The Electronics Group’s Nordson Quadra 3 X-Ray inspection system purchase improves both student training and inspection capability

Leeds-based The Electronics Group is an IPC & Electronics Training Centre that also uses its specialist equipment to offer a range of technical inspection services for the electronics industry.  Launched in 2003, the Group has been an Authorised IPC Distributor since 2016 and has had X-ray inspection capability since 2008.

The Electronics Group provides IPC & Bespoke Electronics training to companies of all sizes throughout the UK and abroad. Courses are offered at their Leeds training centre, but are also available remotely and on customers’ premises. Their expert team can also assist with Technical Inspection Services including X-Ray and BGA Rework, specialist Electronics Recruitment, and supplying IPC Standards, Workmanship Kits, and CQI Credits.

Since its introduction, X-ray inspection capability has always been an important part of the Group’s offering. However, the machine that they had used for many years was becoming increasingly unreliable and expensive to keep in service. Dan Bloyce, General Manager at The Electronics Group, estimates that repair costs grew to over £50k over the last five years or so, so a new system was essential.

Deciding on the Quadra 3 – and its supplier

The groundwork was laid about four years ago, when senior members of the Group visited Cupio’s facility in Basingstoke, where MD Andy Bonner and his team demonstrated the Quadra 3 X-ray inspection system, and discussed the benefits it could provide to The Electronics Group. More recently, after comparing proposals from Cupio and the incumbent X-ray inspection system supplier, Dan Bloyce spoke to Fermionx Ltd – a contract electronics manufacturer who also owns and operates a Quadra 3 – to gain another user’s perspective on the system and supplier. After hearing Fermionx’s warm recommendation, not only of the Quadra 3’s capabilities, but also of Cupio’s training and service quality, Mr Bloyce finalised his decision to invest in a Quadra 3 system from Cupio.

“Even the best technology is never going to be entirely free of issues,” Mr Bloyce commented, “What matters is how the supplier supports us in resolving any problem that does arise. After getting good vibes from our discussions with both Fermionx and Cupio, it felt like we were looking at the right product and the right supplier to work with.

Productivity and quality benefits

The Group’s experience since then has fully justified their decision. From the outset, Cupio set them up to rapidly benefit from the new system’s capability. After a full installation and commissioning, Cupio sent another member of their team to deliver on-site training. This went quickly because The Electronics Group is already familiar with X-ray inspection – they simply needed to understand the specific features of the Quadra 3. However, the instruction was sufficiently comprehensive to allow the trainee in turn to educate the Group’s four specialists who would be responsible for providing training to students.

“Since installation, we have already seen a huge benefit from our investment,” Dan Bloyce comments. “We have a large regular customer that sends us typically 12,000 boards at a time. They arrive on trays of about 30. Previously it would take about an hour and a half to inspect each tray. Working with the Quadra 3 it took about 15 minutes to set up and then the runtime for inspection was about 10 minutes. From a productivity perspective it saves us a lot of time. We can just load a tray, set it to run, and then work on other tasks, without need to sit and watch it. Previously we had to bring in contractors to operate the machinery and manually inspect everything.

“The new system also offers significant business development advantages. Our ability to complete inspections much more quickly enables us to offer more attractively-priced proposals – and when customers see the results of the original delivery, they are more inclined to provide repeat orders. 

“This establishes another key point; the Quadra 3 offers greatly improved quality as well as much better productivity. Customers have already commented on the image quality, which they regard as a vast improvement over the images generated by the previous machine.

“We also believe we are enjoying these benefits at an optimum price point. We considered the more powerful Quadra 5 and Quadra 7 systems also available from Nordson, but decided their capabilities are surplus to our requirements: we are not a full production facility regularly processing thousands of boards. The  Quadra 3 handles all our needs and more, at a price we are happy to pay for such a machine.



“The X-ray machine will form a significant part of The Electronics Group’s strategy as we move forward to expand our market and seek new business. As we do so, we know we can rely on Andy’s advice to help us along. It has always been straightforward, unambiguous and truthful, whether the situation is good or bad.”