One week in and we have made a few boards so far. I have been pleasantly surprised, machine is working great. Large learning curve based on trial and error.
A few observations:
1. Damned heavy, need a sturdy table and reasonable sized room.
2. Instructions are average but enough to get you going.
3. Menus are intuitive and you can muddle your way through most functions.
4. Panel feature works ok
5. Vacuum detection effective. 100% detect rate when I had a feeder problem (my fault)
6. Menu touch screen was better than I expected. Not that fussed no network connection.
7. PLACEMENT DELAY WAS ESSENTIAL FOR NOT THROWING THE COMPONENT AFTER PLACING. GRRR... THAT WASTED A FEW HOURS! I am using 0.25s at this points, not sure if I can get away with less, needs more testng.
Issues So Far
Panel Array Feature:
a) Needs an offset function for edge as maths assumes corner is pcb1
b) Higher decimal resolution required for interval when array gets large, error creeps up.
c) Capped at 20x20
Panel Coordinate System
a) No way to import this.....need to enter manually
Head
a) Needed to reduce speed down from 100% as was skipping belt when moving from home position (back right)
b) should have ordered more smaller tips. Assuming that it can pick up two components in one action....
c) Head height maths still does my 'head' in, will need to spend more time to work out what is zero!
Component Alignment Camera
a) Its a black box with no ability to help it learn.
b) Seems to do the trick. Still have to see how it performs with more complex parts.
PC Software Tool
a) Only imports placements based on simple column order - simple but effective
b) No ability to import placement heights, need to be manually entered in one by one for every component on the list ....not each component stack.....can get tedious.
c) No ability to store component info for future use.
d) Placement Delay - Cant import and cant enter into software.
In Summary
Works great and no regrets. Plenty of room for improvement with the software though.