SML-S60 — the BC stringer
Its own busbar, thickness, pitch and size window — including the negative pitch the line loses without it.
SML-S60 rangeCompatibility & changeover
What a Whole Line Can Actually Run
Compatibility is not a single figure on a datasheet — it is a grid of busbar count against cell size, and a line runs its six machines in series. The square you can land on is the one all six share.
- The matrix, not the max. A sheet gives one machine's widest corner; the line runs the corner all six share.
- Lit is reachable in-range. The highlighted cells run after tooling stays inside the window; outside it is a different line.
One line · one blueprint square
In-range for the line
Reachable with tooling
The one square you sign
What this page is for
What This Page Settles, and What It Sends You Onward For
This page answers one question a machine page structurally cannot: what the whole line will run, and what it costs to change. It is not a second copy of the spec sheets — so read what it settles, and where it hands you on.
If your question is simply "will this line run my cell," the fastest answer is to send the drawing and let us mark the grid →
Range vs blueprint
A Compatibility Range Is Not an Acceptance Range
Start with the trap that costs the most, because it hides in plain sight on every spec sheet: the compatibility range and the range your machine is built and accepted against are two different things.
Where it goes wrong
You read a stringer's sheet, see it covers 3BB through 20BB, and reasonably assume the machine you receive runs all of it out of the crate. It does not. The tooling on the line when it arrives is cut to one signed cell spec — the blueprint square — not to the whole range.
Each machine ships and is accepted against one blueprint specification — the exact cell drawing you sign off before we build. The rest of the compatibility range is reachable, but through a changeover, not on day one.
The blueprint is one square, not the whole grid
We build, tool and run acceptance against the single cell spec you sign. That square is what the line is proven to make the day it is commissioned.
The range is a promise of reach, not of readiness
Everything else inside the window is a spec the line can be tooled to — after a tooling change, which is a separate, chargeable job.
Naming this before you sign is the point of the page: you choose the blueprint square knowing exactly what it commits and what it defers — so no reachable format is ever mistaken for a ready one.
The word is tooling
What a Changeover Actually Swaps
A format change is real work, not a menu setting — and the word for that work is tooling. It is worth understanding one changeover deeply rather than listing every part that can move, because the tooling is where the whole cost-and-time question lives.
Take the change that decides most orders: moving to a different busbar count. A stringer lays solder ribbon onto every busbar at once, so the ribbon-feed tooling is built for a specific number of busbars. Change the count and that feed tooling changes with it — the machine cannot simply be told a new number, because the physical thing that meters and places ribbon is cut for the old one.
What moves
The ribbon-feed set and the cell-locating fixtures are cut to the blueprint cell — its busbars, its size, its pitch. A different cell needs a different set.
Why it is not a software toggle
The line locates, cuts and solders against physical fixtures. A format outside the fixture's geometry is not a parameter change; it is a hardware change.
What stays
The machine, its motion system and its process stay put. A changeover re-tools a proven machine — it does not rebuild it.
That is the honest shape of a changeover: a defined set of fixtures swapped on a machine that otherwise stays exactly as accepted. Which fixtures, and how far the swap reaches, is what the next section makes concrete for a whole line.
A spec sheet is written station by station. A line runs them in series — so a line is only as compatible as its tightest single station.
The tightest station wins
A Line Is Only as Compatible as Its Tightest Station
Now the fact this whole page exists to carry, and the one no single machine page can tell you: a line's compatibility range is the intersection of its stations, not the widest of them. Plan to one station's edge and the line will not meet you there.
This is not a flaw in any machine. It is what "in series" means: the run is only as open as its narrowest point, exactly as a pipe is only as wide as its tightest section. The place it bites hardest is cell thickness.
Thickness — the sharpest one
The SML-S40 alone reaches down to 110 μm. But the moment an SML-S15 or an SML-C72 is on the line, the floor rises to 120 μm — those stations start at 120. Plan to the S40 sheet at 110 and the line will not run it.
Size — where wider does not widen
The stringers and the SML-C72 run 166–210 mm; the SML-C20 runs a wider 156–220 mm. The line does not inherit the wider figure — it settles at the shared 166–210 mm. A wider single station never opens the line.
Pitch — an ability one station removes
The SML-S60 can set a negative cell gap; the SML-S40 and SML-S15 do positive pitch only. Put an S40 or S15 on the line and negative pitch is off the table for the whole line, however capable the S60 is.
Cell type — one station's single exclusion
The SML-C20 runs every common cell except back-aluminum. So a line that includes a C20 cannot run back-aluminum cells — even if the other five stations each could.
The buyer who plans production at 110 μm off the S40 sheet, on a line that also carries an S15, has not made an error of arithmetic — they have read a per-station sheet as if it were the line. The line is the intersection. That is the number to plan against, and the one this page exists to give you before you order.
The busbar axis, stated
The Busbar Window the Line Covers
One window is worth stating in the clear, because it is the axis most orders move along. Three figures place where the line sits as standard, and where it reaches with tooling.
3–20 BB
The busbar span the stringers cover as standard — no special tooling called for
25 BB
Reachable as an extension, with a change of ribbon-feed tooling — a reach, not a stock setting
166–210
The cell-size window the whole line shares — the intersection from the section above (mm)
So the busbar axis of the grid runs 3 through 20 as standard and stretches to 25 with tooling, while the size axis holds at the line-wide 166–210. Those two axes are the grid the hero draws — and the square you sign is one cell inside them.
When a cost starts
When a Changeover Starts to Cost
Here is the boundary drawn plainly, without a price on it — because whether a change costs is a clear line, even though how much is a quotation. There are three cases, and only one of them is a chargeable job.
Your situation is usually running more than one cell over the life of the line, and wanting to know which run is free and which is billed. The answer turns entirely on your signed blueprint and the line's compatibility window.
Your blueprint spec — no changeover
The cell you signed for runs on the tooling the line was accepted with. Nothing is swapped, nothing is billed. This is the day-one state.
A different in-range spec — a chargeable changeover
A second format inside the line's compatibility window is reachable, but it needs its own tooling cut and fitted. That tooling is a separate, chargeable job — priced when it is specified, not here.
An out-of-range spec — not a changeover at all
A format outside the line's intersection is not a tooling question; it is a different line. The next section is about that case.
So the rule holds even without a figure: your blueprint runs free, a second in-range format is a tooling job, and anything outside the window is a re-scope, not a changeover. We name which case you are in before anything is quoted.
Your one input
What You Provide to Fix the Square
Fixing which square of the grid the line is built to is not our decision to make for you — it rests on one thing you provide, and the input is small and specific.
The cell drawing, signed
A dimensioned drawing of the cell you intend to run, signed off. That signature is what turns a compatibility range into a single blueprint spec the line is built and accepted against.
That one document is the whole input at this stage. Everything the line is tooled to, proven against and later changed from traces back to the square that drawing pins down.
A short clock
The Handful of Days That Set the Tooling
Choosing the square has a clock on it, and it is a short one. The cell and string information the tooling is cut to is due early, because tooling cannot be started until it is in hand.
1
You sign the contract
The blueprint square is now committed — the one spec the line will be built and accepted against.
2
Within 5–10 working days, you send the detail
The outgoing cell specification and the string-type information reach us inside that window — the data the ribbon-feed and locating fixtures are cut to.
5–10 working days after signing3
We cut the tooling to it
With the cell and string detail in hand, the line's tooling is made to your exact square — not to a range, to the one cell.
The short window is not administrative pressure; it is where the line's compatibility stops being a grid on a page and becomes one physical set of fixtures cut to your cell.
Not a changeover
The Changes That Are Not Changeovers
One category deserves its own name so it is never mistaken for a tooling job: a format the line's intersection does not cover. Asking for it is not asking for a changeover — it is asking for a different line, and treating the two the same is where budgets slip.
The distinction is the one from the intersection section, read from the cost side. Inside the window, a new format is tooling. Outside it, no tooling reaches the format, because at least one station physically cannot run it.
The clearest case: back-aluminum on a line with a C20
If your line includes the SML-C20 scriber, back-aluminum cells are outside its range — the one cell type it excludes. No tooling change on the line reaches them, because the exclusion is the scriber's, not the fixture's. Running them means a different line specification, not a changeover.
So before you file a future format under "we will just change over to it," check it against the line's intersection, not one station's sheet. Inside, it is tooling; outside, it is a conversation about a different line — one we would rather have before you sign than after.
The six per-station ranges
Where Each Station's Own Range Lives
The intersection on this page is built from six per-station ranges, and each lives in full on its own machine page. When you need the exact window for a single station — the numbers this page intersects rather than reprints — open its page.
SML-S40 — the multi-busbar stringer
The station that reaches 110 μm alone, and where its own range sits.
SML-S40 rangeSML-S15 — the entry stringer
One of the two stations that set the line's 120 μm floor.
SML-S15 rangeSML-C72 — the laser scriber
The other station at the 120 μm floor, with its own size and cell window.
SML-C72 rangeSML-C20 — the entry scriber
The station carrying the back-aluminum exclusion, and its wider 156–220 mm size range.
SML-C20 rangeSML-A6 — the robotic layup
Its own module-size and string-pitch window, downstream of the cell stations.
SML-A6 rangeRead this page for what the six ranges become together; open a machine page for the one range it owns in full.
Your square, later checked
What Your Chosen Square Is Accepted Against
Choosing a square on the grid has one consequence worth naming here before you move on: the square you sign is the square the line is later accepted against.
The blueprint spec is not only what the tooling is cut to — it is the reference the acceptance run is measured by. Which square you pick sets what "accepted" means for your line; the full detail of how an accepted line is handed over, and everything that follows it, is one page for the whole line rather than a paragraph repeated here.
See after you sign for what acceptance covers once your square is setFormat question still open?
Send the Cell, Get the Grid Marked
If a format question is still open, the fastest way to close it is not more reading — it is to send the one drawing that pins your square and let us mark the grid against the exact six stations you are ordering.
1
Send the cell drawing
The dimensioned cell you intend to run — busbar count, size, thickness and pitch.
2
We mark the grid for your line
Against the six stations in your order, we show which square is your blueprint and what the line's intersection actually covers.
3
You see in-range and out-of-range before you sign
Which future formats are a changeover, and which are a different line — named up front, not discovered later.
Reply within 24 hoursMap your line
Map Your Line's Real Compatibility
One cell drawing in, one marked grid back — your blueprint square, the line's true intersection, and a clear line between what is a changeover and what is not. The low-commitment way to settle what a line will run before you quote a single machine.
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