S7020T Chapter 4: Machine Shutdown Process Operations for a THT Terminal Insertion Machine

Every PCB assembly plant stops its insertion machines — at the end of the shift, at the end of a production run, before changeover, before maintenance, before a long weekend. Very few stop them the same way twice.

That is the gap Chapter 4 of Southern Machinery's S7020T training series, "Machine shutdown process operations," closes. Start-up and shutdown are the two moments when a THT insertion machine is most likely to be damaged, to leave a board stranded mid-cycle, or to hand a defect to the next shift — and they are the two moments when an untrained operator improvising a sequence costs the most. Shutdown is not "switch it off." It is the reverse of start-up: a defined sequence that leaves the machine clean, mechanically parked, electrically and pneumatically isolated, and documented.

This chapter is the closing half of the operating cycle; Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 cover start-up inspection and start-up, Chapter 3 covers parameter settings and maintenance, and Chapter 5 covers head insertion position correction.

The training chapter is embedded below.

Direct link: watch Chapter 4 of the S7020T training series on YouTube

What is this machine used for?

The machine in this chapter is the S7020T, the terminal-insertion configuration of Southern Machinery's S7020 Series PIN Eyelet Terminal Insertion Machine. It is a THT (through-hole technology) auto-insertion machine: it feeds PINs, eyelets and terminals — from a vibration bowl feeder or from reel — carries each part to the programmed hole on the PCB, inserts it to the required depth and angle, and clinches the lead underneath so the board can move on to wave soldering.

On the documented S7020 Series specification the platform is built around two insertion heads, a 12,000 CPH speed class, an insertion angle of 360° in 1° increments, motion accuracy of 0.001 mm/pulse, a vertical error of ≤0.8°, terminals from 0.5 mm to 1.2 mm thickness, an insertion hole sized 0.5 ± 0.1 mm larger than the component lead, a minimum component body distance of 2 mm, and inward or outward clinching. The documented PCB working area is 380 mm × 280 mm, with enlarged sizes available as a customization. Feeding can be a vibration bowl feeder or a reel feeder; programming is by online visual programming with visual correction, EXCEL data, USB import or manual entry. Utilities are a single 220 V AC, 50/60 Hz, 2 kVA supply, and the two-head machine measures 1700 × 1300 × 1600 mm at 1200 kg.

That is the hardware. The shutdown process is what determines whether the machine is in a condition to deliver those specifications again on the next start-up.

What a documented shutdown sequence covers

A shutdown procedure is not one action but a sequence of states, and each state has a physical counterpart on the machine. Across the insertion and SMT platforms Southern Machinery documents for its customers, the practical sequence looks like this:

1. End the cycle, not the machine. Finish the board in process and let the insertion cycle complete. Stopping mid-cycle leaves a terminal part-inserted, a head outside its parked position, or a board on the table under a raised head — the most common source of "morning" damage.

2. Controlled stop and axis parking. Stop from the control interface in the intended order, return the head and the X/Y table to their home/park condition, and confirm the insertion area is clear. A machine left with the head down or the table mid-travel is a machine that will fail its zeroing sequence next time.

3. Material and feeder state. Terminals, eyelets and PINs live in a bowl or on a reel. At shutdown the feeder needs a defined state: partial reels identified and stored, mixed terminal types never left in the same bowl, and residual parts in the track or pickup area cleared. A bowl left holding a mixture of two similar terminals is a wrong-part defect waiting for the next shift.

4. Board, fixture and tooling state. Remove finished and partial boards from the table and rails, return setup fixtures, tooling pins and gauges to their storage, and clear cut leads and burrs from the insertion area and from under the table.

5. Cleaning at shutdown. Feeder bowl and track, jaws and jaw guides, the insertion area, table, rails and board location tooling — plus air-line filter and water trap checks. Shutdown is the cheapest moment in the day to clean, because the machine is not earning anything while it sits idle through the night.

6. Air and power isolation — and Lockout/Tagout before any intervention. Isolate the air supply, then power the machine down in the documented order. This point is documented explicitly in Southern Machinery's published maintenance procedures: the Insertion Head Disassembly/Assembly Procedures and the Head Drive Home Pulse Setup Procedure both begin with the same step — "Power down the machine and perform Lockout/Tagout according to local procedures" — with an explicit warning that the machine must be powered down and LOTO performed to ensure personal safety. Any shutdown that ends in clearing a jam, changing tooling or reaching into the jaw area without that step is an injury risk, not a procedure.

7. Program and data state. Confirm that parameter and program changes made during the shift are saved, and that the current program revision and setup sheet are paired and backed up (the S7020 Series documents online visual programming, visual correction, EXCEL program data and USB import/export). Unsaved edits discovered at the next start-up are re-programmed from memory, and re-programming from memory is how a wrong revision reaches wave soldering.

8. Documentation and shift handover. Record the machine state: which program and setup sheet are loaded, which faults or alarms occurred, which wear items are suspected, and what work is pending. A shutdown is only complete when the next shift can start the machine from the record rather than from a conversation.

The values, button paths and checkpoints for each of these steps are configuration-specific and belong in the machine's own operating manual — which is why Southern Machinery ships machine operation manuals and trains the plant's own team rather than leaving the sequence to be improvised.

Typical applications

Shutdown discipline pays back wherever PINs, eyelets and terminals are part of a volume board:

1. Power tools and power boards. Terminal insertion is a core process in power tool electronics, where heavy-current terminals must be inserted, clinched and soldered to survive vibration and thermal cycling. This is the reference application for the S7020T's dual-head terminal-insertion configuration — and a running power-tool line is normally stopped on a shift pattern, so the shutdown/handover sequence runs daily.

2. Home appliance control boards. Air conditioners, rice cookers, induction cookers, microwave ovens and washing machines carry connector pins, eyelets and terminals alongside radial and odd-form parts. High-volume, multi-SKU appliance DIP assembly is exactly where a machine left in an undefined state becomes scrap on the first board of the next shift.

3. Power supply and ballast PCBA. Vehicle power supplies, energy-saving power supplies and electronic ballasts use terminals and eyelets in the mains-side section, where insertion depth and clinch quality are reliability characteristics. A contaminated insertion area directly attacks those characteristics.

4. LED lighting and driver electronics. Lighting, display and control boards use eyelets and terminals in volume. Clean shutdown protects the hole and the plating from debris carried into the next production run.

5. EMS and ODM plants on multi-shift, mixed-model DIP assembly. When a plant inserts terminals, PINs and eyelets across many board variants, changeover and shutdown happen several times a day. The documented sequence and the machine state record are what keep a mixed-model line inside its first-pass-yield target without an engineer tied to the machine.

How it fits into a complete PCB assembly line

Shutdown is executed at one machine but felt across the line, because a terminal insertion station sits inside the THT block of a complete PCB assembly flow:

SMT side first. Solder paste printing, SPI, pick-and-place and reflow build the SMD side of the board. Southern Machinery's SMT range covers this stage, including stencil printers, inline SPI/AOI and the S-530L semi-automatic pick and place for LED and lens mounting.
Component preparation. Radial taping and lead-forming equipment, bulk capacitor taping with polarity check, and lead cut-and-form machines convert bulk parts into insertion-ready format. Leaving forming and taping equipment in an undefined state between shifts puts the same risk into the insertion station's incoming material.
THT insertion block. This is where the S7020 Series sits, alongside the S-3010B and S-3000 radial inserters, the S-70LD and S7900 odd-form inserters and the S-7000 PIN and eyelet families. Radial, axial, odd-form and terminal stations all stop and start on the same shift clock.
Soldering and lead finishing. Inserted boards move into lead-free wave soldering — the S-WS450 or the PC-controlled dual-wave S-WS350B — then to the S-320AT inline auto lead cutter, cleaning, and inspection such as AOI and SPI/X-ray.
Cleaning and depaneling. Stencil and pallet cleaning machines (SME800, SME-5200) and MCPCB separators (S-D601) have their own shutdown routines. A line where one station is stopped cleanly and the next is not still ends up with contaminated tooling somewhere.
Board handling. Magazine loaders and unloaders, bridge and inspection conveyors, PCB turnover machines and reject conveyors move boards between stages — and they must not be left holding boards. A board parked inside a conveyor or a reflow/wave outfeed over a shutdown period is a board that comes back as scrap or rework.
Support ecosystem. Spare parts, custom nozzles and tooling, repair, retrofit and training. Southern Machinery's SMT/THT machine operation manual library and the training chapters for this platform — start-up inspection, parameter settings, head position correction and shutdown — are part of the deliverable, not an afterthought.

The line-level point: an insertion machine stopped badly is not a local problem. It feeds defects into wave soldering, lead cutting, AOI and functional test, where each defect is far more expensive to remove.

Key selection parameters

If you are evaluating a PIN / eyelet / terminal insertion machine — or specifying what documentation and shutdown discipline comes with it — start with the platform specification, then confirm what is delivered with the machine. The S7020 Series figures below are the documented specification for that platform and should be treated as reference rather than a substitute for a configuration quotation against your own terminal list.

| Parameter | Documented S7020 Series specification | What to confirm for your build |

|---|---|---|

| Insertion heads | 2 insertion heads (documented) | Head count and configuration against your throughput target |

| Speed class | 12,000 CPH (documented) | Required rate against your terminal mix and changeover frequency |

| Terminal / component | PIN, eyelet, terminal; bulk or reel package; terminal thickness 0.5–1.2 mm | Your exact terminal part numbers, body size and lead form |

| PCB working area | 380 mm × 280 mm, enlarged sizes customizable | Your maximum and minimum board outline |

| Insertion geometry | Insertion angle 360° in 1° increments; vertical error ≤0.8°; motion accuracy 0.001 mm/pulse | Hole-to-lead clearance and positional tolerance for your design |

| PCB hole requirement | Hole 0.5 ± 0.1 mm larger than the component lead | Your board's drill chart and plating tolerance |

| Component spacing | Distance between components ≥ 2 mm | Your board density and keep-out rules |

| Clinch | Inward or outward clinching | The clinch style your solder process and IPC class expect |

| Feeding | Vibration bowl feeder or reel feeder | Terminal packaging format and presentation reliability |

| Programming | Online visual programming, visual correction, EXCEL; USB import or manual entry | Who programs, whether programs move between machines, and how they are backed up |

| Utilities | Single 220 V AC, 50/60 Hz, 2 kVA | Site power, air supply and isolation provisions |

| Footprint / weight | 1700 × 1300 × 1600 mm; 1200 kg (2-head configuration) | Floor loading and access for setup, cleaning and maintenance |

For the shutdown and start-up side, confirm what you are buying with the machine:

A written start-up and shutdown procedure for your configuration — the order of steps, the state the machine is left in, and who is authorised to perform each step.
Isolation provisions — lockable power and air isolation in line with your site's Lockout/Tagout policy, so maintenance can be performed safely.
Program and parameter backup — can programs and parameter sets be saved, exported and restored, and re-used across machines?
Cleaning accessibility — can an operator actually reach the feeder track, jaws and insertion area at the end of a shift without dismantling the machine?
Training depth — will your own operators and maintenance technicians be trained to run the sequence, or does every stop end in a service call?
Spare-part coverage — jaw guides, springs, pusher tips, rollers and tooling pins are wear items. Confirm availability and lead time before you need them, not during a shutdown.

ROI and quality perspective

From a buyer's perspective, shutdown and start-up discipline is one of the cheapest levers on a THT line, because once the machine and its documentation are in place it is almost entirely inside your control:

The first board of the shift is the expensive one. A machine stopped badly shows up as a scrapped or reworked board, a re-homing cycle, or an hour of technician time before production starts. A documented stop costs minutes.
Defect cost is asymmetrical. A tipped or bent terminal caught at the insertion station costs a re-insert. The same defect caught after wave soldering costs desoldering, hole cleaning, re-insertion and re-soldering — often with a damaged plated hole at the end of it. Terminals and eyelets are mechanical joints; they cannot simply be re-flowed.
Mixed material left in a feeder becomes a wrong-part defect. Two similar terminals left in one bowl, or a partial reel left unlabelled, is a defect source that appears hours later and is very hard to trace.
Debris compounds. Burrs, cut leads and flux dust left in the insertion area at shutdown load the jaws and guides unevenly, shorten wear-part life and increase the spare-parts line on the P&L.
Unsaved program data is invisible until it matters. A parameter change made during a shift and lost at power-down is re-entered from memory — or not at all.
Safety is a cost line too. Reaching into a jaw, feeder or head area to clear a jam without isolating power and air is the most common serious-injury scenario on an insertion machine. This is exactly why Southern Machinery's published maintenance procedures open with power-down plus Lockout/Tagout.
Handover quality compounds. A plant whose shifts hand over a documented, clean, parked machine starts each shift at nominal conditions. A plant that hands over a machine "as found" starts each shift with a diagnosis.

Model it with your own numbers: insertions per shift, scrap and rework rate on the first boards of a shift, unplanned stoppages traced back to the previous day's stop, and hours per month lost to re-programming and re-homing. For most plants the arithmetic favours a written shutdown routine long before it favours another machine.

FAQ

What is the "machine shutdown process" on an S7020T terminal insertion machine?

It is the documented reverse of the start-up sequence: complete the insertion cycle, stop in the intended order and park the head and X/Y table, leave the feeder and material in a defined state, clear and clean the insertion area, isolate air and power (with Lockout/Tagout before any maintenance intervention), save and back up program and parameter changes, and record the machine state for the next shift. Chapter 4 of Southern Machinery's S7020T training series covers this operation; the exact button paths and checkpoints are in the machine's operating manual.

Why must the machine be powered down and locked out before clearing a jam or performing maintenance?

Because during any intervention the head, jaws, feeder and table can move or hold stored energy. Southern Machinery's published insertion maintenance procedures — the Insertion Head Disassembly/Assembly Procedures and the Head Drive Home Pulse Setup Procedure — both begin with the instruction to power down the machine and perform Lockout/Tagout according to local procedures, with an explicit personal-safety warning. Follow your site's LOTO policy.

Should the machine be switched off between shifts, or left powered?

That is a plant policy decision, not a machine limitation. What matters is that the state is defined: if the machine is left powered, guarding, air and material must be left in a known condition; if it is powered off, the next shift performs the start-up inspection and start-up sequence (Chapters 1–2) before production. Whichever choice you make, record it in the shift log so the next operator inherits a known state.

What should be cleaned at shutdown on a terminal insertion machine?

Typically the feeder bowl and track, jaws and jaw guides, the insertion area, the X/Y table, rails and board location tooling, plus air-line filter and water-trap checks — following the machine manual's cleaning and lubrication schedule. Shutdown is usually the least disruptive time for these tasks because the machine is idle anyway.

What happens if a program or parameter change is not saved before shutdown?

The change is lost, and the next shift starts from the last stored revision. Either the change is re-entered from memory — which is how a wrong revision reaches wave soldering — or the improvement never happens. On the S7020 Series, programs and parameters can be built visually, held in EXCEL data, imported over USB or entered manually, so saving and backing up the current revision at shutdown is a practical step, not an option.

How does shutdown connect to the next shift's start-up?

Directly. Every state the shutdown leaves behind — head position, feeder contents, table condition, program revision, tooling — is a condition the start-up inspection and start-up sequence has to deal with. Southern Machinery's S7020T training series treats start-up (Chapters 1–2), parameters and maintenance (Chapter 3), shutdown (Chapter 4) and head position correction (Chapter 5) as one operating cycle for this reason.

Who should perform shutdown — an operator or a technician?

The routine end-of-shift sequence is written to be operator-accessible: stop, park, clean, isolate air and power, save data, document. Anything beyond that — dismantling the head, adjusting casting height or jaw guides, correcting insertion position, opening an electrical cabinet — is maintenance work and requires the power-down and Lockout/Tagout discipline described in Southern Machinery's maintenance procedures.

Contact Southern Machinery

Southern Machinery (Shenzhen, China; established 2011; 237+ global customers) designs and manufactures SMT, THT and PCB assembly automation — insertion machines, wave soldering, board handling, cleaning, inspection and the spare parts, training and retrofit services around them.

For help with a shutdown and start-up routine, a maintenance schedule, an S7020 Series configuration, or the full THT insertion block of your line, contact the team:

Email: [jasonwu@smthelp.com](mailto:jasonwu@smthelp.com)
Website: www.smthelp.com
Catalogs, manuals & documents: file.autoinsertion.com
Product images: ph.smthelp.com
Machine operation manuals & training: SMT/THT machine operation manual library on smthelp.com

Watch the full S7020T training series on the Southern Machinery YouTube channel, including Chapter 1 (start-up inspection and start-up), Chapter 2 (start-up inspection and start-up), Chapter 3 (main parameter settings and maintenance) and Chapter 5 (head insertion position correction).

S7020T Chapter 4: Machine Shutdown Process Operations for THT Terminal Insertion | Southern Machinery