I currently came through a PCB assembler to assemble for my boards. I had 250 boards and wanted to assemble 0402 LEDs on the board. The assembler came back to me after assembling all the boards. They told me that the LEDs were hand soldered due to the reel for the capacitor coming on the opposite direction with respect to their P&P machine. That was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. I have been running these projects for last 2 years and no one came to me with that type of excuse. They even said that since it was 250 pcs, they couldn't roll the reel by hand on the other way to make it fit with their machine. What kind of assembler does that? Who comes up with these ideas?

 

?? Maybe their specific machine can't turn parts 180 deg? Seems like BS though.
Not sure why you said LED then capacitor either..

 

I currently came through a PCB assembler to assemble for my boards. I had 250 boards and wanted to assemble 0402 LEDs on the board. The assembler came back to me after assembling all the boards. They told me that the LEDs were hand soldered due to the reel for the capacitor coming on the opposite direction with respect to their P&P machine.

That's BS for sure, all the machines can do rotation that is how all your other parts ended up the correct way around!

I think the real answer was that 0402 LEDs are tiny and have a lens "bump" on top that makes then hard to pick up with standard nozzles, so if their machine had trouble picking up then they chose to hand place and solder (what a pain! they deserve a medal if they did not increase the price!).

...They even said that since it was 250 pcs, they couldn't roll the reel by hand on the other way to make it fit with their machine. ...

That's BS too, because the tape has holes on one edge only it can never be reversed, the tapes must always feed the same direction.

I think the person that told you that stuff was probbaly an office assistant or something, not a technical person who actually knew the real facts of the job.

 

That's BS too, because the tape has holes on one edge only it can never be reversed, the tapes must always feed the same direction.

Technically not true.. The tape can have the holes on either side if the end became the start. (EIA standard I believe is holes on top feed to right)
With a low volume like 250 pcs they probably went with a smaller "digi-reel" (250 pcs pulled off a full reel) and its possible that it was wound backwards.

There is NO good reason for a company to lie to you and hand solder stuff if they don't have to. It just costs them money.
If they didn't charge you anymore you did find a good supplier.

 

Also why would they say hand soldered rather than hand placed? I would have thought the problem would have been spotted before reflow (I could be very wrong).

 

I have repeatedly seen engineering slang can be quite aggressive.

Maybe they are lying or someone in the office wrote an excuse.

In fact the tape they have may not suit the PCB.

Indeed such LEDs are not easy to hand solder, I would not want to do it.

0805 is possible to place manually but only good for reflow.

If solder joints are done manually + carefully, they are good as automatic joints. But alignment? This is not really possible reasonable for this size. Maybe also reflow + stencil was used, the LEDs just placed manually.

Have you inspected it carefully + maybe can show a photo?

 

Technically not true.. The tape can have the holes on either side if the end became the start. (EIA standard I believe is holes on top feed to right) ...
...

No, I will argue that! The tape feeder requires that the holes are on the left as the tape feeds forward. If you reverse the tape the feeder will not work, so the tapes "cannot be reversed" as I said.

 

No, I will argue that! The tape feeder requires that the holes are on the left as the tape feeds forward. If you reverse the tape the feeder will not work, so the tapes "cannot be reversed" as I said.

All I meant is that the reel could have been wound backwards. and then it wouldn't fit into the feeder..and so they had to manually place them.

So technically..the tapes CAN be reversed.. They just won't fit into the feeders then though..

 

My apologies!

I do agree completely with you that there seems to be some BS in their "reasons".