We had the pleasure to participate in the Productronica Trade Fair in Munich both as an exhibitor – presenting our REECO brand, and as an organizer and sponsor of the Polish Soldering Team at the European and World Championships.
As part of the Fair, the American association IPC organized the European and World Championships in Soldering. Poland at this event was represented by this year’s Polish Champion in Soldering – Jakub Goławski and previous year’s winner of this title – Michał Czerwiec. The tournament task was to solder 59 THT and SMD components, including the smallest 0402, on PCB according to IPC standards within 60 minutes.
Time seems to have been the biggest problem for the participants – out of 17 World Championships players only 7 completed the task, unfortunately there were no representatives of our team in this group. Eventually, Indra Setiawan from Indonesia became the new World Champion in Soldering. The second place was taken by a competitor who the day before won the title of European Champion – a representative of France – Pauline Duval. The third place went to Maricel Calabig Velasco, a representative of the Philippines.
Polish representative – Polish Champion in Soldering – Jakub Goławski, jokingly commented that in last year’s Polish Championships in Soldering he also ran out of time to perform the task, and this year won the championship title – so we only have to wait for the next competition.
As part of a special event, the master also faced the REECO Soldering Robot – in the Man vs. Robot Duel. The device turned out to be faster than the man in making 256 THT soldering connections by over a minute. The REECO Soldering Robot was also challenged during the Championship by champions from all over the world.
Eventually, the duels between people and the machine ended in a 3:3 result. As the organizers of the event, the RENEX Group, which developed the robot, emphasize, this shows how much progress has been made in the field of automation.
Already, the robot performs the task of soldering as an equal to the best soldering experts in the world, and it can do it virtually without a break, 24 hours a day.
The Championship was full of other Polish accents – one of the referee was Marcin Sudomir – Master IPC Trainer and Director – of located in Poland, and the largest in Central and Eastern Europe Authorized Training Centre IPC – RENEX Electronics Education Center.
The RENEX Group proudly presented a wider range of its REECO brand, which is growing on European markets. The offer, apart from soldering robots, includes modular robots capable of performing a number of tasks such as labelling, screwing and dispensing, as well as industrial furniture and ESD clothing for electronics. A great distinction for the brand was its presence at the Championships where, in addition to duels between Man vs. Soldering Robot, REECO industrial furniture were distinguished as workstations at which champions from all over the world competed.
