Many advanced assemblies require high volume and cost-effective selective cleaning during various stages of assembly or rework operations. Due to component compatibility problems and drying challenges, partially assembled devices can't be immersed in or sprayed with aqueous cleaners or solvents. Newer dry cleaning techniques such as CO_2 aerosol spray cleaning processes (snow cleaning) have proven to be challenging to implement in automated high volume manufacturing operations. Issues associated with conventional snow cleaning have included high costs of operation, lack of process consistency, ineffective controls and the requirements for a supply of high purity liquid CO_2. Advanced carbon dioxide (CO-2) composite spray (CO-2(s)-CDA(g)) cleaning has been shown to be an effective alternative to traditional spray and immersion cleaning processes, as well as conventional snow cleaning, for selectively removing contaminants and films from partially assembled hard disk drive (HDD) components during the remanufacturing or rework process. CO-2 consumption is reduced significantly using a composite spray while spray cleaning control and performance is improved. CO_2 composite spray cleaning performance is dependant upon the position, speed and motions of the spray applicator and are matched to comply with HDD factory output. Stored spray cleaning programs deliver precise cleaning 7 days a week, 24 hours per day with uptimes exceeding 99.9% over a six month period. Monitoring and controlling composite spray cleaning process parameters including spray pressure and composition, scanning speed, and pallet/part identification are all done automatically. Operator interaction is limited to loading and unloading pallets for continuous system operation.
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