Odd-Form Insertion for New Energy Vehicle PCBs by Southern Machinery: High-Reliability THT Automation

As New Energy Vehicle (NEV) production scales worldwide, the power-electronics content in every vehicle climbs with it. Onboard chargers (OBC), DC-DC converters, traction inverters, and battery management systems (BMS) all rely on high-current through-hole components that resist conventional automation. Connectors with irregular housings, high-current relays, power transformers, and large-can electrolytic capacitors simply do not feed cleanly into a standard radial or axial insertion head. Southern Machinery's S7900 Odd-Form Insertion Machine was engineered for exactly these parts, placing them with repeatable precision where manual insertion would otherwise be the slowest, least consistent, and most expensive station on the THT line.

Watch in Action: S7900 Series Odd Form Insertion for New Energy Vehicle PCB Assembly — Real Case Study

What Is This Machine Used For?

Q: What exactly does an odd-form insertion machine do?

It places through-hole (THT) components whose body shape, lead configuration, orientation, or size falls outside the envelope a standard radial or axial insertion head can grip and seat. A radial inserter handles tape-packed capacitors, a terminal inserter handles pins and eyelets, and the odd-form machine handles "everything else" — the geometrically awkward parts that have historically gone in by hand.

Q: Why are these components so hard to automate?

Because they are not standardized. A relay has a rectangular body with pins on a non-uniform grid. A large power transformer has a heavy ferrite core and offset leads. A connector may be a long, multi-pin housing that has to seat flat against the board. Each one needs its own gripping strategy, a controlled insertion force, and often a specific orientation — which is why odd-form automation depends on customizable grippers and component-specific tooling rather than a one-size-fits-all head.

Q: Which components does the S7900 typically handle?

Connectors, high-current relays, power transformers, large-can electrolytic capacitors, power inductors, fuse holders, and similar odd-geometry THT parts. In NEV power electronics, these are precisely the component families that populate OBC, DC-DC, and BMS boards — high current, high reliability, and unforgiving of insertion defects.

Typical Application Scenarios

New Energy Vehicle power electronics. Traction inverters, onboard chargers, DC-DC converters, and battery management systems demand connectors and magnetics that must be seated precisely and consistently, board after board, to survive vibration, thermal cycling, and safety-critical operating conditions.

Industrial and energy-saving power supplies. Vehicle power supplies, ballasts, and energy-efficient power modules carry the same class of odd-form magnetics and high-current connectors — high-mix, high-reliability production where manual insertion is both slow and error-prone.

Home appliance control boards. Air conditioners, induction cookers, and washing-machine control boards mix relays, transformers, and connectors onto dense THT layouts, where odd-form automation removes a persistent quality bottleneck.

LED drivers and lighting control. Power-factor-correction and driver boards use toroidal inductors and large capacitors that sit awkwardly in automated lines unless an odd-form station is present.

How It Integrates Into a Complete PCB Assembly Line

The odd-form station is the bridge between SMT and through-hole finishing. In a full Southern Machinery line it sits downstream of the SMT cell — after Stencil Printing, Pick and Place, and Reflow Oven — and upstream of Wave Soldering:

SMT cell places and reflows all surface-mount components.
Radial / axial insertion (S-3010B, S4000) seats standard through-hole parts.
S7900 odd-form insertion places the irregular connectors, relays, and magnetics that the previous two stations cannot handle.
Wave Soldering (S-WS350B lead-free dual-wave) solders the complete THT population in one pass.
Lead cutting and inspection (S-320AT inline lead cutter, AOI) finish and verify the board.

Because the S7900 is a board-handling-compatible, line-integrated station rather than an isolated bench tool, it feeds naturally into SMEMA-configured conveyors and MES data collection, keeping boards moving without manual handoffs between SMT and Wave Soldering.

Key Selection Parameters

When evaluating an odd-form insertion machine for your line, confirm these parameters with the supplier rather than assuming a single "standard" figure:

Component envelope — minimum and maximum body dimensions, lead pitch, and insertion orientation (0°/90°/180°/270°) the station must support across your BOM.
Gripper and tooling customization — whether the supplier engineers end-effectors to your specific component geometry, and how quickly new tooling can be designed for new parts.
Feeder and magazine capacity — how many component types can be staged simultaneously, and changeover time between product variants.
Insertion force control — adjustable insertion force with clinch/lead-forming capability, so heavy magnetics seat fully without cracking the board or bending leads.
Board size and thickness range — the PCB formats the station must accept, and how it clamps and locates the board during insertion.
Vision and verification — presence, polarity, and seating verification (camera or sensor) to catch mis-insertions before Wave Soldering.
Throughput (CPH) — the actual sustained insertion rate for your specific component mix, not a headline number for an idealized part.
Line communication — SMEMA compatibility and MES/ERP handoff for traceability and recipe management.

ROI, Quality & Throughput Considerations

The business case for odd-form automation is driven by labor and quality, not just speed. Manual odd-form insertion is typically the highest-variance station on the THT line: it is slow, it fatigues operators, and it produces polarity errors, reversed connectors, and mis-seated relays that surface later as field failures — unacceptable in automotive and power-electronics applications.

Automating that station with the S7900 delivers three compounding returns: it removes a labor-intensive manual operation, it collapses defect rates through repeatable insertion force and orientation, and it lets the line run at a consistent cadence without the throughput ceiling that hand assembly imposes. Southern Machinery positions its odd-form solution at roughly 40–60% lower total cost of ownership than comparable Japanese-built machines, with the same engineering team that designed the machine providing Shenzhen-direct after-sales support, spare parts, and training.

Before you finalize a supplier, ask yourself: What is your current first-pass yield on manually inserted odd-form components, and what does each rework touch cost in labor and board risk? And: What is your peak capacity ceiling today with your odd-form station staffed at 100%, and how much headroom would automation buy you for the next vehicle platform ramp?

FAQ

Q: What is "odd-form" insertion, exactly?

A: Automated placement of through-hole components whose geometry falls outside standard radial or axial insertion heads — connectors, relays, transformers, large capacitors, and other irregular parts.

Q: Can the S7900 handle my specific component?

A: Odd-form automation is tooling-driven. Southern Machinery customizes grippers and end-effectors to your component geometry, so the right question is whether your BOM's odd-form parts fall within the machine's size and force envelope — confirm this with the engineering team during evaluation.

Q: Is the S7900 only for automotive electronics?

A: No. While NEV power electronics is a growing application, the same station serves home appliances, industrial power supplies, LED drivers, and general electronics wherever irregular THT components are present.

Q: Does it work in a mixed SMT/THT line?

A: Yes — the S7900 is a line-integrated station that sits between SMT and Wave Soldering, compatible with standard board handling and SMEMA-configured conveyors.

Q: How do I size the machine for my line?

A: Provide your full odd-form BOM (component types, dimensions, orientations, and target CPH) along with your board formats. Southern Machinery maps the tooling and station configuration to your mix rather than selling a fixed standard unit.

Contact Southern Machinery

Southern Machinery has delivered SMT and THT PCB assembly automation from Shenzhen, China since 2011, serving 237+ global customers across automotive electronics, power supplies, home appliances, and industrial control with full-line solutions spanning SMT, THT, Wave Soldering, board handling, and inspection.

Discuss your odd-form insertion requirements with our engineering team:

Email: jasonwu@smthelp.com
Phone / WhatsApp: +86 13602562576
Website: https://www.smthelp.com
File Portal (catalogs & drawings): https://file.autoinsertion.com
Image Library: https://ph.smthelp.com