Editing Wire wrap (section)

== Automation ==
{{refimprove section|date=April 2011}}
[[file:Wire wrap tool.jpg|thumb|The two holes at the end of a manual wire wrap tool. The wire goes in the one near the edge, and the post is inserted into the hole in the center]]

Automated wire-wrap machines, as manufactured by the Gardner Denver Company in the 1960s and 1970s, were capable of automatically routing, cutting, stripping and wrapping wires onto an electronic "backplane" or "circuit board". The machines were driven by wiring instructions encoded onto [[punched card]]s,<ref>{{cite episode |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndvmFlg1WmE |title=Computer for Apollo |series=MIT Science Reporter |station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]] |date=1965}}</ref> [[Mylar]] punched hole tape, and early micro computers.

The earliest machines (14FB and 14FG models, for example) were initially configured as "horizontal", which meant that the wire wrap board was placed upside down (pins up) onto a horizontal tooling plate, which was then rolled into the machine and locked onto a rotating (TRP table rotational position of four positions) and shifting (PLP = pallet longitudinal position of 11 positions) pallet assembly. These machines included very large hydraulic units for powering the servos that drove the ball screw mounted "A" and "B" drive carriages, a {{convert|6|ft|adj=on|abbr=on}} tall electronics cabinet loaded with hundreds of IBM control relays, many dozens of solenoids for controlling the various pneumatic mechanical subsystems, and an IBM 029 card reader for positioning instructions. The automatic wire wrap machines themselves were quite large, {{convert|6|ft|abbr=on}} tall and {{convert|8|ft|abbr=on}} square. Servicing the machines was extremely complex, and often meant climbing inside them just to work on them. This could be quite dangerous if safety interlocks were not maintained properly.

Later, somewhat smaller machines were "vertical" (14FV) which meant the boards were placed onto a tooling plate with pins facing the machine operator. Gone were the hydraulic units, in favor of direct drive motors to rotate the [[ball screw]]s, with [[rotary encoder]]s to provide positioning feedback. This generally provided better visibility of the product for the operator, although maximum wrap area was significantly less than the horizontal machines. Top speeds on horizontal machines were generally around 500-600 wires per hour, while the vertical machines could reach rates as high as 1200 per hour, depending on board quality and wiring configurations.