place to explore ideas for new designs.
To check out our Power Chat™ Schedule and alist of topics and presenters, click on the button below. For the most up-to-date information on Insulectro Power Chats, visit insulectro.com.
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PCBAA, the Printed Circuit Board Association of America, welcomes their newest members: DuPont and Nano Dimension.
Existing members include AGY, Amphenol, Calumet, Insulectro, Isola, Summit Interconnect, TTM Technologies, Denkai America, MacDermid Alpha, Nano Dimension, Pacothane Technologies, and Rogers Corporation.
The Printed Circuit Board Association of America is a consortium of companies, representatives, and enthusiasts who are advocating for U.S. manufacture of printed circuit boards.
Insulectro is proud to support PCBAA's effort as a founding member.
We encourage you to not stand on the sidelines but get involved to support PCBAA's three main objectives:
- Support the Domestic Production of PCBs
- Enhance Domestic Supply Chain Security
- Advocate for Initiatives that Create Fair Market Conditions
This organization is your voice in Washington.
Visit PCBAA.org today to learn more about membership. See below for more information and a link to inquire about membership.
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PCBAA LEADERSHIP SPEAKS OUT |
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SALES & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT |
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Ken Parent Speaks Out!
Rising to the Challenge of 2022
JANUARY 2022
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Rise to the Challenge in 2022. We are off to a challenging start of the new year that we are embracing. IPC APEX EXPO begins in just a few days and although we have had to take a healthy and safe approach to the event, we are determined to make the most of our engagement with our suppliers and customers in San Diego.
Our IPC commitment of bringing our World Class suppliers together into our IPC APEX EXPO "Technology Village" will be exciting as we have news and product updates to share through our always popular POWER CHATS™.
Insulectro is now moving forward with equipment sales offering the InduBond® line of Lamination presses, registration systems and automation technology and we are excited to share why we have changed our position around selling and servicing equipment.
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We will miss our most-popular EPIC 11 VIP Reception gathering this year in San Diego. We always enjoy the relaxed environment that this event provides for us to gather with you, but we have put safety first in this Covid environment.
For those of you who have attended this event over the past ten years, you know how packed it was with our entire supply chain - fabricators, suppliers, designers, OEMs, thought leaders, and trade press. IPC's most sought after invite. This year, disappointingly, it did not seem prudent to bring a large group of us together in close proximity. So we postponed EPIC 11 to 2023. This favorite will return.
Our commitment to you in 2022 is the continued investment in the markets we serve:
1. Our Teammates will be a primary focus so they can be the valuable resources for Insulectro and you. We are promoting and pivoting with many key personnel to show our appreciation and engage them in their areas of strength. We are hiring new talent to meet the growth in the business. We are automating to keep our resources focused on the critical processes that require their minds and involvement. Education of our team must remain high on our “To Do” list as we have much to teach our team as we stay current on what we must do for your team.
2. Our suppliers/partners are vital to our business, and we will focus on their products that are most important to your future. We are intent on selling and servicing innovative high value products - next generation materials for our customers and the markets.
We are so fortunate to have the suppliers we represent today, these suppliers attract more customers and opportunities to us every day. We will continue to invest in these opportunities to bring new technology and solutions to the market. We know from your feedback the industry needs the things we are offering, and we are working to connect the Suppliers to the Circuit Fabricators to the Designers to the OEMs to solve tomorrows technical needs because … “We enable our customers to build better circuits, faster.”
3. Our partners future will benefit from remaining diligent on working on the most important programs for our suppliers, customers, OEMs, and Designers. Education is going to be key to the future and we are Always Learning and Eager to Teach, let us help you with your education of your teammates. This education is vital for the new hires we are all recruiting, especially those with transferable skills from outside our industry. We embrace the challenge of finding the time to stop and teach. This is no longer an option. It is going to be VITAL to our future, and, we are all in!
Thank you for your trust in 2021 and we appreciate the opportunity to tackle your biggest challenges of 2022 alongside your team.
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Ken Parent
Chief Operating Officer
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Visit Isola, DuPont, InduBond® and all of our
World-Class Supplier/Partners in MegaBooth #3233
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IPC's Alicia Balonek on. . .
What to Expect at
IPC APEX EXPO 2022
Written by Alicia Balonek
IPC Senior Director - Trade Shows & Events
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Per California Department of Public Health guidelines, proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test is required to attend IPC APEX EXPO 2022.
IPC has partnered with InHouse Physicians (iHP) for attendees to upload their proof of vaccine or negative COVID test results in advance of arrival at IPC APEX EXPO. Once information is uploaded via the iHP link, a trained medical professional will review the information within 24 hours and provide an email confirmation with a green check mark indicating they’ve been cleared for entry.
Upon arrival at IPC APEX EXPO, attendees will need to check in at the COVID clearance desk and provide a copy of the COVID clearance confirmation they received from iHP along with a photo ID. Once cleared for entry, attendees will receive a plastic wristband and can then proceed to the registration counter to receive their badge. Attendees are asked to wear their COVID clearance wristband for the duration of their stay at IPC APEX EXPO.
Although there are currently no social distancing requirements in the State of California, colored wristbands will be provided for exhibitors and attendees to indicate their comfort level for interaction while at the event:
- Green: Comfortable with handshakes and hugs
- Yellow: Prefer only fist bumps or elbow bumps
- Red: Interaction with social distancing
Per California Department of Public Health guidelines, masks will be required regardless of vaccination status.
Masks, individual hand sanitizers, and hand sanitizer stations will be available for all exhibitors and attendees while at IPC APEX EXPO.
The San Diego Convention Center has enhanced its cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention protocols. IPC is working closely with the convention center to ensure high-touch items are cleaned and sanitized multiple times a day through the duration of IPC APEX EXPO 2022.
Additionally, the San Diego Convention Center became one of the first convention centers in the United States to achieve the prestigious GBAC STAR™ facility accreditation. Under the guidance of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), the convention center is implementing a program of stringent protocols for cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention.
Centerplate, the food and beverage provider for the San Diego Convention Center, was the first North American venue to achieve the Rise SAFE hygiene verification label for food and beverage services. To earn the label, Centerplate passed a site audit and protocol review covering 36 checkpoints in four core areas: process, people/training, facilities, and hygiene/cleaning. Centerplate demonstrated 100% compliance across all areas.
This article originally appeared in the December 2021 issue of SMT007 Magazine. This article has been updated to reflect COVID protocols as of January 15, 2022.
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A New Year, A New Start
Addressing Technology Opportunities
at IPC APEX EXPO
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And just like that we are off to a New Year! New Years is a time when we come together to celebrate, to reflect and look towards the future. A time to dream of better things for the year ahead and a time of traditions that bring us comfort. The tradition of making resolutions, hope for a new start, and singing “Auld Lang Syne”.
Should auld (old) acquaintances be forgot? The answer to this question is of course, no old friends should not be forgotten. Therefore we have hope that even with the uncertain time we find ourselves, the tradition of IPC will continue to stay on schedule so that we can visit with our colleagues, friends, and industry partners, and learn from each other what 2022 will bring to our businesses.
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The Insulectro Team and our Supplier partners look forward to continuing the tradition of Educating through our Power Chats in the Insulectro booth (#3233). Our Supplier/Partners are key in addressing the current technology challenges and how their products enable solutions to the printed circuit board industry.
We are excited to present 35 scheduled Power Chats for 2022, and highlight new and exciting product technologies. For those of you that can attend IPC this year, look to join us in our booth under the commanding presence of our Puma mascot, yet another proud tradition.
We hope to see you soon!
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2020 IPC APEX EXPO - Packed Houses for Insulectro Power Chats |
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Michelle Walsh
Vice President of Product Management
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New Laminate to Launch
DuPont To Launch Pyralux® HP Adhesive Laminate System at IPC APEX Expo
News Release by DuPont ICS
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DuPont Interconnect Solutions (ICS), a business segment under Electronics & Industrial, plans to introduce a high-performance laminate adhesive system at the 2022 Institute for Printed Circuits (IPC) APEX Exposition to be held in San Diego, CA, January 25 -27. DuPont will exhibit in booth #3233.
In today’s high-performance electronic devices, data consumption continues to stretch the limits across a variety of end-market segments. High-speed signal transfer across the network creates numerous environments where signal integrity is often diminished, resulting in costly issues for end users. These issues are of utmost importance in demanding applications where reliability and high performance are critical for success.
To improve the performance of these devices, DuPont developed the epoxy-based Pyralux® HP laminate adhesive system that combines best-in-class insertion loss performance with increased functionality and processing. This engineered solution was specifically designed for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturers to address the needs in high-performance and high-reliability applications in the telecommunications, networking, medical, industrial, military and aerospace markets.
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The Pyralux® HP laminate adhesive system possesses robust processability while maintaining excellent electrical performance to optimize signal integrity in demanding and extreme environment PCB applications.
This IPC certified product is available as a sheet adhesive or as a coverlay that is well-suited for a wide variety of multi-layer flex and rigid-flex applications. The Pyralux® HP laminate adhesive system enables processing at lower temperatures, providing PCB designers and producers with an expanded range of applications they can support when using this unique system.
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“We are excited to bring this best-in-class laminate adhesive system to our customers as a critical offering in our portfolio of Pyralux® products,” says Andy Kannurpatti, global business director for DuPont ICS Films & Laminates.
“The Pyralux® HP adhesive laminate system is another example of why DuPont has been the preferred flexible laminate solution provider for more than 40 years. Our innovation in offering the widest array of PCB construction options is driving device speed and reliability – enabling a range of applications from 5G connectivity to autonomous vehicles,” said Kannurpatti.
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PCBAA LEADERSHIP SPEAKS OUT |
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PRINTED ELECTRONICS INKS & PASTES,
SUBSTRATES & FILMS
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Kevin Miller Can See it!
2022 is the Year for
Advanced Substrates
JANUARY 2022
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Insulectro Printed Electronics finished its year very strong and like every other company we had our challenges to make it happen. The Printed Electronics team was fortunate to have record growth, we added many new customers, grew our business at our current customers, added a few key product lines and our team grew with a few new hires.
E-Commerce took off and generated many new accounts, leads and orders that complimented our sales pipeline. In general, 2021 turned out to be an outstanding year despite all the supply chain challenges and Covid issues we experienced.
We are forecasting another strong year for our PE product line in 2022! Our team has hit the ground running with many new opportunities and new product lines that will be added to our advanced substrate offering. Exciting times for the Printed Electronics team!
We added the FLEXcon SWITCHmark product line of high-performance spacer components and laminating adhesives at the end of the 4th qtr. 2021. This will provide our customers that participate in the membrane switch market, functional printing, sensors, touch screens and other graphic type applications the ability to get product with same day / next day delivery. They will have the ability to purchase custom sizes both in sheet sizes and roll format. We are excited to provide a one-stop shop for our customers and have this line at Insulectro.
A product which will be part of our portfolio in the upcoming year is the Longhua Polycarbonate (PC) product line marketed under our own Clarity™ brand. This film which is an amorphous thermoplastic material that is known to be tough, impact-resistant, and virtually unbreakable for numerous applications and markets. Polycarbonate is often the preferred choice for applications in the Graphics industry but works well for many other applications as well. Other uses include interior automotive applications, security & ID card films, touchscreen films, printed electronics, medical packaging, indoor/outdoor labels, and more. This line is widely used in the graphics and industrial markets and again it provides our customers the ability to purchase from a single supplier.
To support these lines, we have invested in new equipment, upgraded existing equipment, and added personnel to support these new value-added activities. We have also added customer service, operation staff and technical personnel to support these new lines to grow the business.
The following equipment will be added to our value-added areas:
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The Printed Electronics team is excited to participate and support this growth for the Printed Electronics and Advanced Substrate for 2022!
Please call INSULECTRO at 1-855-955-0200 with any questions regarding these new product offerings or visit our E-Commerce site by clicking on link below.
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Kevin Miller
VP of Sales - Insulectro Printed Electronics
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Looking back as we got close to the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday season we always think about Family and I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect a bit on how we at Insulectro view our family. We all think about where are we getting together, with who, and when and no different this year by me with my teams?
I can tell you when it comes to the way Insulectro thinks about teammates it comes from the very top down that we are all one family working together and supporting each other. There is never a time that seeing the Redferns does not include a huge solid HUG and I can tell you when I visited Southern Cal for a meeting in November, those HUGS were longer and well felt after almost 2 years of not seeing each other.
In the Central Region we had small Thanksgiving gatherings to break bread with the warehouses and the outside teams to spend some needed face time catching up. It was so good that I wanted to do this again and be part of each gathering so we did it again right before Christmas and fortunately I was able to get home before all the flight cancellations.
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I started the trip in AZ where we already had a few people out to help with the new facility so it was a great chance to have dinner combined with those from Phoenix, Denver, and a few of us from Chicago. I found this great place that focused on meatballs where you picked your meatball mix, pasta type, and then sauce. It was a great night of conversation, food, and on a Sunday night we practically had the place to ourselves. Sherri Curry, who runs our AZ branch, works alone most of the time, so to have a chance to all come to her and celebrate the season with her was GREAT.
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The next day I was in Minneapolis and pulled that crew together for some classic wild rice soup, meatloaf, and steak as we enjoyed a few hours of each other’s company in front of the wood fired grill they used to cook many of the dishes. Unfortunately, Garret Shepard was not able to join so of course we had a drink (probably at least 2) in his honor!
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Once back at home from these two stops I drove down to our Chicago warehouse on the Wednesday before Christmas Eve and catered in Chicken and Potatoes Vesuvio (oregano and lemon based sauce) from our favorite place around the corner to have a great lunch with the warehouse team and most of the outside group. We ended with Chicago favorite Eli’s Cheesecake covered in blueberries and even though I told them we were done for the day everyone stayed and spent the next 2 hours just talking.
I hope this gave you some insight on how we think about our teammates and hope you were able to have some similar events and time with your teams! And I also hope I made your mouth water in the process. If you can’t tell, I am a foodie and love to cook too!
Take care and see you next month.
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Trey Adams
Regional Vice President, Sales
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@Mike Creeden
Best Design Education Starts with the Best Asset a Company has. . . its People!
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When I owned a CAD design company, I owned all of the major brands of EDA software. I was often asked, “Which software tool was the best?” I wanted to say, “The brand the customer has is the best.” But that answer was sarcastic and ingenious. The answer that I learned to share was, “The designer operating the software was the best asset!”
All companies have some sort of a corporate culture that exists and deals with this subject. A case could be made for each of these options listed above, and maybe a few other important aspects that are not listed, that are also within a company’s operation or culture. But I put to you, unless you operate a complete lights-out factory, the people will always make the true difference.
Examples of this are as follows: Customers are valued but to keep customers you need a staff that puts the customer and their needs first in every aspect or decision. The best products/services don’t sell themselves, they require a professional staff to present them in the best light and ensure the customer is getting the best use from the best products. The best hardware, software, or equipment require a technically competent staff to get the best value from the tools. The key factor in all these examples is the human element and the passion and professionalism they bring.
Some companies view this subject differently and treat their staff as if they were a liability, rather than an asset. After all, they typically are the greatest expense on the corporate balance sheet. When a company views their staff as a liability, they often try to wring out every drop of value they can, and don’t sustain, invest, or develop the person. When a company views their staff as an asset, they’ll work hard to obtain and retain the person. This equates to many things in today’s employment market with both the tangible and intangible. The tangible aspects often are renumeration, perks, and other benefits. The intangible aspects are a sense of accomplishment, a belief in the shared purpose of building something better, as well as a feeling of collaboration and esteem shared with your team.
At Insulectro we’re attempting to do exactly this on all these fronts. We have a sense of family in the company that starts from our founder Don Redfern to his sons Patrick, Tim, and Sean. The order I’ve listed them is not as important as the sense of teamwork they display. This is followed by the top management to the newest person on the team. It’s not about the hierarchy, rather, it is about the effectivity of the team. It’s our shared goals to exceed the customers expectation and we accomplish that as a team, the best we can!
Too much is lost in today’s cynical, capitalistic, and divisive society. We will do better to esteem each other and assume the best about each other. We will see that there is more that unites us than divides us and as we’ve heard, “United We Stand.”
Integrity matters! It is what we do when no one is looking. Truth matters! Because it is absolute, and it exists when our words and actions align.
As we present our products and services to you and your company, we want you to know we esteem you as a fellow professional and we want you and your company to excel! We have taken the first steps to support our own team, treating each member as an asset. This is how we approach your success! We want you to get the best use of the best products!
Happy New Year - Let’s make 2022 awesome and Accomplish Change Together!
At Insulectro, with our Design Education Program, we are eager to freely support signal-integrity reviews of design circuits prior to fabrication. Also, we are ready and eager to create one or several training sessions for the OEM or your fabrication team. These will be tailored to meet the exact needs of the audience, brought by a technically appropriate presenter, with specific content to further your team’s success and provide that edge to meet the needs of advancing technology trends.
Contact any of our Technical Account Managers or call any of our branch offices to schedule your Virtual Training Session soon.
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Stay safe, happy, and healthy!
Mike Creeden CID+ MIT
Technical Director, Insulectro Design & Education
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PCBAA LEADERSHIP SPEAKS OUT |
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Chris Hunrath on Future Tech
Equipment at the PCB Fab
JANUARY 2022
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Recently, and especially over the last 5 years, we have seen investment in PCB fabricators.
There are many factors driving this, some global, some technological. The last two years have really emphasized the importance of the US supply chain in electronics.
I have worked in, visited, collaborated with PCB fabricators over almost the last 40 years. I have seen both successes and challenges with new equipment, both standard and cutting edge.
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More importantly, I have seen volume shops overseas benefit from manufacturing equipment because the throughput justifies the investment. I have watched friends and colleagues struggle with 20-year-old plus equipment that was once fine when new but has a level of wear that is more than a few replacement parts can fix.
My hope is that this will change in the short term as our industry and our country comes to terms with the importance of a domestic supply for electronics. Yes, the industry has embraced direct imaging and laser drilling, but there is some great technology out there now in other areas.
Some examples are Vertical Conveyorized Electroplating, 20 micron resolution Nozzle Printing, High temperature Induction laminator to name a few.
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IPC APEX EXPO is always a great place to investigate new equipment.
Of course, will be at IPC APEX in 2022 with our “Technology Village” located in our MegaBooth # 3233 with “Power Chats” being presented on many topics.
I hope to see you there.
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Chris Hunrath
Vice President of Technology
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Welcome to January’s edition of Insulectro’ s monthly PUMA Newsletter! This is the East Coast Edition.
With the Holidays now behind us all and a new year ahead of us it got me thinking about change.
Most of us some say do not like change, but I personally look forward to change. Change can be good.
Change is a great opportunity to grow, learn and do new things. Change is the best way to get out of the proverbial comfort zone.
There’s an expression…everything you have ever wanted is outside your comfort zone.
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I’m proud of our East Coast Teammates. This team has certainly met and exceeded all the changes and challenges of 2021.
2022 looks to be another year of change and challenges and we will prevail again better and stronger. Our customers depend on our team, and we are driven to GSD.
I want to also recognize several of my East Coast Teammates that are taking on change and new challenges in 2022.
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- Promotion of Chris Robinson, Technical Account Manager, GMF/ PCB Chris is also relocating to the Southwest
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- Promotion of Michael Currie, Technical Account Manager, Michael will assume all sales responsibilities in Canada
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- Promotion of Larry Boehm, Field Applications Engineer-Sales support on the East and other regions as needed
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This is such a great team, one that possesses the attitude, desire, and enthusiasm to meet head-on what lies ahead. I am fortunate to be a part of it.
One thing is certain our customers will have an unfair advantage over competitors with this team supporting them!
Change is good!
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Ron Murdock
Director of Sales - Eastern Region/ Canada
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PCBAA LEADERSHIP SPEAKS OUT |
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IPC APEX EXPO 2022 - Booth #3233
Isola Supports High-Speed Digital Circuits
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Isola Group, a leading global manufacturer of copper-clad laminates and dielectric prepregs for printed circuit boards (PCBs), will be on hand at the IPC APEX EXPO 2022 exhibition with examples of its high-performance circuit materials for high-speed digital circuits, including Tachyon® 100G and I-Tera® MT40 materials.
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The exhibition is scheduled for January 25-27, 2022, at the San Diego Convention Center (San Diego, CA) and represents one of North America’s largest annual gatherings of electronics manufacturing technology and PCB manufacturers.
Isola Group will be well represented at IPC APEX EXPO Booth #3233, offering insights and guidance on the use of its outstanding circuit materials, in particular Tachyon® 100G ultra low loss laminate and prepreg materials and I-Tera® MT40 (RF/MW) very low-loss laminate and prepreg materials. The circuit materials provide stable foundations for high-speed digital circuits, including multilayer circuits in which size must be minimized.
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Tachyon® 100G circuit materials maintain dielectric constant (Dk) of 3.02 in the z-axis (thickness) with low dissipation factor (Df) of 0.0021 at 10 GHz across a wide temperature range of -55 to +125°C. With low z-axis coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), Tachyon® circuit materials are optimized with spread glass to provide the substrate stability needed for low-jitter data rates to 100 GB/s.
They are available in laminate and prepreg forms for constructing compact high-speed-digital (HSD) multilayer circuits and circuit assemblies.
I-Tera® MT40 laminates and prepregs are characterized by a z-axis Dk of 3.45 and low Df of 0.0031 at 10 GHz, both of which remain stable with temperatures from -55 to +125°C.
They are cost-effective alternatives to more-difficult-to-process PTFE circuit materials for high-speed digital multilayer and hybrid high-speed digital and RF/microwave multilayer circuits. In fact, they are FR-4 process compatible for ease of hybrid circuit fabrication.
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Regarding the two materials, Sean Mirshafiei, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, said: “Circuit designers are pressing for more bandwidth, higher frequencies, and faster digital speeds for automotive, communications, industrial, medical, and military circuits. Both Tachyon® 100G and I-Tera® laminates and prepregs provide the characteristics needed for consistent outstanding circuit performance at the highest data rates.”
Isola Group representatives at IPC APEX EXPO will welcome visitors to their booth with details and advice on the use of Tachyon® 100G, I-Tera® MT40, and other circuit materials well suited for high-speed digital circuits and high-frequency millimeter-wave (mmWave) circuits through W-band frequencies to 110 GHz. The circuit materials are FR-4 process compatible and RoHS-compliant and make cost-effective alternatives to more-difficult-to-process PTFE circuit materials for high-speed, high-frequency circuits.
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About Isola
Isola is a leading global material sciences company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets laminate materials used to fabricate advanced multilayer printed circuit boards, which provide the physical platforms for the semiconductors, passive components, and connection circuitry that power and control virtually all modern electronic products. Isola operates a network of factories worldwide.
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Norm Berry
Director, Laminates & OEM Marketing
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News from the DuPont Chemistry Desk
Resolutions! This Year's the Year!
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Happy New Year! My hope is that you were able to enjoy time with family and friends this Holiday Season.
As we turn the calendar to a new year, challenges and opportunities abound. Increasing demand in the face of a globally constrained supply side presents unprecedented challenges across virtually all industries.
Extended lead times and strained logistics channels present further difficulties in this environment. Uncertainty with the longevity of the Covid-19 pandemic and the related labor shortages that many companies are facing further exacerbate the matter.
Not to mention that product designs and OEM technological requirements push the envelope for fabricators to build better boards, faster.
Not all is doom and gloom, however.
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With challenges and difficult times comes opportunity. Identifying these opportunities amidst ever-changing challenges is what separates the good-better-best. Resiliency, creativity, and a proactive approach are characteristics that we utilize when times are tough.
Timely communication is critical to ensure favorable outcomes. Whether these opportunities lie in yield improvement, cost efficiencies, increased throughput, improved technology, or training and education, Insulectro is here to partner with our fabricator customers.
I think of New Year’s Resolutions as both challenges and opportunities. We challenge ourselves to improve and realize opportunity from the success of the endeavor.
If your 2022 resolutions include building better boards, faster, consider stay-on-board technology solutions from DuPont ICS:
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MAKING HOLES CONDUCTIVE – For improvement with electroless copper bath stability, copper grain structure, advanced HDI designs and high reliability, consider DuPont’s™ CIRCUPOSIT™ family of electroless copper processes, with both colloidal and ionic catalyst systems available.
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ELECTROLYTIC COPPER/TIN PLATING – DuPont offers a full portfolio of electrolytic copper plating systems that can be tailored to your application requirements. Whether your challenge is to improve surface to hole distribution with high aspect ratio DC plating, throwing power with periodic pulse plating, increased throughput with higher current density applications, or through-hole (PTH) filling, the COPPER GLEAM™, ELECTROPOSIT™ and RONASTAN™ systems from DuPont™ provide proven solutions tailored by our product experts to your application.
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MICROVIA FILLING – Improvement with microvia reliability (MVR) and via filling performance are critical to success with today’s advanced designs. Maintaining thin surface copper while achieving uniform via filling performance offers significant advantages for subsequent processing steps. DuPont’s ™ MICROFILL™ via filling chemistries offer both panel and pattern plating options based on the application.
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ENIG – For challenges with electroless nickel and immersion gold, DuPont’s™ DURAPOSIT™ electroless nickel and AUROLECTROLESS™ immersion gold provide a process solution that features wide operating latitude, robust nickel bath life, and pure gold deposits suitable for a wide variety of soldering and wire bonding applications.
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Stop by the Insulectro MegaBooth #3233 at the IPC APEX EXPO show at the San Diego Convention Center (January 25 -27) and tell us about your 2022 chemistry resolutions. We’d be happy to put together a group of product & application experts to help turn those challenges into opportunities.
I wish all a safe and prosperous 2022.
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Paul Welter
Director of Sales, DuPont Chemistry
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At-A-Glance
The DuPont Chemistry Line
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With the acquisition of East Coast Electronic Material Supply (ECEMS) in late March, Insulectro has brought another best-in-class product line to our customers. The addition of the DuPont Electronics Imaging & Interconnect Solutions (ICS) chemistry line, which was legacy Dow Chemicals before the Dow-DuPont merger, adds a complimentary piece to an already robust Insulectro product offering.
DuPont ICS is innovating new metallization technologies across many platforms:
Electroplating Applications
HDI
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Microfill™ EVF-III for advanced via filling and through-hole plating
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Microfill™ LVF-IV for next generation SLP applications
MLB
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Copper Gleam™ PPR-II for high aspect ratio pulse plating
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Electroposit™ EP-1600 for high aspect ratio DC plating
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Copper Gleam™ HS-200 for horizontal DC plating in FPC applications
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Copper Gleam™ ST-920 for DC vertical continuous plating (VCP)
IC Package Substrate
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Microfill™ SFP-II & Microfill™ LVF-IV for advanced SAP applications
Making Holes Conductive
Electroless Copper Solutions:
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Circuposit™ 3350-1 Vertical Electroless Copper
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Circuposit™ 4000 Horizontal electroless copper for FPC/RFPC
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Circuposit™ 6700 Horizontal Ionic Catalyst for Advanced HDI applications
Direct Metallization Solutions:
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Next Generation Crimson™ & Conductron™ palladium-based systems
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Next Generation Graphite 2000™ carbon-based system
ENIG:
Duraposit™ SMT-88 & Aurolectroless™ SMT 520
Process Chemistries:
DuPont offers a full line of cleaners, developers, strippers and other ancillary products to support printed circuit applications.
General Metal Finishing:
Full line engineering, decorative and precious metal offerings
As you can see, through this addition of the DuPont ICS chemistry line, Insulectro is now providing chemistry and technical support to the general metal finishing, plating-on-plastics, and wire plating industries, which we see as an area of growth.
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Chemicals & Controllers
Focus Tech Chemicals
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Insulectro continues to offer Focus Tech processing chemistry for you PCB processing needs.
Products Offered
- Dryfilm Developing Chemistry
- Dryfilm Stripping Chemistry
- Tin Stripping
- Alternative Oxide
- Equipment Cleaners
- Waste Treatment Chemistry
- Plus, a variety of Process Chemistries
Control Equipment
Focus Tech offers chemistry control equipment to help manage the different chemical processes in the manufacturing process.
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Specific gravity controller
- Conductivity Controller
- Colorimeter controller
- Cupric Etch Controller
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Custom controllers with availability to connect to TrueChem software
Jeff Johnson
Product Manager - Dryfilm/Chemistry/Paste & FAE
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Induction Bonding and Induction Lamination.
This week we will have Víctor Lazaro Gallego in Silicon Valley to meet with our PCB customers.
Victor's company makes the InduBond® Lamination press as well as the pin-less bonding system for multilayer PCBs.
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Victor has personally pioneered this technology, and we are fortunate to have him here all the way from Spain during these challenging travel times. These technologies depart from the “me too” approach in making multilayer PCBs.
I am excited to be working with these new technologies. This is especially true in the Northern California market that tends to specialize in unique builds and advanced materials.
If we miss you this week, come see us at IPC Apex at the Insulectro booth #3233.
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Chris Hunrath
Vice President of Technology
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Insulectro PumaNews™ will write, curate, and publish provocative articles on innovation, vision, and thought leadership in our industry spotlighting people who make a difference. |
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Current & Challenged
Meet Amanda Brieger
Senior Sales & Marketing Manager - Light Coatings & Laser Peening
Curtis-Wright Surface Technologies
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What do sunscreen and EMI/RFI Shielding have in common? More on that later, but first, let’s get to know Amanda Brieger, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager, Liquid Coatings and Laser Peening with Curtiss-Wright Surface Technologies.
A Cleveland, Ohio native, Amanda was transplanted to New England after years of working in Europe: “With my fluency in German, my cross-cultural understanding, and my ability to grasp technical details, I succeded in functions that require business savvy and communication. I have provided a critical bridge between customers and engineering in a myriad of manufacturing industries.”
In 2019, Amanda transitioned to Curtiss-Wright Surface Technologies: “Looking back, it was rather funny when I applied for the job, as I did not immediately make the connection between Curtiss-Wright Surface Technologies and E/M Coatings in New Brighton, MN, a team I had previously worked with while at Tri-Mack Plastics. Familiar names and faces facilitated my transition to CWST.”
The New Brighton team is unique in their offerings of EMI/RFI shielding processes. “One of our main differentiators is our tank size. With some of the largest tanks available, we can process large components and maximize capacity and throughput."
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Our proprietary electroless plating technologies for plastic, composite and ceramic components ensure high levels of electromagnetic shielding and allows us to get into the ‘nooks and crannies’ of parts, something other shielders can’t. Add to this our NADCAP accreditation and I really don’t think there is another shielding company who offers what we do.”
“When I transitioned to the coatings world almost ten years ago, I would not have considered nail polish, lipstick or sunscreens coatings. As with many things, the more you know, the different the world looks. Just as sunscreens protect against harmful UV rays, so too do EMI/RFI Shieldings protect against unwanted electromagnetic and radio frequency interference.
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Remember when there were strict rules about turning off all electronics during a flight? EMI/RFI Shieldings are the reason we can surf the web on our smart phones and laptops while in flight. As someone who flies a lot, I’m quite grateful for EMI/RFI Shieldings.”
“My career path has opened my eyes to the wondrous world of coatings. Coatings serve a multitude of functions and come in an array of colors. Likewise, there is a kaleidoscope of skill set combinations that lead to success. I’m a liberal arts graduate, who attained a Master of Business Administration and Master of German Studies.
I work in a highly technical field. One might find my education an odd addition to a heavily engineered field, however, I would argue the opposite. I bring humanity to engineering.”
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To all of the women out there, trying to find your place, I’d like to share one of my favorite quotes: “You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.” –The Wizard of Oz.
My personal piece of advice - don’t let anyone shield you from success.”
Interested in learning more about E/M Coatings? Shoot us an email: info@cwst.com
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PRINTED ELECTRONICS INKS & PASTES,
ADVANCED SUBSTRATES & FILMS
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Advanced Substrates
Polycarbonates!
Virtually Indestructable
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Insulectro is well known as the largest supplier of materials used to manufacture printed circuit boards. This includes our rapidly growing substrate division making Insulectro your one stop shop for printed electronics.
In addition to being a first-in-class supplier, product specialists at Insulectro have in depth product knowledge offering process consultations and onsite training to ensure the very best products are selected for each critical need. Insulectro readily stocks an ever-growing assortment of substrates and this month we are highlighting Clarity™ Polycarbonate films.
Polycarbonate films are transparent, general purpose materials from the thermoplastic polymer family that are easily thermoformed and molded. Sheets of polycarbonate are flexible, bond well using solvent cement or adhesives, can be bent, thermoformed without cracking, and are simple to paint/print.
General purpose polycarbonate features exceptional impact strength and superior dimensional stability, and is a great choice for windows, skylights, and greenhouses.
Some of the characteristics that make Clarity™ Polycarbonate films a great substrate for printed electronics include:
- High impact strength
- High dimensional stability
- Excellent light transmission and clarity
- Good electrical insulation properties that are not influenced by water or temperature
- Can withstand repeated steam sterilizations (in medical applications)
Call me. I'm excited to tell you why we have the best offering of advanced substrates ever.
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Jeff Crawford
Advanced Substrate Specialist
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OPERATIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN |
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World Class Manufacturing: Asset Care
Bill Rogler Leads “Roll Out” of New Capabilities for PE/Substrate Growth
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One of the key tenets of World Class Manufacturing relates to the care, and capability enhancements, of our equipment assets.
With the significant growth we’ve experienced in our Printed Electronics and Substrates business, Insulectro is investing heavily in ensuring we have the right asset base, and the best technical resources, to continue to support our ever-emerging customer needs.
We are indeed very fortunate to have the “best of the best” in terms of maintenance and asset care support in our New Hampshire facility, which is the command center for the PE/Substrate operations.
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William (Bill) Rogler is truly an “Asset Care Extraordinaire”. Bill’s resume is a lifetime of innovative and creative maintenance and design, including a 20+ year professional career of maintaining and improving equipment of all kinds. He recently has completed an endeavor that will create significant additional capacity and capability to allow Insulectro to continue to grow with our customers on the conversion of sheeted substrate materials.
The conception of the idea was born out of collaboration with our valued supplier, Pacothane Technologies. After learning of their approach and equipment design to substrate roll converting, Bill traveled to Pacothane and drew up his own ideas about how he could incorporate the learnings for benefit in our New Hampshire operation.
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Bill’s passion to design and fabricate our own solution demonstrates his committed focus, his extreme level of talent, and his outstanding initiative. He was able to revive from the ashes, and completely refurbish, a circa 1989 Rosenthal Sheeter, and create a first-of-a-kind, 4-up roll-converting asset for the company.
Bill completely renovated the Rosenthal sheeter, tearing it down to the basic frame, inspecting every single part, and replacing and modifying all components as needed.
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Bill performed the complete engineering, design, and install of the 4-roll system. He also added a state-of-the-art, touch screen, graphical control panel. The like-new asset has a significantly improved cutting tolerance (less than .03125!), and the 4-up design obviously results in increased sheeting capacity (4X!).
Further, Bill improved the setup controls by adding a pneumatic adjustable nip roller and has also been able to eliminate virtually all static (an essential ingredient to sheeting substrate materials).
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The new asset was fully commissioned on January 3rd, a great way to ring in the New Year in support of our PE/Substrate customers!
Many thanks and extreme kudos to you Bill for all you’ve done on this new 4-Up converting asset, and thanks for your continued support to maintain ALL the operating equipment in New Hampshire to ensure we can deliver every day to meet our customers’ needs!
Your commitment and passion is a true demonstration of World Class Manufacturing Asset Care!
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Jason Shuppert
Vice President of Operations
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The Southwest region continues to be very busy with a lot of optimism among the customer base. However, the people problem continues to be a limiting factor to growth.
Whether it’s Covid or the competitive job market, shops are struggling daily to operate while at less than full capacity with plenty of business coming in. In times like these it’s easy to get bogged down by fire fighting and lose sight of long term process improvements, advancements in technology and cost reductions.
In Southern Cal we’re lucky to have some great Insulectro and supplier resources living here to help our customers not only fight the fires but to get above it all and look ahead.
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Mike Carnarius, Insulectro FAE, has been doing an outstanding job in the field, jumping on urgent issues that flare up for customers. But, he’s also scheduling proactive process audits and training sessions with customers to help emphasize PCB fundamentals. Pancho and I are lucky to have Mike on our team!
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Chris Hunrath, Insulectro VP Regional Sales, recently assumed responsibility for managing southern California. Chris has already made an impact even while living in San Jose and traveling down 1-2 times/month. He’s lead a front end training session to educate people on the do’s and don’ts of laminate and prepreg for optimal stackups. Moreover, he’s on calls weekly with us helping guide customers through trouble shooting when the fires get out of hand. Chris brings a lot of credibility to our team and I think it will make a difference in 2022’s growth.
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Geoffrey Leeds, Insulectro Flex Product Manager, has been busy in Orange County making in-person calls to customers to help with things ranging from flex design and processing best practices, root cause analysis and promotion of Pyralux HP DuPont’s new low loss flexible adhesive. He’s a phenomenal resource who’s great in front of OEMs and we like the fact he lives in Orange County and not back east!
And last but not least:
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Paul St. John, our veteran and resident drill guru, continues to work his way around the field. Other regions of the country have to schedule Paul to travel in for 3-5 days and I think sometimes we take it for granted that Paul is available to go into a shop with a phone call. He’s very responsive, thorough and easy to work with.
If customers in southern California don’t have Paul in their shop regularly they’re just missing out. We are also lucky to have suppliers who live nearby.
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Isola has Jim Hartzell and Jonathan Villaraldo who have been great. Jim is a veteran as well and brings a lot of product and process knowledge but he’s out in front of OEMs which brings another dimension to what he has to offer.
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Jonathan has worked very hard over the past several years to become a reliable technical resource for Isola. He’s always there when we need him on the phone or face-to-face and he gets stuff done. Having Jim and Jonathan close by makes our team stronger. |
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And last but certainly not least Chris Cha DuPont’s process engineering manager. Chris has seen and done it all coming from a board shop and now he’s using all that knowledge to help our customers. Specifically, Chris supports us on dry film and flex but he knows a lot about a lot so it’s great to have him readily available when opportunities present themselves.
So yes the market is busy, customers are short on people but not on work and our southern Cal team is here and we’ve got you covered.
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Sean Redfern
Technical Account Manager - Southern California
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A Super Matchup!
Make Your InduBond® Press
Sit Up & Take Notice
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Bacon and eggs. Black and tan. Mac and cheese. Bert and Ernie. InduBond® and Copper-Steel-Copper!
Bonded Copper foil including VLP profiles onto a Steel carrier ensures that not only the low-profile topography is protected but the surface is clean, free from causing signal integrity defects as all FOUR edges are sealed. It's a star performer in an InduBond® press!
Carrier foil is available from 1µm up to 5µm, now CSC bridges that gap offering foils from 6µm to 140µm.
CSC is available in 8 mil which has twice the image transfer resistance as 15 mil aluminum AND can replace up to SEVEN standard 62 mil steel separators. Those separators not only cause circuit surface imperfections impacting trace lines but reduce stack height allowing more panels per lamination cycle.
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I've got a lot to tell you about this matchup!
Mark Satchwell
Product Manager, Foil & CAC®
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Focus Tech Excellence!
Resist Strippers
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No matter which dryfilm you use, you eventually need to remove it. This process is often taken for granted and customers accept stained inner layers and partially trapped resist on outer layers that they have to rework.
Insulectro provides a complete line of resist strip chemistries designed to accomplish many different tasks.
Here are a list of some key attributes:
- Increase stripping speed
- Low VOC formulations
- Reduce process costs
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Improve process control - with the addition of a controller systems
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Eliminate stains on inner layers – Reduce false AOI callouts
- Reduce trapped resist on outer layers
- Reduce tin attack on outer layers
If you would like to see how we could improve your resist stripping process, please contact me.
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Jeff Johnson
Product Manager - Dryfilm & Chemistry
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The People
Behind the Puma
Meet Stacey Zambrono
Accounting Manager
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BIO
I am the youngest of four and was born and raised in Southern California. I loved playing sports and being active and while I had brief stents in softball and basketball, I was a soccer player through and through. I ended up playing soccer from about age five or six through high school.
My parents were the true MVPs carting all four of us kids to different parts of town for our various extracurricular activities. I attended college in Southern California as well and obtained my accounting degree.
Out of college I started an internship doing Accounts Payable for the County of Orange. While at that internship I was hired on as a staff accountant for Metagenics where I worked for approximately three years until I transferred to the Redfern Companies and have been here since April of 2015. I was hired on as a senior staff accountant and my current title is Accounting Manager.
My husband and I currently live in South Orange County and have a two year old chocolate lab.
Stacey's got our back. . .
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When you were a little girl what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a veterinarian. I’ve loved animals since I was a little girl and always had dogs when I was growing up. My siblings and I also had turtles at one point in time and were obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so obviously we named our turtles after them and mine was Leonardo.
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Are you more into food or convenience and why?
There are points in time where convenience will win out but for the most part I’m more into the experience and quality of food. I am a big fan of charcuterie boards and often times my husband and I will go to a restaurant solely on the fact that they have what appears to be a good charcuterie board. If we have time, we are happy to drive out of the way to get good food.
What’s you binge food?
I have a sweet tooth for sure, so if it’s around and especially if it’s been in the fridge or freezer, any form of chocolate.
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If you could change careers tomorrow and money was no object, what would you go do?
If money was no object, I would probably want to be a baker. My decorating skills are not near what a professional bakers should be, but I enjoy baking and typically while they might not be the most beautiful, they taste pretty good. I mean if money was no object I’d be able to take the time to hone the decorating skills, right?
Best subjects in school?
Math – I loved all math classes, except for geometry.
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Any embarrassing wardrobe choices looking back on it?
Oh my goodness, the choices I made in junior high looking back were most definitely not my finest. I had semi unruly hair in middle school and thought I was doing this great hair style for school pictures with my colorful braces – lets just say I’m surprised my parents purchased the school pictures that year. The hair style went totally awry and was sitting on the side of my head perpendicular.
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Most embarrassing car ever owned?
When I first started driving we owned a Saturn and while the car looked good it was not the most reliable car. At one point I was outside of a restaurant and trying to get the car to start, which was nothing new for this Saturn. After about the fourth try, a nice gentleman walked up and asked if I needed some assistance. I politely declined, tried to start the car two more times with no luck and on the third try the ignition finally started.
What do you like most about your co-workers?
I like that we are not just co-workers but friends. We celebrate birthdays and accomplishments with one another and I feel like everyone is truly supportive and caring for one another.
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What’s the last thing you’ll say on the day you leave the company?
Leave the company? We just celebrated about 7 of us in the Lake Forest branch working here for 5 or 6 years this December. The Redfern Companies are a great place to work and I feel fortunate to have such amazing colleagues, a fantastic accounting team, and hardworking owners. It will be hard to leave the company and on my last day I would probably just say “Thank you”. I feel like I’ve been given great opportunities here and for that I feel grateful.
What in your early life best prepared you for your job now?
My father is also in the accounting world so growing up I saw how hard he worked and the scheduling conflicts that would happen around closing of the month and year and for some bizarre reason still went that route. He instilled in me to take ownership and pride in work and life and I feel like that is an amazing life lesson that you can take with you anywhere you go.
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Insulectro Unleashes the
Incredible Power of 5
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Contact your Insulectro or Isola sales representative for more information.
Norm Berry
Director of Laminates & OEM Marketing
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Join our
Puma Team!
Help us define the future of Printed Circuit Boards and Printed Electronics!
Join our Puma team and be a part of our growth.
Business Development
Operations
Pricing
Production
Warehouse
Others
Click on the ad (left) to see various positions we are recruiting.
As advertised in i-connect007's PCB Magazine
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Insulectro Unleashes the
Incredible Power of 5
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Click-Out our
Pyralux® Flexible Laminates Selector Guide. . .
(click on product name)
The standard copper clad laminate systems for any flex or rigid flex designs.
The standard copper clad laminate systems for any flex or rigid flex designs.
Single sided flex copper clad substrate
Standard acrylic adhesives for building multi-layer flex designs. Offered as coverlay, sheet adhesives and bondplys.
Standard acrylic adhesives for building multi-layer flex designs. Offered as coverlay, sheet adhesives and bondplys.
An epoxy-based adhesive system demonstrating both low loss and high reliability, specifically designed for OEMs and PCB design manufacturers. Offered as coverlay and sheet adhesive.
High temperature flexible adhesive system with an MOT of 225C.
Teflon®/Laminate system offered as a clad laminate or bondply. Ideal for RF designs.
Embedded resistance double sided laminate
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Geoffrey Leeds
Flex Product Manager
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Insulectro Unleashes the
Incredible Power of 5
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It's Not Too Late!
Past OEM FORUMS Available for Viewing
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MOST OF OUR OEM FORUMS available for viewing
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QUALITY CONCERNS
JUNE 24, 2021
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As a Replacement
PACO•CLUTCH™ - for the Lamination of Flexible & Multilayer Circuit Boards
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PACOTHANE TECHNOLOGIES is the world's leading manufacturer of products to enhance and assist the production and quality assurance process for the lamination and manufacture of printed circuit boards [PCB].
Pacothane services the worldwide PCB and Smart Card markets, which includes Rigid Multilayer, Rigid/Flex, Cover-layer Flex, Flexible Multilayer, Copper, and Un-Clad Laminates.
These circuit boards are integrated into a wide variety of applications and markets that include telecom, data communications, high-speed computing, mobile devices, military, smart cards, medical and effectively all electronic products.
WE ARE COMMITTED TO INNOVATION AND EXCELLENCE
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We develop and produce consistent, dependable, functional products that help to eliminate the hidden variables in PCB manufacture, reducing scrap rates and reworks
- We provide uncompromising support to our distributors and their customers, through training, sales, and technical support
WE ARE COMMITTED TO PROVIDING THE MOST COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS
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We help customers select the correct product for their specific application
- We continuously improve functionality to reduce customers' finished product costs
For all your needs and challenges in lamination, give us a call! With our broad product offering we have the solutions you need. We like to make your life easier!
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Geraldine Arseneau
Product Manager - Pacothane® Products
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And, don't forget, recently published Pacothane® Product Sample Guide available. Contact me for details. |
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Geraldine Arseneau
Product Manager - LCOA®
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CAC® Inc
Superior surface quality,
supporting thinner foils
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Remove those hard to clean, defect causing and throughput limiting separator plates.
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Reduce stack height - More panels per book per opening, CSC 7.5x thinner than separators
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Eliminate surface defects as the factory finish copper surface and profile is protected
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Production Efficiency gains by reducing the overall mass to heat AND cool in a cycle
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Layup Efficiency – No separators to clean, resurface or polish - labor intensive & costly
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Consistency in press stack mass CTE to copper & prepreg with CSC
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Increase quality assurance as image impressions and FOD concerns are minimized
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For additional information, samples, or data sheet, please contact me.
Mark Satchwell
Product Manager, Foil & CAC®
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Drills, Routers, Endmills!
Let Kemmer Improve Your Board Quality
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The PCB industry has seen a significant increase in the need for endmills. Insulectro’s Kemmer line has a complete product offering of single, two, three and four flute designs for various applications and material types. Currently stocking endmills from .50mm to 1/8”.
Kemmer Tech-Centers are continuously reviewing endmill designs and carbides, through a series of tests to ensure that we meet the increasing quality requirements of all material types and applications.
Please contact your local Insulectro branch for additional product information and availability.
Geraldine Arseneau
Product Manager - Drill & Business Development - Canada
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Design Education - An Insulectro Priority
Insulectro Sponsors New Design Trade Association
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Printed Circuit Engineering Association™ (PCEA) is an international network of engineers, designers, fabricators, assemblers, and anyone related to printed circuit development.
Our mission is to promote printed circuit engineering as a profession by encouraging and facilitating the exchange of information and the integration of new design concepts through communications, seminars, and workshops.
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If you are a professional serving in the printed circuit industry from any associated discipline, you are encouraged to join. Membership is free and you’re encouraged to be involved as we all seek to collaborate, educate and inspire one another. Visit the web-site at: www.pce-a.org
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As advertised in i-Connect 007's PCB Magazine.
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INSULECTRO'S COPPER & COPPER FOIL OFFERINGS |
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Out with the Old, and in with the New!
OEMs Demand Performance;
Fabricators Look for Support
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Copper foil producers answer!
Denkai America with support from Nippon Denkai will expand their domestic product line to support the High-Speed Digital (HSD) market with several low loss foil options later this year.
Each foil type provides a superior foundation to support the design and performance targets of the board based on the dielectric material being used.
The foil options are:
- SEED Foils – Grade 3 – High peel strength, very low profile (VLP2) for PTFE resins
- HL Foils – Grade 10 – Low temperature anneal-able, very low profile (VLP2) for PPO resins
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EPS – Grade 10 – No profile foil for metallic bonding, signal critical layers for advanced thermoset resin systems.
To aid the design objective of uninterrupted ground planes by improving the loss tangent a lower profile foil such as VLP2 is suggested at frequencies greater than 10 Ghz, paramount above 50 Ghz!
The Copper foil’s tooth profile as previously covered by Michael Creeden in his November PumaNews article ‘The Battles to Reduce RF loss’ highlights the need for base foils to evolve and OEM’s to include in their designs. A low loss foil is denoted by having a smoother topography, Tooth profiles vary and their roughness is denoted by a term called (Rz), also referred to as, “Ten-point height.” This is the average absolute value of the five highest peaks and the five lowest valleys, measured in microns.
We try to balance the paradox between roughness for adhesion in terms of peel strength against smoothness for supporting signal propagation.
Therefore, you should use specific foils for inner and outer layer applications. VLP2 foils for inner layer construction positively support the Skin Effect which relates to the signal speed and signal loss. As the signal speed increases to support higher frequencies, the shallower the amount of depth the current will travel in the conductor.
Signal-integrity, speed and base foil selection should be jointly considered during the design and fabrication process. Insulectro and Denkai America will both be hosting booth’s during the IPC Expo later this month. We look forward to discussing design requirements in person, in a socially responsible manner.
Hope to see you in person at IPC APEX EXPO in San Diego, January 25-27, 2022.
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For further assistance, connect with me by email, phone, or in person!
Mark Satchwell
Product Manager, Foil & CAC®
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Fine-tuning Operations
Is Trying to “Stretch” the Most Out of Your Consumables Hurting You?
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Shur-loc, IBC Brush and Equipment Service are being recognized by customers as key contributing factors in Insulectro helping them to increase their departments efficiencies in areas of their facility.
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Being consistent on your mesh tension throughout its life in the frame helps in keeping ink coverage consistent which ensures process performance and repeatability.
- Each mesh panel has a color-coded edge as well as the information stamped in one corner.
- Available in the common 22.5 degree angle needed for LPI or 90 degree for photo imagable legend ink.
Call myself or your local account manager for a system quote to see how quickly your return on investment will be!
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Going Beyond
the Tool Case
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Working with IBC for over the past 15 years, we’ve worked together in making sure that their brushes are manufactured with the best possible specifications to give optimal performance to the printed circuit industry.
We can also perform regularly scheduled brush changes in your machine. We don’t just change your brushes and walk away. This piece of equipment will go thru a specific number of tests along with a review of other areas of the machine before we leave it to production.
What we like to call as…….
Going Beyond The Tool Case!
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Please contact us for a brush quote and see how our Equipment Services can be tied in to optimize your machine’s performance! |
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If you did happen to catch the “5 Reasons to Call Insulectro” for your Service needs! Well….here’s a few more to think about! |
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The calls for Preventative Maintenance Programs and Equipment Rebuilds are increasing as customers understand the benefits this brings to their equipment’s overall performance and up time.
With 20 years of experience, we take machine rebuilds seriously!
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Reach out to us to see how we can help improve your equipment up time and performance through:
- Equipment Reviews and Audits
- Service and support
- Preventative Maintenance Programs
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Also, do you have a used piece of equipment you’re looking to get installed? We may be able to assist here as well!
Ruben Zambrano
Field Application Engineer
Cell: 847-345-3759
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Please reach out should you like to discuss any of these topics further.
Thank you.
Kevin Barrett,
Product Manager & TAM
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Today's Copper Foils
for Tomorrow’s Applications!
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Tailored to meet market trends such as compartment miniaturization, vehicle electrification and increased connectivity demands require improved characteristics of both wrought and ED foils.
Focus on wrought solutions such as:
- Low profile height (Rz) for signal integrity, as low as 0.4µm
- Consistent profile height across the web which does not change when ordering thicker foils
- Alloy foil with Increased tensile strengths which can exceed 700Mpa
- Grain structure in terms of large crystals and uniform orientation improves fatigue resistance and provides excellent vibration resistance.
- Thermal resistance to withstand hostile environments for automotive applications.
Wrought foils released to IPC 4562A in grade 5, grade 7 and grade 8.
Call us to find out more – we love to talk about this stuff!
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Give us a call to discuss how CAC can help you
make better circuits faster.
Mark Satchwell
Product Manager, Copper Foils
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Hard to Process Metals?
Our Beck's Light Gauge Process Is What You're Looking For
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We enjoy processing metals that most shy away from.
Our specialties include:
- 0 temper aluminum for deep drawing
- One Side Bright aluminum for the auto or name plate industry
- Clad Heat Treated Aluminum for the aerospace industry
- Litho Sheet for the printing industry
- Bright Annealed and Polished Stainless for the appliance industry
- Soft Copper
- Coated Products (aluminum or steel)
- Titanium
In other words “Jewelry”. We are a white glove, hand stacking operation giving us the ability to inspect each sheet or piece.
We have been qualified by many top Stainless and Aluminum producing mills as well as a long list of metal distributors. Many of our customers have their own cut to length equipment. Generally for a wide range of gauges.
Because our leveler was built for light gauge, we can correct flatness issues other larger roll levelers cannot. Quite often we get used to free up our customer’s line time by running the lighter gauges or more difficult time consuming jobs.
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Call Matt to find out more about our Beck's process and all that CAC® has to offer. |
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Matt Swanson
General Manager, Toll Processing
CAC®, Inc.
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Everyday Materials You Need, On Our Shelves Every Day
Insulectro recognizes the importance of maintaining adequate inventory to begin work. Designers know when you need it, you need it. Using the link getpumafast.com, you can see what PumaFast™ and standard materials we stock to get you up and running.
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Covid-19 has not stopped our ACT! initiatives!
We have successfully collaborated on many ACT! opportunities.
We are delivering on Technology, Design and Education while you can bank on the sales results!
We are virtually taking our ACT!
to another level!
Insulectro and our partners are moving the chains to help our customers exceed performance goals. Our team of professional and technical resources are now offering our customers access to design and education services.
This is a Game Changer!
Our ACT! Initiatives combined with our design and education services provide our customers a total solutions package with a one-stop-shop option.
Our customers now have total access to not only our Insulectro foot print, best in class products, materials on the shelf when you need them; but also the expertise to deliver solutions from design to delivery…FAST!
Call me and to set up a VIRTUAL ACT! with your customer.
There's a reason I'm smiling.
Ron Murdock
ACT! Manager & Technical Account Manager
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To be the easiest company to do business with. . .
Insulectro has a program for continual improvement, all designed to make ourselves as user-friendly as possible to our customers, their customers, and our suppliers. Speed Matters, so we focus a lot of attention on getting you the materials you need as quickly as possible.
Our PumaFast™ Program lists current inventory of everyday materials you need every day.
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Best-in-Class Materials
from our Premier Suppliers
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