Reis Robotics - Newly developed fully automatic laser soldering procedure in photovoltaics

Product Breifing Outline:

The system supplier for photovoltaic module lines, Reis Robotics, has already implemented a newly developed laser soldering procedure for practical use with several customers.

Photovoltaics manufacturers are increasingly anxious to fully exploit the automation potential of their production in order to deal with the increasing demands for lower prices. REIS ROBOTICS as system supplier with its subsidiary Reis Lasertec as laser welding specialist has been successful for some years in the practical implementation of these very complex application tasks.
A newly developed laser soldering method ensures further increases in quality, shortened cycle times and reductions in manual rework. An integral process controller monitors and documents the production process.

In doing this, it is possible to concentrate the heat input such that soldering can be done directly on the EVA foil. With direct soldering on the foil, unnecessary multiple handling of the strings during the pre-process is avoided.
The integrated process control offers further advantages - it monitors the soldering of each joint individually and the data from this can be transferred and saved in a database for later documentation and quality control. Furthermore, faulty solder joints are reported directly via a monitor at a subsequent work station so that a worker recognizes these immediately and can manually resolder.

With this procedure cycle times of less than 40 seconds per module are obtained for a module with 60 cells and 36 soldering spots.

In this station, two Reis robots perform the soldering. In a separate station, two further robots automatically lay out the interconnection terminal lugs. The lugs are fed directly from a reel, using a specially developed system and presented in the correct position for the robot to pick up.

This laser soldering system offers decisive advantages compared to other procedures:

• low mechanical strain of the soldering joint 
• precise regulation of the soldering temperature 
• low operating cost 
• process stability in the position tolerances of the components 
• simple integration into automated systems 
• low maintenance costs