Multiline Newsline

Multiline is proud to be celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. The company which evolved into Multiline Technology, started over sixty years ago in a 15’ x 60’ small storefront on Gates Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. In 1936 Hans Lenkeit started a small tool and die company which carried his name, Lenkeit Machine and Tool Company, which specialized in precision watch parts. In 1942 all its efforts were devoted to the manufacture of parts for the military during World War II.

After the war Lenkeit moved to Long Island under the direction of two skilled tool and die makers, Hans’ son Bill and Fred Angelo (ret. Chairman) who was the shop foreman. Although the company was now predominately building compacting dies for the ceramic industry and progressive dies for metal stamping, Fred Angelo recalls the day a few people came to see him from a small company on Long Island and asked him to build a die to punch holes in and blank out a printed circuit board. This small start up company, Photocircuits, quickly became Lenkeit’s best customer and soon circuit board dies started to dominate the workload. As the circuit board industry grew so did Lenkeit’s business and reputation as the leading manufacturer of PCB dies in the country.

In the mid sixties, under the direction of the company’s President, Fred Angelo, the company again moved to larger quarters and made some significant equipment purchases with the first wire EDM (electrical discharge machining) installed in the area (Long Island) and precision jig grinding equipment which enabled the tool room to position holes within 0.0001 (one ten thousandth of an inch)of an inch (i.e.; the human hair is approximately .003” (three thousandths of an inch). This expanded the company’s capability which was timed perfectly for the next tooling challenge, “Flexcircuits”.

Special flexible circuits which are used for disc reading and similar applications have stringent requirements on edge quality and can not be stamped out using conventional steel rule dies. Very tight clearance punch and dies are necessary to meet these needs. This not only required machining skills but extensive hand fitting which can only be done by accomplished tool makers. Fortunately for IBM, Rogers and Buckbee Mears , Lenkeit was well staffed with these skills. Around this time Lenkeit also started building lamination plates for its customers who were experimenting with the relatively new business of laminating multilayers.

In 1978, at the urging of our customers, Lenkeit designed and built the first Multilayer tooling hole punch , the “Acculine”. Until the introduction of the Acculine the circuit board manufacturers who were making multilayers were either drilling in the tooling holes or using large fixed tooling hole dies in very large punch presses. The advantage of the Acculine was that it was adjustable from 9” X 9” to 24” X 24” on ½ inch increments. This was extremely important back in 1978 since most companies were just getting into the multilayer business and were not yet standardized on any particular panel sizes.

The most significant contribution of Lenkeit/Multiline at that time was the introduction of the 4 slot tooling system as a standard for the industry. The 4 slot system of registration was already being used in the graphic arts industry with great success. Realizing the need for a tooling system which would compensate for the poor dimensional stability of artwork and laminate and also eliminate problems in lay up and drilling, the 4 slot system was incorporated into the first Acculine and the standard was set. Today nearly every manufacturer of multilayers throughout the world have their tooling based around the original 10-D068 print issued for that first job with 4 -slot configuration.

In late 1979 it became obvious that the growth in the circuit board industry was going to be in Multilayers. Lenkeit Industries spun off a small machine building division and called it Multiline Technology. It was not long before Multiline surpassed the tool and die division in sales. It also became obvious to management that the skills of the tool makers were better utilized on the new Multilayer equipment. More products were being introduced, again at the requests of our fast growing lists of customers, including Depinners, Lay-Up Stations, Artwork Punches and all types of accessories needed for lamination. Then in 1984 a major milestone for the new Multiline Technology occurred, the introduction of the Post Etch Punch.

The Post Etch Punch came about thanks to the persistance of one of Multiline’s flexible circuit customers who wanted to use the artwork punch to punch innerlayers. Their reasoning was that the material moved so much that if they could punch after etching it would greatly improve registration since material movement would then be compensated for. Recognizing a potentially good idea, Multiline went to their customers and found that this problem was even more pronounced in Multilayers due to the stack up of layers of different constructions. The Optiline PE was born and within a few years it was the recognized standard in the Multilayer industry for registering and punching innerlayers.

In the late eighties the need to support our growing list of customers in Europe dictated the need to start a sales and service organization there. An area outside of Frankfurt was selected and Multiline International Europa was started. Today MIE has a staff of thirty people split between sales, service and customer support.

The next major development for Multiline came with the acquisition of Loma Park Associates x-ray technology. This was the first x-ray machine offered which combined the diagnostics of x-ray into a production piece of printed circuit board equipment. Multiline used its tooling expertise to transform the somewhat difficult to use Loma Park Optimizer into a high volume production tool. In 1995 a totally new redesigned x-ray tooling unit was introduced, the Optiline PL (post lamination drill). Since the introduction of the OPL we have strived to improve the performance of these machines and now have through-puts mprove the performance of these machines and now have through-puts which exceed five panels per minute. In 1999 the x-ray line of equipment was expanded to include the XRT-1000, a lower cost slightly slower machine for smaller volume shops.

Multiline Technology’s 20th anniversary was appropriately the best year in Multiline history. Sales were the highest we have ever had, another 10,000 square feet of manufacturing space was added, and a new very successful product (glass tooling frames) was launched.

The future of Multiline has and will always be customer service and satisfaction. It is our overall commitment to listen to our customers needs and design registration tooling solutions to meet those needs. Working closely with our customers, Multiline uses Applications Engineering and R&D resources to develop products that meet both the performance and the market goals of its customers. We at Multiline Technology look forward to having the opportunity to be of (continued) service to you and your company.

	Fred Angelo (Chairman) having discussions with engineering personnel
	Farmingdale,N.Y. Route 110 location 1964 to 1985 13,000 Square feet
	1986 to Present 36,000 Square feet also located in Farmingdale,N.Y.