This year at ElectronTechExpo (Moscow, April, 17 – 19) SM Contact displayed a wider range of laboratory equipment including motorized pull force tester EPT 1000 with upgraded interface and novel device for splice crimping height measurement CrimpiX, besides SK 4000 for splice quality monitoring. An exhibition lets to “touch” to the market and catch its behavior. Kirill Turgenev, SM Contact Engineering (Russian office of SM Contact) General Manager notices significantly increasing interest to connections quality research. He draws the portrait of Russian manufacturer as following: “Firstly, it includes global companies, such as Hyundai, BEKO, and Electrolux. They work according to headquarters rules and on the centrally purchased equipment. Then, there are the military which partly cross over to civil products. As a rule, they have tried-and-tested double purpose technologies, which is to say that equipment fits both to military necessity and to consumer goods. Thirdly, a lot of companies produce small orders for certain customers. They have not budgets for purchasing of laboratories, but have to control the quality of produced connections. For this group we begin to offer the service of lab investigation on SM Contact equipment. As it is our daily activity for customers from across the globe, when we study cross sections of their samples and make recommendations how to improve connections.” The great interest was generated by solderless crimp technology (splice connection), which is a mainstream in automobile manufacturing and electronics, and by insertion of pins to PCBs, coil frames, plastic connectors and other components, executed on SM Contact SM Crimp and Pininsert machines. Reflecting the market structure, most visitors represented small volume and contract manufacturing for which the European automatic machines with warranty interventions are unreasonable purchase. Therefore, SM Contact launches splice crimping connections making on a by-order basis. “Insulation displacement connection (IDC) and pin interconnection are currently sought-after in Russia technologies on SM Contact equipment, developed and produced by our engineers in Saint Petersburg,” Kirill Turgenev tells. “Transnational corporations introduce programs of localization which implies a kind of production decisional autonomy. Large domestic manufacturers will gradually emerge. We only have to wait while our market is developed,” he adds. [caption id="attachment_4116" align="aligncenter" width="777"] We are ElectronTechExpo drivers[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4121" align="aligncenter" width="777"] Our booth was hand-made, as ever[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4125" align="aligncenter" width="777"] It's not easy to do a good job[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4122" align="aligncenter" width="777"] Resembling a hippie style. A car figures our key customers from automotive industry, as well as a refrigerator and a kettle are our home appliances targets. A pin reel represents Pininsert 2200, which couldn't reach ElectronTechExpo.. (By the way, how do you find our "sleeping" covers?)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4128" align="aligncenter" width="583"] The "reverse side" of our refrigerator-store room was a product samples showcase - what can be produced on our equipment[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4129" align="aligncenter" width="777"] Applicators, crimping presses and cutting machines by КМ digitech, Korea, also aroused strong interest, though were demonstrated only through samples this time. SM Contact represents KM equipment in CIS[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4130" align="aligncenter" width="777"] "Is it a bacteria?" sometimes we heard (don't take offence, SKB 4000!)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4132" align="aligncenter" width="777"] Students forever[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4133" align="aligncenter" width="583"] At the last productronica we met nice guys from the German company MEDI Kabel who lent us a hand with wires for the TapiX construction. We liked it, and suggested them to join us at the Russian exhibition. They are reliable! (in every sense of the word)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4135" align="aligncenter" width="583"] We don't stop EPT 1000 upgrading, and it doesn't stop attracting attention[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4136" align="aligncenter" width="777"] To explain in lay terms (especially when it is done by delicate girl's fingers) is more conclusively[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4140" align="aligncenter" width="777"] In Moscow, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There's nothing you can't do, Now you're in Moscow[/caption]