Re-flex ^II On-Demand Tape offers users a system capable of producing both standard and custom tape pockets as required. By employing a smart tooling design, the end user can swap between tape designs in minutes, thus eliminating the need to source multiple designs of pre-formed tape. 

James Cawkell, director, said “Re-flex ^II On-Demand Tape has been engineered to deliver fast tape manufacturing and the maximum pocket form depth needed by the majority of​ component manufacturers. It provides the flexibility to quickly switch ​between pocket forms, whilst reducing the in-house inventory of tapes.”  

The end user can use Re-flex ^II in one of two ways – as a stand-alone tape forming system, outputting carrier tape onto reels for stock or, as the Re-flex ^II On-Demand Tape name suggests, to feed tape directly onto production lines and into the component packing process.  It is suitable for companies taping deeper pocket parts as it reduces the number of times the supply carrier tape needs to be changed and reduces the space needed to store empty tapes waiting to be loaded.

For example, a conventional 560mm reel of pre-formed carrier tape with a 6mm deep pocket will be 40m long. Therefore, with a tape and reel machine that typically tapes 2m of parts every minute, the operator needs to change the supply and output reels every 20min. With the Re-flex ^II, the supply reel is up to 1000m in length reducing changeover requirements to once every 8h. This makes it possible to change the supply reel just once per shift. 

Apart from the obvious cost savings through reduced operator intervention, this also makes the existing tape and reel machine much more efficient due to reduced downtime caused by waiting for reel changeovers.