EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Manufacturing & Assembly => Topic started by: Spikee on December 15, 2015, 11:27:43 am
-
Has anyone used or even have the new neoden4 pick and place machine?
http://www.neodentech.eu/contents/en-uk/d8_NEODEN4.html (http://www.neodentech.eu/contents/en-uk/d8_NEODEN4.html)
Looks like a reasonable pick and place for the 7.5K. But bad software can make it a expensive paperweight.
I have the liteplacer pick and place and it actually works quite good but no feeders is becoming a problem.
-
I will get a chance to use one within a few weeks and will report back with how well it works(or doesn't!).
-
Neoden has sent met the training videos. That software release looks quite basic and not as refined as you would expect from a 10k device.
Would be best if it was open source but I do not think that will happen.
While the vision operators are a bit better than the ones on the liteplacer. The UI of the liteplacer is better so is the assigment from csv to pnp feeder is better.
-
I expect to be there when one is unpacked on Friday.
-
:popcorn:
Be interested to see what people discover...
-
I assume that price doesn't include feeeders
aaargh - english person reading Chinglish script...!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7DDSTXIQo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7DDSTXIQo)
-
More info here :
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4903&p=62429 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4903&p=62429)
Prices for the feeders are:
60USD/Pcs(8MM)
75USD/Pcs(12mm)
90USD/Pcs(16mm)
-
7.5k euro:
Basic version with pcb holder and set of 8 tape feeders and vibratory stick feeder
Complete with stand, build-in pc and set of monitor, keyboard and mouse.
8.5k euro:
Version with conveyor for pcb transport and set of 8 tape feeders and vibratory stick feeder
Complete with stand, build-in pc and set of monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Machine is available at your local dealer.
CE approval is done around the end of JAN
-
Machine was stuck in customs today, will be delivered on Monday.
-
Has anyone used or even have the new neoden4 pick and place machine?
http://www.neodentech.eu/contents/en-uk/d8_NEODEN4.html (http://www.neodentech.eu/contents/en-uk/d8_NEODEN4.html)
Looks like a reasonable pick and place for the 7.5K. But bad software can make it a expensive paperweight.
I have the liteplacer pick and place and it actually works quite good but no feeders is becoming a problem.
I have been machining some feeders for my Quad IVC that will probably work on Lite Placer. When I finish, I will share the design.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
More info here :
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4903&p=62429 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4903&p=62429)
Prices for the feeders are:
60USD/Pcs(8MM)
75USD/Pcs(12mm)
90USD/Pcs(16mm)
If they sell them seperately, these would probably be a good choice for P&P DIYers.
-
On this machine, are the tapes indexed by the head?
-
On this machine, are the tapes indexed by the head?
No, they are powered individually.
We ordered the stand, the machine, several nozzles, 40 to 50 feeders, the vibe feeder. Pretty much everything but the conveyor.
It wasn't my call to buy it, but it is replacing a Juki 570. We don't really assemble enough product to truly justify having our own machine but it sure is way more fun then paying someone to do it. It is also small enough we can put our mini production line anywhere.
DHL said we would receive it Friday but in the end it got stuck in customs. I will take pictures of it as soon as it arrives and give details as we set it up and try assembly some boards which should all happen next week.
-
Wow, powered feeders for $60! That is nuts.
Can't wait to see how this thread develops.
-
Yeah, I am not planning to be impressed by it but hope it won't be too terrible.
-
The claimed placement speed looks a tad optimistic to me, after watching the video.
Be interested to hear some real experience feedback though.
-
The claimed placement speed looks a tad optimistic to me, after watching the video.
Be interested to hear some real experience feedback though.
I suspect the claims are based on optimised use of the four heads - It will be interesting to see how well the software deals with this.
It's not clear if it does auto nozzle changes - if not then the mix of nozzles may significantly impact head optimisation.
-
The claimed placement speed looks a tad optimistic to me, after watching the video.
Be interested to hear some real experience feedback though.
I suspect the claims are based on optimised use of the four heads - It will be interesting to see how well the software deals with this.
It's not clear if it does auto nozzle changes - if not then the mix of nozzles may significantly impact head optimisation.
It has no ability to change nozzles itself. So in our case we'll probably have three small and one medium loaded at all times or possible two small a medium and a large. I also doubt the software is advanced enough to fully optimize the placement or suggest where feeders should be placed to optimize a build.
We will get to test it well and compare it to the speed of the rather old Juki 570 though. Our biggest board is a 10x10 grid of boards, 1600 parts total. Our Juki could manage it in 47 minutes on a good day. It only had two speeds and the fast was often too fast for fine pitch or larger parts. The NeoDen does look like it will scan the board fiducials much faster then the laser in the Juki though.
-
It has no ability to change nozzles itself. So in our case we'll probably have three small and one medium loaded at all times or possible two small a medium and a large. I also doubt the software is advanced enough to fully optimize the placement or suggest where feeders should be placed to optimize a build.
That's a disappointing omission, even if it was an option it would be useful. At least you have 4 heads to play with. I would at least hope it has the facility to prompt for manual change so you could maximise nozzles for parts used in large quantities.
Have you seen the software yet?
I doubt there's a huge amount to be gained by feeder optimisation over the obvious thing of manually placing of most-used ones nearest the camera location.
-
As a P&P owner with intermittent usage (low-volume and prototype), the effort to optimize does not help me much. I am still running my machine at half speed almost all the time because all the other peripheral processes couldn't keep up if I was maxing out the placement machine. The placement speed is secondary to the time it takes to setup, program, and verify in my use case.
-
As a P&P owner with intermittent usage (low-volume and prototype), the effort to optimize does not help me much. I am still running my machine at half speed almost all the time because all the other peripheral processes couldn't keep up if I was maxing out the placement machine. The placement speed is secondary to the time it takes to setup, program, and verify in my use case.
But of course this varies a lot between users. I recently did a PCB with about 3000 LEDs, so making sure they were in the optimal feeder position was definitely worthwhile!
(http://whitewing.co.uk/IMG_0269.JPG)
-
That is no joke. Looks awesome!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
Sigh - the machine is just a few kilometers away from us but DHL still hasn't done any customs clearance.
-
It's my first post here. :D I've been lurking for way too long. I have been watching most of Dave's videos and also all of Mike's videos for the past year or two, so I feel like I'm in good company here.
TheSteve: I currently have a LitePlacer P&P that I put together a few months ago, but I am also very interested in the Neoden4, so I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. I have read over the owner's manual and watched the training videos and it looks like it is something I can wrap my head around, especially after building the LitePlacer, but I would really like to hear all of your thoughts after receiving the machine.
-
DHL finally decided to deliver the new machine yesterday afternoon.
Initial impression is very good, it was shipped in a very solid wood crate that is easy to open and reuse if needed.
The machine is so small that I can't help but think it is "cute" when looking at it. It looks just like a normal PnP machine that has been miniaturized. It is just light enough that two of us can lift it off the shipping base and move it in the shop where it will run.
Here are a few pictures:
-
We didn't have too much time to play with it but did power it up.
It has an integrated PC using an Atom processor. It runs Windows XP, in chinese. They have stripped it down so you turn it on and it starts the PnP program. If you exit the program you're left with a blank screen. There is an option to update the PnP program using a USB thumb drive. The machine itself requires a 1280x1024 monitor, usb mouse and usb keyboard. It has two additional usb ports for flash drives etc. So if the PC/OS has a problem I don't see it being easy to fix. We did see an access port on the bottom of the machine but didn't want to put the machine on its side to access it. I think I'd like to make an image of the hard drive at some point.
The fit and finish of the machine actually gives confidence, they have finished everything well - on first impression anyway.
The nozzles use a spring ball detent to hold them in place. So they can be popped in and out by hand without too much effort. The cameras seem to work well. We got 30 8 mm, and a few each of the 12,16, and 24mm feeders as well as the vibe feeder. They are pretty easy to load and in testing seemed to work well. However this is where we found a detail they really need to improve. The wiring and connector that goes to each "peel box"(motorized box that peels back the covering tape from the reels) hang down and are in the way when you load the 8 mm reels. It does appear we should be able to carefully bundle each one and tuck them just far enough out of the way they won't be constantly chaffed and stressed by the reels. That leads me to the second issue. Someone clearly made a mistake when measuring the space needed to put a reel into the machine. They mounted the peel boxes a little too low so that the reels have to be slightly distorted to load them. The plastic on the reels is generally pretty soft so it is fine but there is no reason they couldn't have mounted them 3 mm higher to eliminate the problem. I wouldn't doubt the next batch of machines has this issue fixed.
Aside from that the machine seems to work well in the limited testing we did. The software looks a little clunky on initial impression but may just do the job. I will take some pics of the screens in the future and of course some vids of it in operation. I am not back in the office until next year now though so it will have to wait.
edit - some other details I just remembered. There is no safety interlock that detects when the lid is opened - so keep your hands clear! Also the emergency stop button is far from "smart", it simply disconnects all power to the entire machine.
-
edit - some other details I just remembered. There is no safety interlock that detects when the lid is opened -
That will probably be a requirement for EU CE marking (machinery directive)
Also the emergency stop button is far from "smart", it simply disconnects all power to the entire machine.
You don't want an e-stop to be too clever, but cutting power to just the motors might be a more sensible option
-
edit - some other details I just remembered. There is no safety interlock that detects when the lid is opened -
That will probably be a requirement for EU CE marking (machinery directive)
Also the emergency stop button is far from "smart", it simply disconnects all power to the entire machine.
You don't want an e-stop to be too clever, but cutting power to just the motors might be a more sensible option
Indeed. Maybe we were spoiled by our Juki 570L - the emergency stop on it instantly stopped the motors but didn't power anything off. Anyway we never had to use it and if there was a real problem I want everything stopped as soon as possible. I liked how the Juki handled opening the lid though, the head would instantly be limited to 10% of normal speed or so. Of course that head weighed a ton and was huge, I have no doubts about the damage it would do to a hand in the wrong place.
I suspect the cover was a bit of an afterthought as previous generations of Neoden machines didn't have one. The entire cover can be removed and the machine will still operate fine, it doesn't provide any structure. A single micro switch would not have been too hard to integrate...
-
Thank you very much for taking the time to fill us in with your impressions so far. :-+
I certainly appreciate it.
-
You don't want an e-stop to be too clever, but cutting power to just the motors might be a more sensible option
My CNC mills E-stop simply cuts the drives so nothing can move - the control system stays up. My Quad P&P E-stop cuts all power which sucks because it's a PC driven device and PC's don't like that kind of treatment.
-
How many feeders can you put in it? Does it handle bigger parts - 24mm, 32mm, 44mm, 56mm? Tall parts like electrolytic caps?
-
You don't want an e-stop to be too clever, but cutting power to just the motors might be a more sensible option
My CNC mills E-stop simply cuts the drives so nothing can move - the control system stays up. My Quad P&P E-stop cuts all power which sucks because it's a PC driven device and PC's don't like that kind of treatment.
Yep, that is our major concern, this just kills power to everything including the PC.
-
I did re-route the PC power to a non-switched circuit while installing the whole machine UPS system. So now, the E-stop only stops the motion control.
-
I'd be interested in seeing more detail on the feeders - from what I can see, each unit is not a complete feeder in its own right, and they can't be loaded before fitting.
Is it easy to fit/remove feeders and rearrange their positions on the machine?
-
I'd be interested in seeing more detail on the feeders - from what I can see, each unit is not a complete feeder in its own right, and they can't be loaded before fitting.
Is it easy to fit/remove feeders and rearrange their positions on the machine?
The feeders and "peel box" are separate units. Both sit on an aluminum rail and are locked in place by a single grub screw. They each have a power/control cable. The feeder uses a 4 pin cable, the peel box uses a 2 pin. Disconnecting and moving the feeders isn't practical, especially if they are all loaded. I believe they are designed to stay in place, instead you would dismount the reel. The connection cables look too delicate to be removed often. Larger reels sit away from the machine on a stand. So while it is rather basic it does keep the cost of the feeders low and they are actually easy and quick to load. They are also very solid when mounted which will keep the pick position firmly fixed as we're hoping to run 0805 and 0603 passives with no camera.
-
How many feeders can you put in it? Does it handle bigger parts - 24mm, 32mm, 44mm, 56mm? Tall parts like electrolytic caps?
I can't remember the exact number of feeders possible, I will verify when back in the shop. I think the largest feeder is 24mm, larger parts would be handled in tray format. I recall being told it will support up to four trays at once(they would need to be small trays/rows if you had four of them). I also saw a thickness spec but can't remember it at the moment, I know it can do taller parts then our Juki 570L was able to do.
-
Not exactly relevant, but may be of interest anyway
https://blog.adafruit.com/2013/07/11/the-gadget-i-love-limor-ladyada-fried-the-samsung-techwin-smt-sm482-pick-place-machine/
-
No, they are powered individually.
We ordered the stand, the machine, several nozzles, 40 to 50 feeders, the vibe feeder. Pretty much everything but the conveyor.
It wasn't my call to buy it, but it is replacing a Juki 570. We don't really assemble enough product to truly justify having our own machine but it sure is way more fun then paying someone to do it. It is also small enough we can put our mini production line anywhere.
DHL said we would receive it Friday but in the end it got stuck in customs. I will take pictures of it as soon as it arrives and give details as we set it up and try assembly some boards which should all happen next week.
Good day TheSteve,
I was curious as to why you decided to replace your Juki 570 with this Neoden unit? I realize that the 570 is an older machine, but it is solid machine and relatively well supported. The only negative I can see is that it is an old(er) machine with old DOS software.
Cheers,
Sam
-
Some more videos recently appeared :
Software intro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjtAVjTXFDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjtAVjTXFDc)
Loading parts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDaMBRSJ5js (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDaMBRSJ5js)
Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MswywnWLPI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MswywnWLPI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0Y-ITl1Cg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0Y-ITl1Cg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQviH9HlNh4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQviH9HlNh4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcOfsNdQV3Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcOfsNdQV3Q)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfE4PwWALtI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfE4PwWALtI)
-
Hello All,
Happy New Year.
We would like to wish you and your family a prosperous New Year.We also would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for your continuously attention and support to NeoDen Tech's products,feel so happy & pleasant to cooperate with you in 2015.
Need further help in using of our machines,can feel free contact us.
Hope you have a much more better business in the coming year-2016 :-)
Sincerely yours,
Tonny
Skype:tonny-neoden
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ndzj18enz5i7696/Happy%20New%20Year.jpg?dl=0)
-
@TheSteve I'm excited to see how the new NeoDen 4 machine ends up working out for you over time.
It looks like a really nice, quick, and reasonably priced PNP machine that could be very useful for a small shop with limited demands.
Sounds like you know very well what your doing so looking forward to some honest real world feedback on the new Neoden 4.
Any ideas when you expect to start running the machine through some testing?
I see the maximum part height for the machine is 5mm which is not quite enough for the large caps that I'm going to be needing to deal with but should be good for most of the tough smaller parts that are a real pain to place.
Thanks for sharing! :popcorn:
-
Not too much to report with the machine yet. We've had a few issues come up so far but Neoden has been very responsive.
-We got the matching stand but they were no bolts to attach the PnP to it.
-We received a software update but after installing it the PC software was switched to all chinese - there is a button to click to go back to english but when we pressed it it wanted a password so we were stuck until we got the password - thankfully Neoden got us the password right away.
-We have been having a problem with the parts sticking to the nozzles. It seemed to be a problem with the "blow" function(Neodens term) so we checked the pump and it turned out there was a 220VAC pump installed in our 110VAC machine - they say this shouldn't be an issue though as it does still generate some air pressure. Either way they are sending us a replacement.
-If you don't get the conveyor system then the PCB mounting isn't quite as easy as we were used to with the Juki. The Juki used a fixed rail on one side and then an adjustable second rail with a pair of thumbscrews on the other side of the board. The Neoden has bunch of sliding bars with small posts and thumb screws. It is a usable system for sure but one fixed rail would be nice to make sure the board it always square.
-The last thing that has taken some getting used to is the X and Y axis and orientation. On the Juki the lid that lifted open was the "front" of the machine, on the Neoden it isn't. I don't think this is a problem at all of course, just something to get used to. As it really isn't documented its a bit of a journey of discovery.
Hopefully we can run some production boards next week.
-
Thanks for the update, it is greatly appreciated. :)
-
Thank you for the update! :popcorn:
I really want this machine to be all its supposed to be so I will be checking back often to get your real world end user feedback about this machine.
Thanks for sharing :-+
-
Just had it confirmed that the 5mm part height limit is correct.
that is a real game killer.
-
Just had it confirmed that the 5mm part height limit is correct.
that is a real game killer.
Seriously ? That's just ridiculous.
Is this a feeder limitation or somewhere else?
There are plenty of connectors taller than that, plus capacitors, inductors, even chunky TO220 style semiconductors.
-
See hte discussion i had with them. You might be able to do some 10mm parts in some circumstances.. Still this is a major dissaspointment.
-
I read the 5mm limit, I was taking a very keen interest in this until I read that. I was *really* hoping they had a way round this, perhaps a mark II could come along fairly quickly...
-
TheSteve maybe you could confirm exactly what the issue is with height - maybe head Z travel range?
-
Z axis travel is limited to 10mm. Feeders limited to 5mm
-
Hey folks,
I've been following this thread with interest, and actually have gone ahead and ordered the Neoden 4 machine with oven and stencil printer. The comments from TheSteve have been useful... thank you for it... I'll be asking the factory specifically about the problems you described. Even though this is a "cheap" machine, I still figure it's okay to be picky when spending this kind of money. :)
Please keep the info and pictures coming as I'm sure there are a lot of people interested. More details on the 5mm limitation would be cool too... it wasn't off-putting for me because we don't use SMT caps or connectors, and our inductors should fit.
elmood
-
Im seriously considering it, and its good to know the limitations before you buy it!
-
The limit is clearance between the bottom of the nozzle and the top of the feeders. As was mentioned you should be able to do some slightly taller parts if they are from a tray - you'd want to be pretty careful though. The up facing camera is lower but you'd need enough distance to maintain focus.
btw, I assume we are the first or very close to the first customer in a primarily english speaking country to have a Neoden4 as some of the PC software was still in chinese and we had to have them put in the proper translations. I can't see anyone else having used it the way it was. On the plus side they fixed it and sent us an updated version in a few hours.
The bottom of the nozzle to the top of the feeder is ~9mm.
Just took this pic:
-
Wonder why they did this. I can't see any reasons why they could not have made this gap wider. 30mm or so
-
From the convo, it seems like they suggest you control the path that the head takes from the tray to the pads. Is it possible to do that? Can you make the head navigate around obstacles?
-
From the convo, it seems like they suggest you control the path that the head takes from the tray to the pads. Is it possible to do that? Can you make the head navigate around obstacles?
If that is the case, it would make it much more usable.
-
If I had to guess I'd say it is all related to precision. The further down the nozzle has to travel the more potential there is for X/Y and rotational errors if it isn't perfectly straight.
-
Speaking of trays, what kind of trays are you guys using? Neoden didn't seem to be of much help when I asked them about some good "waffle tray" suppliers.
-
the Neo4 is never going to be a big production volume machine so probably can live with a few quirks.
If it can place 5 < x < 10 mm parts out of the tray, and you can control the paths so it doesn't crash into them. then this would be an acceptable compromise for me.
I only have a small hand full of parts that are bigger than 10mm, and many of them come on really wide feeders anyway, and they typically are 1 part per board. ( for example big ethernet transformer ), so some big inductors. The ones that do worry me are inductors and caps
-
Speaking of trays, what kind of trays are you guys using? Neoden didn't seem to be of much help when I asked them about some good "waffle tray" suppliers.
The trays we have are the standard ones included with ICs etc. If we needed something custom in the past we machined pockets into ABS plastic with a Taig CNC mill.
-
Speaking of trays, what kind of trays are you guys using? Neoden didn't seem to be of much help when I asked them about some good "waffle tray" suppliers.
They probably didn't understand your question. ICs come in waffle trays. You don't buy they from the marketplace. Since the ICs are supplied in them, you have to live with whatever you get, good or bad.
-
Hi TheSteve
Thanks for a tremendous blog reviews. Please continue with the plentiful reports of your journey.
Have you had an opportunity to actually run the machine yet? I'd love to know how it performed 'out of the box', and if its claimed resolution and repeat-ability is lived up to.
In particular, if it can maintain that accuracy having traveled over the 'full dimensions' of the placement bed - and not just the few centimeters shown in the videos.
We're on the verge of committing to purchase for prototypes and new product intro purposes.
Thnx
-
We have placed 0603 and 0805 resistors but only on unpasted boards to get a feel for the machine and the various settings. As I posted previously we have had an issue with the parts sticking to the nozzles and are waiting for a replacement air pump. When we do run it our smallest passives will be 0603's and the smallest ICs will be TSSOP's so not an extreme test but not trivial either.
-
The paste does a good job at holding the part to the pcb when the needle pulls away.
I have a manual vacume pick n place tool that is just a constant vacuum.
No on off or reverse at all. The suction is enough to pickup parts from reels but not enough to pull a pasted component off the pcb.
Works perfectly for placing generic passives but I need to adjust the suction for big stuff.
-
For sure the paste makes a big difference but when a machine actually generates a (small) positive pressure the parts shouldn't stick. We are of course comparing part placement to our old Juki 570L which placed parts quite well with or without paste.
-
Speaking of trays, what kind of trays are you guys using? Neoden didn't seem to be of much help when I asked them about some good "waffle tray" suppliers.
The trays we have are the standard ones included with ICs etc. If we needed something custom in the past we machined pockets into ABS plastic with a Taig CNC mill.
Thanks, I suppose I have just exposed my level of inexperience. ;D I figured that people bought all of those fancy trays but now I realize that the bigger ICs come packaged like that. I have some shallow SMD inductors and a few other parts that come in huge tapes that I was hoping to get a tray for, but I suppose that I could just get something 3D printed.
-
Speaking of trays, what kind of trays are you guys using? Neoden didn't seem to be of much help when I asked them about some good "waffle tray" suppliers.
The trays we have are the standard ones included with ICs etc. If we needed something custom in the past we machined pockets into ABS plastic with a Taig CNC mill.
Thanks, I suppose I have just exposed my level of inexperience. ;D I figured that people bought all of those fancy trays but now I realize that the bigger ICs come packaged like that. I have some shallow SMD inductors and a few other parts that come in huge tapes that I was hoping to get a tray for, but I suppose that I could just get something 3D printed.
If they are in standard reel format tape then you should be able to place them using a standard feeder of the correct width - assuming they aren't too thick for the machine placing them.
-
TheSteve What kind of assembly volume do you expect to put through the machine once you get it up and running?
Also what is the pin pitch on the TSSOP your placing?
I have some .5 mm pitch TSSOP's and some BGA parts that I'm eager to see how well and quickly you can get the machine to run without problems.
-
For sure the paste makes a big difference but when a machine actually generates a (small) positive pressure the parts shouldn't stick. We are of course comparing part placement to our old Juki 570L which placed parts quite well with or without paste.
By "without paste" do you mean with nothing at all, or with thin-film double-stick tape which is what's usually used for trial placements?
I'd never expect anything sensible placing on a bare PCB as the slightest movement of the PCB will make parts slide around.
My machine doesn't use any blow-off and the only time I've ever had parts stuck is LEDs with soft silicone lenses
-
I use double stick tape when programming and testing. Works great.
Sent from mobile device.... Keeping it short and mis-spelled
-
We have used double sided tape before. With our Juki 570L we fine tuned it and did quite a bit of testing with no paste or tape. When setup properly we could have it place nearly any part with the others moving very little or not at all. I doubt the Neoden will ever achieve that level of precision(and I'm not saying it is really required). We just found it was a good way to to determine how far the part should be pushed into the board and how fast.
-
the Neo4 is never going to be a big production volume machine so probably can live with a few quirks.
If it can place 5 < x < 10 mm parts out of the tray, and you can control the paths so it doesn't crash into them. then this would be an acceptable compromise for me.
Controlling paths would get pretty messy - I'd be surprised if there is any real support for it in the software.
Another issue is tall parts clashing with already-placed parts. Although you can have some control by placing parts in size order, you ideally want a P&P to deal with feed errors & parts running out by moving on to the next part and placing everything it can before stopping for operator intervention, so you may have to go back & place parts in a different order.
Of course it wouldn't surprise me at all if their SW was too dumb to do this and just stopped on any error.
-
Any thoughts on whether or not the rail feeder system is worthwhile? I mainly plan on using ~170mm x ~120mm board panels with the machine, probably running about 10 panels of the same type at once. It seems like repeatability with the feeder would be good, but taking the time to set it up for different panel sizes might outweigh the time needed to change panels, especially with only 10 panels of a given size at a time.
-
Looking at their 'how to' video, Panel Config looks fairly straight forward. We're in the same boat as you with qty, and have decided on the Rail option, though I'm certain it could be retro fitted if needs be.
What we're really interested in is just how much work will be involved in modifying the reel and tape box assembly, so that we can remove the complete unit and replace it with another, pre-loaded cart, for different regular projects.
Because there is no complex mechanical dependency, we'd just need to resolve the electrical interface, and bingo! Would be great if we could convince NeoDen to integrate this feature out of the box. A whole new level in micro-machines for PnP.
-
Here is some NeoDen 4 action porn while we wait for some USA based videos :popcorn:
https://youtu.be/QVwoeYyHx8c
https://youtu.be/moKGPF1dnRI
-
Something I wasn't quite clear on - as far as I can tell it needs the conveyor option to do long PCBs (says 1500mm on their site), presumably it does them is sections ( is this properly supported in the software yet?).
What I can't see is a spec for what size it can do without the conveyor.
-
Applicable PCB area:350mm*400mm
Placement Area:310*400mm(without waffle Tray) 140*400mm(With 1 waffle Tray)
Parameters:
Number of Heads with Vision enabled:4
Placement Rate:10000PCS/H(vision off) 5000PCS/H (vision on)
Feeder Capacity:Tape Reel Feeders:48
Tape width:8mm,12mm,16mm,24mm
Vibration Feeders:5
IC Tray Capacity:5
Component sizes with vision:Smallest Component size:0201 Largest
Component size:TQFP240
Applicable Components:0201,BGA,SOIC,SSOP,QFN,TQFP,Led Component,Diode,Triode,Tack Switch
Component Height Maximum:5mm
Resolution X/Y axis:0.01mm Z axis:0.1mm
Rotation:+/-180(360)
Positioning Accuracy:+/-0.02mm
X-Y repeatability:+/-0.02mm
Applicable PCB area:350mm*400mm
Placement Area:310*400mm(without waffle Tray) 140*400mm(With 1 waffle Tray)
Programming:SOFTWARE AUTOMATIC PROGRAMMING/MANUAL MECHANICAL PROGRAMMING
Main Control:GUI
Power Supply:220V, 50Hz (convertible to 110V)
Power:180W
External Dimensions:Machine:87*68*48CM
Packing size:94*74*60CM
Net Weight:60KGS
Gross weight:80Kgs
Main Features
1. Dual vision system (up-looking and down-looking camers), identify and calibrate the different components at one
time, improves the accuracy of placement from 0201 to BGA;
2. Auto rails, help to achieve continuous placement and solve the problem of long LED bar, ex. 1.2m LED strip;
3. Automatic electric feeders, reduce the feeding deviation;
4. General conveyor is supported, so a SMT production line can be setup, which is more time-saving and labor-saving
5. Four placement heads can pick up and calibrate components at one time.
6. The device supports remote system upgrade, NeoDen provides a life long system upgrade service for free to you;
-
Received a package from Neoden yesterday. We installed the new "blow" pump. We also installed a thick rubber mat that was originally missing between the machine and the factory stand. The rubber mat really cut down on the movement of the machine while running. We placed some 0805 and 0603 resistors with excellent results. It gave us enough confidence that we don't plan to use the camera for placing small passives. We did have quite a few mis-picks that we still need to look into.
Beyond that our biggest frustration is the PCB mounting that is used when you don't order the conveyor option. I've attached a picture of how we have to mount a board. If you swap to a different board you'll never get the original board back in the same place. We would really like to see a proper rail on the right side that is never moved. A second adjustable one would be then be used on the left side. This is how the Juki mounted boards, we found it fast, efficient and repeatable.
-
. It gave us enough confidence that we don't plan to use the camera for placing small passives. We did have quite a few mis-picks that we still need to look into.
Presumably the camera detects the mis-pick and retries ?
Can you select the number of retries before it gives up (e.g. empty or jammed reel, stuck cover tape etc. ?
Once it gives up does it move on to the next part to try to place all it can, or just stop ?
-
Beyond that our biggest frustration is the PCB mounting that is used when you don't order the conveyor option. I've attached a picture of how we have to mount a board. If you swap to a different board you'll never get the original board back in the same place. We would really like to see a proper rail on the right side that is never moved. A second adjustable one would be then be used on the left side. This is how the Juki mounted boards, we found it fast, efficient and repeatable.
I designed and machined these PCB pallets for my machine. They are loaded outside the machine and used on static mounts and conveyors. Makes it quite easy to handle the boards and have very repeatable positioning. Accommodates any shape and double sided. Holds edges of PCB so no holes needed.
-
More then anything it just doesn't seem to detect the part is on the nozzle or it isn't picking it up. The feeders are a little on the noisy side compared to the rest of the machine so you can hear to do a double feed really fast if it fails to pick up a part or thinks it failed. We have had it stop with an on screen error and I've needed to manually remove the part from the nozzle. This may just be a vacuum setting that we need to play with further. It is a little tough to know exactly what to set things to though.
It seems they have also changed how fiducials work, they aren't the same as is shown in the training video. When we put our points in the parts placement is not as accurate so something isn't right.
Once we can figure these things out we'll run a production board.
btw, we aren't spending full days on this, just when we have time to get away from the other day to day activities in the shop.
-
Is there any mention of vacuum verify for part pickup? Its a simple thing to implement and would be a bummer it that was omitted.
For a mis-pick, can you program a dump location?
-
I remember seeing pressure sensors in the head from one of the photos
-
The machine does have programmable vacuum detection and a dump location.
-
btw, for those interested in ordering this machine, if you want to use a standard tray and choose the conveyor option keep in mind your maximum board size. You can see the tray uses up quite a bit of bed.
-
A half tray looks like a good trick to have.
What is your all-in cost to this point?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
TheSteve,
Have you mentioned the issue with the reels not fitting into the rack, without being twisted and distorted, to NeoDen?
I spoke with Haimi from NeoDen, who says she'll look into it for me, and that they haven't experienced this issue with anyone else to date. She wanted some photos to show the problem.
Any chance you can post an image illustrating this?
Is it the small, standard reels you're referring to TheSteve?
I should add that Hiami has been incredibly helpful and responsive to my many queries.
-
TheSteve,
Have you mentioned the issue with the reels not fitting into the rack, without being twisted and distorted, to NeoDen?
I spoke with Haimi from NeoDen who says that know nothing about it, and that they haven't experienced this issue at all. They wanted some photos to show the problem.
Any chance you can post an image illustrating this?
The reels are fine once in but must be distorted a small amount to get them there. The bar that supports the "peel box" is mounted a few mm's too low to allow full clearance. If they haven't noticed then they have never put a reel into the machine. I can probably wedge a reel in there and take a picture tomorrow, its tight enough it will hold the reel in place unless it has really soft plastic. It would be an easy fix for them and just requires a few holes to be drilled in different places. I am sure someone just got the design measurements wrong when they spec'd it.
-
Hi Dear All,
Thanks for your attention to our latest pnp machine,NeoDen4.
As for the issue,reels not fitting into the rack,pls refer to attached picture,there are some distance between tape reel and peel system,will not hit peel system.But as for big tape reel,not standard tape reel,can not fitting into ,have to load by external holder.
For each unit,after assemble well,we will test run in factory,and according to customer's feeder configuration,we will load all needed tape reel,some need load full,some load about 20 reels.
On the picture which we took this morning,you can see,many machine on the shelf,some just start to assemble,some are under test (load tape reel).
If any question,welcome send e-mail to us directly,we will try to reply and clear your doubts at our earliest.
Skype:haimi2008
E-mail:haimi@neodentech.com
-
sorry,the picture failed upload just now,pls check here
-
another two pictures here
-
OK. here are pictures showing the clearance issue. In the first picture you can see where the reel gets pinched (circled in red) when loading it in. In the second shot you can see the amount of distortion to a reel that occurs when it is loaded. It isn't the end of the world but a little more clearance would have been nice.
edit - I should add that by default there are small wires hanging down from the upper white plastic peel boxes(they remove the tape covering) that can get pinched when loading or removing reels. So eventually we expected a wire will get damaged or disconnected. We have carefully tucked the wires out of the way using a thin stick that runs through the wire loops and lifts them up.
-
It's exciting to think that my machine might be somewhere in that photo above! ^-^ I'm hoping to get it within the next few weeks.
My major question is how to best set up jobs for the machine. So far I have software that checks and prepares "build" files for doing PTH assembly... it makes webpages that have build steps shown in the correct order by linking PCB images, placement files and BOM data from a spreadsheet in the project directory. After making notes from the Neoden software tutorials I've been adding an SMT export module that can hopefully prepare all the files for the pnp machine also. Since my parts all come from a common part stock, I want to make a master list of component data (thickness, tape size, etc.) and then have the software assign feeders and nozzles automatically. The key for my operation anyway is to have it easy to change between jobs without a lot of fiddling around with the settings every time. I'd love to see some example files from the machine prior to getting mine.
I'm hoping that once more people in English speaking people have these machines we can all help each other out with tips and tricks. I've only ever seen SMT assembly equipment in factories and never used one of my own. :)
-
Is the machine somewhat easy to use for smaller quantities or is it quite a lot of set up time ?
-
Posted by: Spikee
« on: Yesterday at 11:43:02 PM » Insert Quote
Is the machine somewhat easy to use for smaller quantities or is it quite a lot of set up time ?
Hello Sir,
If you can generate the coordinate from your own PCB Design Software,then the programing will be very fast.
As for time of setting up on the machine,you can refer to our Tutorial Videos via below link:
www.youtube.com/user/NeoDentech (https://www.youtube.com/user/NeoDentech)
More details,pls feel free contact us:
Skype:tonny-neoden
Email:tonny@neodentech.com
-
Another NeoDen 4 in action video :popcorn:
Looks good to me.
https://youtu.be/Vdg1c-LzkRk
-
Seems to be pausing for an unnecessarily long time before the camera light comes on - obviously you want some settling time but seems a bit on the long side - presumably this is an end-user adjustable parameter?
-
Is the machine somewhat easy to use for smaller quantities or is it quite a lot of set up time ?
As a general note on P&P setup:
On my machine (which is a different machine entirely) I have essentially automated the programming to being a trivial amount of time - a few mouse clicks.
Witch that said, it still takes a considerable amount of time to setup a new job. The programming is only a tiny part of the process. Organizing and loading the parts. Adding/tweaking new packages. Verifying pickups and placements. Tracking down mis-picks. None of which is complicated (usually), but when you have a PCB with a bunch of parts and only need to run a small number it sucks. I do a lot of 5-15 piece runs for prototype and specialty boards and the P&P setup dominates the schedule. It only takes one backward diode to ruin your day, so mistakes are hard to tolerate. That means that every detail is checked and checked again to make sure.
In my case, I normally have very few extra parts and no extra PCB's. In a situation where there is low part count, simple designs, and higher volume - the setup is no problem. Small qty PCB assembly is possible, but not easy regardless of what machine you have. To alleviate the pain in my setups, I got a machine that can hold about 125 different parts at a time. This allows me to have many jobs setup at the same time as well is 'squeeze in' a prototype without disturbing the recurring PCB's. The downside is that to afford that many feeders, I had to get an old machine and all the no so good things that come with an old machine.
Anyway, even though the P&P machine is the coolest part of the assembly process, it takes so much more to have an efficient process that actually saves time in the end. For low-volume efficiency, one must be particularly clever with workflow design.
-
Seems to be pausing for an unnecessarily long time before the camera light comes on - obviously you want some settling time but seems a bit on the long side - presumably this is an end-user adjustable parameter?
Looks like the motion system is at low speed for programming/verify. Maybe that is why the delay is long.
-
Well its Friday but we weren't able to do a production run yet. When we decided we were pretty comfortable with the machines ability to place passives we moved on to our TSSOP28 packaged FL232RL. The machine had no problem picking the part but the camera image was measuring the center incorrectly 20 to 30% of the time. This meant when it placed it it was sometimes a full pin width off in position. After sending pictures of everything to Neoden they suggested we turn the camera flash brightness down. This setting was not obvious as its behind a password protected menu. Turning the brightness down seems to have solved the camera problem. However we are still having a problem with the machine not dropping parts if there is any kind of mis-pick detected. If it was to detect the FT232RL is bad for any reason it will go to the dump area but it doesn't release the part. It will try picking two more times and dumping two more times with the part on the nozzle the entire time. At that point the machine stops with an error and after a few seconds without suction the part falls off the nozzle. Hopefully this is just another configuration issue.
Inside the config screen with the camera flash brightness we also found a camera theta adjustment. It was set to zero from the factory but the FT232RL's it did place were ever so slightly skewed. We added a 0.5 degree shift and they look much better.
We have also found numerous software bugs, the worst of which causes the PC to blue screen.
Now all that said we're very optimistic the machine will work great once fully setup and at the moment all of the software bugs can generally be worked around. Once a few more people have the machine and are reporting issues I can see Neoden making some quick improvements.
Setting up the machine is pretty quick overall once you know the software. Loading/unloading the feeders is very quick and easy too.
-
:phew: Thanks Steve, i think youve convinced me to hold off buying this;
buggy software, feeders dont fit and other issues.. Plus the small workspace.. I just think this will need up being a fustrating exercise for me.
-
Unfortunately it seems to be just what we've come to expect from China - mostly reasonable hardware let down by poor software and lack of attention to details.
If Neoden want to be taken seriously outside the Chinese market they need to either take on a decent software developer or open source it to let someone else sort it out.
And also get a native speaker to do their promotional video, which currently makes them look ridiculous to any native speaker.
It's a great pity as it has a ton of potential, and could fill a huge gap in the lower end of the market.
Time will tell - I really do hope it turns into a better machine.
On paper, it's the first machine to be a better option for low-volume users than my 20 year old Versatronics RV, and I'm still seriously considering getting one to replace it at some point, mostly for the long-board capability.
The encouraging thing is that they seem so far to be quite responsive to customers, though from what I've read here it's mostly been to fix issues that shouldn't have occurred in the first place.
Note to Neoden - If you are seriously interested in getting an English re-write of your promo video script, a lot of feedback on software improvements, and being featured on my Youtube channel, in exchange for a significant discount, please get in touch.
-
Note to Neoden - If you are seriously interested in getting an English re-write of your promo video script, a lot of feedback on software improvements, and being featured on my Youtube channel, in exchange for a significant discount, please get in touch.
+1 to this. I want to live vicariously through mike's youtube videos. Plus you know mike has experience with PnP machines, making pcbs, and doing intensely technical and entertaining videos.
-
Best thing they could do is take Mike up on his offer.
-
But today no one else makes such P&PM for small businesses
-
But today no one else makes such P&PM for small businesses
Absolutely true, and about time this changed - despite being about 20 years old, a used Versatronics RV4 is still the best bang/buck for a small pick & place, and has been for at least a decade.
The Neoden4 could finally change this. The quad-head solution, with vision of all heads at once is a very neat way to improve throughput without needing the expense of super-fast mechanicals.
And the conveyor system to handle long PCBs puts it ahead of many mid to high-end machines - AFAIK there is no other low to mid range (<$50k) machine available that can do this.
Probably the closest is the Mechatronika M10V, but only single head, a bit slow and rather limited feeder options. Don't recall offhand what the pricing is but ISTR somewhere 2-3x the cost of the Neoden4.
Which is why I really hope Neoden get their act together - they have the potential to sell very well outside of China, but to do this they have to supply machines that don't need much support to get going, provide good support where needed, and have a more professional approach to marketing than some Chinglish videos on Youtube.
Although they could partner with an existing European/US SM equipment distributor, the risk in doing this is that their machines will be too much competition for existing expensive lines that distributors make more margin on. And of course distributors will want margin.
For a machine as small as this, selling direct is a perfectly viable approach, but it is even more important that it works out of the box than the more traditional situation of a company engineer coming out to commission a new machine.
Once they have production well under way and dealt with what are hopefully teething troubles, they would do well to hire a couple of EU and US sales people and set up a couple of machines in the back of vans for demonstrations.
-
While researching this, I've run into another company in china, making something that is similar in terms of specification and price.
A machine with 40 feeders ( including the feeders ) 4 head pickup, vision etc, was quoted to me at just under $10,000 USD.
http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22 (http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22)
I think we'll see a raft of these machines turn up in the market this year and it will become a competitive thing, so they all will have to lift their game.. quality and price will get impacted.
-
While researching this, I've run into another company in china, making something that is similar in terms of specification and price.
A machine with 40 feeders ( including the feeders ) 4 head pickup, vision etc, was quoted to me at just under $10,000 USD.
http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22 (http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22)
I think we'll see a raft of these machines turn up in the market this year and it will become a competitive thing, so they all will have to lift their game.. quality and price will get impacted.
I fear that it will be a race to the bottom, and end up with a number of machines that all have good and bad points, with none being nearly as good as they could be, and universally poor software.
At least Neoden have some head start in a sort-of track record with previous machines, but they need to make the effort to understand what users need, be responsive and keep quality high, even if it means not being the cheapest.
-
Based on what I've seen so far if they improved the software they could raise the price a little and it would be well worth it. Many aspects of the machine are very good. They have been very responsive so far, if they could knock out 10 bugs/features in the software and then generate any kind of proper manual I can really see people being very successful with the machine. If nothing else once a few of us have the machine and compare notes it will get people up and running quickly with it.
As an example we spent way longer then should have been needed on the camera issue with the FT232RL, had we known about the config option behind the password protected menu it would have been quick to solve.
-
I think it will be hard, and not to quickly make high precision for Neoden 4.
H/W combined solution tightly for P&PM.
In Holland Neoden for EU already have agent.
Mechatronika M10V unsuccessful in the past year, I've seen the guys from Austria, which greatly disappointed.
-
As an example we spent way longer then should have been needed on the camera issue with the FT232RL, had we known about the config option behind the password protected menu it would have been quick to solve.
Was this a password they had already supplied, or something you had to ask for? If the latter, this is definitely not acceptable. Passwords to prevent less skilled operators messing things up are fine, but anything that prevents the user doing something without asking the manufacturer are not.
-
Even competitors also Chinglish http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html (http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html)
-
As an example we spent way longer then should have been needed on the camera issue with the FT232RL, had we known about the config option behind the password protected menu it would have been quick to solve.
Was this a password they had already supplied, or something you had to ask for? If the latter, this is definitely not acceptable. Passwords to prevent less skilled operators messing things up are fine, but anything that prevents the user doing something without asking the manufacturer are not.
They had given us the password previously(we had to ask for it) but we didn't know the option was there as some features were added in the newer firmware they sent us. This is one of those items where clicking around and checking out every single last menu and option until you can remember them all is pretty useful.
Since then I had a poke around, there will be no need to ask for any passwords in the future :)
-
or open source it
Wonder if this is possible, just biff their software completely and use something like openpnp
-
If they were to open source it I can see there being some very quick major improvements.
-
For low cost, entry level - open source would be great.
I could design and build a machine like this with my eyes closed. Open software would make that interesting. As a small business, I need reliability above all else. My experience with low end Chinese manufacturers is universally bad.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
It occurred to me that there would be an avenue for scalability that will address - to some extent - the reel limit and speed. Quite simply, set up multiple machines in a continuous production line. I'm sure this isn't a new idea, but with costs heading downwards, it would seem to become more economically viable for the smaller end of the market.
With appropriate software, you would only need one setup process for the whole line.
Expansion would be simple, incremental and thus more affordable and if there is a machine failure, then only one need be taken out of service while the rest keep working.
Is Neoden thinking along these lines?
-
Several of the videos from China in this thread show several machines in a line. I don't know if there are special software features.
-
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/all-wholesale-products/1874253.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/all-wholesale-products/1874253.html)
20mm Z Axis height.. Feeders without an extra "peel" box..
Bigger workspace..
-
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/all-wholesale-products/1874253.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/all-wholesale-products/1874253.html)
20mm Z Axis height.. Feeders without an extra "peel" box..
But what does "4.5mm suction nozzle buffer range" mean?
Deceptive pricing - the "real" prices are buried in the shipping cost once you get to the product pages.
Their long-board machines are huge
And.. aliexpress.....?
-
But what does "4.5mm suction nozzle buffer range" mean?
Deceptive pricing - the "real" prices are buried in the shipping cost once you get to the product pages.
Their long-board machines are huge
And.. aliexpress.....?
Not sure what 4.5m suction nozzle buffer is
I'd not pay $4000 to ship 200kg, granted. But they quoted me a whole lot less for sea freight, and even then I'd have to lcl container moved for a few hundred dollars.
I'm not really interested in "long boards". different problem.
And Aliexpress? Its a great window for finding stuff. Its no less reliable than Amazon, or ebay. And you can buy a Neoden on aliepxress as well, but you can also buy it directly..
-
We spent a considerable amount of time evaluating low-cost pick-and-place options over the last year.
I consider the Mechatronika M10V the most desirable out of all of them, despite that it has only one pickup head, it has a very solid construction and the only one that provides solder paste dispensing capabilities. This eliminates the needs for solder paste stencils, etc.
The cost that we were quoted for the base machine is 14600 EUR. You then need to add feeders at a cost of 2700 - 3600 EUR for a feeder package. For example, 10 x 8mm, 2 x 12mm, 2 x 16mm feeders is 2700 EUR. The vibration feeder is another 780 EUR.
The solder paste dispenser and needle is approx. 2400EUR. Therefore, a complete system would run approx. 20500 EUR.
We also looked at the Neoden TM220A and TM240A, but without vision, these are just hobbyist toys, in our opinion. Alternatives based on the same form factor with vision are:
Charmhigh CMHT48VA - 29 feeders and Dual cameras and fully integrated control system for $5600 US (free shipping)
Unlike the Neoden TM220A and TM240A this uses a fully closed loop control system (using encoders) to prevent stepper motor missteps. It also uses Juki standard pickup nozzles and a retractable pull pin for advancing the feeder. The bulk of their customer base appears to be in India.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Charmhigh-CMHT48VA-Pick-and-Place-Machine-Full-Automatic-Chip-Mounter-with-Vision-System-English-Version-110v/32502909690.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Charmhigh-CMHT48VA-Pick-and-Place-Machine-Full-Automatic-Chip-Mounter-with-Vision-System-English-Version-110v/32502909690.html)
TVM802A (27 feeders) and TVM802B (47 feeders) http://www.zjyingxing.com/e_products/TVM802A-126.html (http://www.zjyingxing.com/e_products/TVM802A-126.html)
Dual camera system but requires software on an external PC. Uses USB and Ethernet for control (not sure why both are required). The camera system recognition and software appear much slower than the CMHT48VA.
Hope this helps someone.
-
I think the "buffer" size is how much compression the nozzle can handle.
Loaded up the machine today, installed a new firmware version. Hope to build some boards tomorrow.
-
We spent a considerable amount of time evaluating low-cost pick-and-place options over the last year.
I consider the Mechatronika M10V the most desirable out of all of them, despite that it has only one pickup head, it has a very solid construction and the only one that provides solder paste dispensing capabilities. This eliminates the needs for solder paste stencils, etc.
The single head is not much of a real limitation for small volume work. If you are planning to have a dispenser, I assume you are not concerned about a super speed workflow. I looked at getting a dispenser for my Quad but in the end, framed stencils are only $200 and they are so easy and predictable. Manual re-work on fine pitch parts gets old really fast, so the dispenser system better be very good and very consistent.
I made a JEDEC sized tray that does 8mm - 56mm cut tape, may be an interesting idea for these machines. I am not selling them, but could provide the info if you need. They allow me to use many different parts in a single setup where a typical tray is a ton of one single part type. 6in or 12in cut tapes.
-
Loaded up the machine today, installed a new firmware version. Hope to build some boards tomorrow.
Looks good, what are you building?
-
@Sedelman That Charmhigh CMHT48VA machine looks pretty nice and the price is good also. Thanks for posting that up for us to consider. I like that it's max pickup height is 15mm vs the 5mm of the Neoden.
https://youtu.be/uUojsxN_BQg
@TheSteve Looking forward to seeing how your first board run goes.
-
There are some impressive videos of the CMHT48VA on Youku.com (Chinese Youtube) that demonstrate the 4000 cph that they claim is possible with vision. You can clearly see it positioning the part over the camera before placing it but it is doing it at less than 1 part per second. They of course place the parts close to the camera to achieve this to minimize head X-Y distance traveled, but it is impressive nonetheless.
I've reached out to them and asked them for a North American customer who has purchased the machine in the last 12 months so I can find out their experiences with the machine as well as the customer service. I'll keep updating this thread as I learn more.
-
4000EUR at taobao will become about 6000EUR after taxes and import and shipping, still a very good price and almost at hobbieist level. This is a great step forwards.
-
@Sedelman That Charmhigh CMHT48VA machine looks pretty nice and the price is good also. Thanks for posting that up for us to consider. I like that it's max pickup height is 15mm vs the 5mm of the Neoden.
https://youtu.be/uUojsxN_BQg
@TheSteve Looking forward to seeing how your first board run goes.
But why is it only using one head - oh, let me guess -crappy software perhaps?
-
So we did do some of our production boards yesterday. It was a little frustrating but we eventually got a few boards made. Found another bug or two in the software. Had a few issues with parts alignment but we're not sure yet if its our programming or the machine. More time and experimentation is needed.
-
@mikeselectricalstuff I'm not sure just yet.
I did read you can use both heads with different juki nozzle sizes for picking different part sizes. So I'd be surprised if both heads couldn't be used at the same time.
I guess it can place 4000 CPH which is really close to Neo Dens 5000 CPH with vision on. I would assume it would be pretty hard to place 4000 CPH with vision with only 1 head working.
For 5k + free shipping it looks like it could be a really good option. I wonder if it can place 10mm tall caps?
Looking forward to how well the Neoden 4 works out also.
-
@mikeselectricalstuff I'm not sure just yet.
I did read you can use both heads with different juki nozzle sizes for picking different part sizes. So I'd be surprised if both heads couldn't be used at the same time.
I guess it can place 4000 CPH which is really close to Neo Dens 5000 CPH with vision on. I would assume it would be pretty hard to place 4000 CPH with vision with only 1 head working.
For 5k + free shipping it looks like it could be a really good option. I wonder if it can place 10mm tall caps?
Looking forward to how well the Neoden 4 works out also.
I think a major impovement with Neoden4 is imaging multiple heads at once - I wonder if that other machine can do that.
-
From the software that Charmhigh provided me to generate the PnP file that the CHMT48VA machine needs, you have to specify which head the machine is to use for which component. Therefore, it appears that their firmware does not automatically use the second head or optimize its use. It is up to you to specify this. From what I understand is that the machine works out of the box for Protel and Altium generated files (but likely only for a single head - I have not looked into this), but you'll need their converter software to deal with other formats.
For Eagle users, it looks like it is trivial to update the mountsmd.ulp script to output the appropriate PnP file that uses the second head. An immediate performance improvement is to have the second head pick up the same part as the first head. More sophisticated improvements could look at minimizing head travel during pickup and placement (which means you would not necessarily pickup the same part on head 1 and 2).
So far I have not heard back from Charmhigh about a North American customer who uses the machine. They indicated that the CMHT48VA is an improved version over the original CMHT48V model and that they just released it in October last year and don't have any North American customers yet. They were going to provide me with a contact that uses the older model.
-
From the software that Charmhigh provided me to generate the PnP file that the CHMT48VA machine needs,
Do they document their PnP file format?
-
No, but their converter software generates text files (see Akshaya-dpv.txt - the original generated file has a .dpv extension) from a comma-separated file (see Akshaya-csv.txt). Their converter software is clunky and difficult to understand despite that it is in English.
-
p&p files all the same, the difference is small. You can edit it and easily I think.
-
@sedelman Can you verify the max part height of the CHMT48VA? I looked online but that specific info was not listed. I thought it was 15mm but not sure where I picked that up at now.
Also how responsive has your contact at Charmhigh been? Care to share their email? The machine looks like a winner for my needs, its a shame there is not a USA based supplier for something like this.
-
The CHMT48VA looks very good to me also, but I've dealt enough with Chinese suppliers to know that you have to do your due diligence, so actual customer feedback is going to be important before I make a decision. From the information that I have come across, the Z-axis travel specified is 15mm. Whether this is factual, I do not know.
The similar looking TVM802A and TVM802B units from another manufacturer (QiHe / zjyingxing) do not give me as much confidence, despite that it has dual pickup heads, dual cameras and appear to be functionally the same. There are a number of videos of this machine on YouTube (from customers) that suggest to me that the pickup/placement accuracy is no better than what you would expect from a Neoden TM220A/TM240A without vision. The following website indicates that the machine only uses one camera directly, the second camera is strictly used by the software you run on a PC to assist with the initial alignment:
http://www.matthiasm.com/tvm802a_3.html (http://www.matthiasm.com/tvm802a_3.html)
The other issue is the smaller travel area compared to the CMHT48VA and the fact that they do not use stepper encoders for step verification. This means that a misstep by one of the motors will result in a placement error without the machine knowing this. The CMHT48VA has a closed loop control system with encoders on the stepper motors, so I misstep can be corrected on the fly. The CMHT48VA also has a slot next to the feeders that allows you to feed the empty tapes down so that they are out of the way. With the TVM series you have to run the empty tapes underneath the PCB to the other side of the machine. Yes, it's mostly cosmetic but that matters to me. Lastly, the CMHT48VA uses an embedded Linux system booted using an internal flash drive that allows the machine to operate standalone. You provide the PnP file using a supplied USB thumbdrive. The TVM series requires an Ethernet connection and USB (presumably for the second camera) and requires software on a dedicated PC.
This is what I know so far, so I am leaning towards the CMHT48VA, pending the outcome of the Neoden4 evaluation that is being detailed by TheSteve on this thread.
My contact has been Kimi Liu:
Kimi Liu
kimi@charmhigh-tech.com
Tel: +86 135 106 75756
Skype: kimiliu89
-
The CHMT48VA looks very good to me also, but I've dealt enough with Chinese suppliers to know that you have to do your due diligence, so actual customer feedback is going to be important before I make a decision. From the information that I have come across, the Z-axis travel specified is 15mm. Whether this is factual, I do not know.
I've dealt with enough Humans globally to know that you have to do your due diligence. Its not just a chinese thing. Theres plenty of crappy suppliers everywhere.
-
@mrpackethead agreed, but Chinese suppliers are capable of a level of deceit that I have not seen with many other suppliers. The mentality is so ingrained that they don't loose any sleep over it and in fact, they feel that they are at a competitive disadvantage if they don't do it (because they know their competitors are doing it). My wife, who is Chinese, has heightened my senses as to what suppliers in China are capable of. So, I'm looking to make sure that the camera system on these units is actually functional, and not just flashing for my entertainment.
-
@mrpackethead agreed, but Chinese suppliers are capable of a level of deceit that I have not seen with many other suppliers. The mentality is so ingrained that they don't loose any sleep over it and in fact, they feel that they are at a competitive disadvantage if they don't do it (because they know their competitors are doing it). My wife, who is Chinese, has heightened my senses as to what suppliers in China are capable of. So, I'm looking to make sure that the camera system on these units is actually functional, and not just flashing for my entertainment.
The worst deceit i've experienced has been from German Suppliers as it happens. I've been let down by Australians, Chinese, Americas, New Zealanders, Germans and Koreans.. Theres good and bad everywhere, and basing things based on someones race, is going to land you in trouble.
-
@mrpackethead, I didn't create this reality, I'm simply indicating what is governing my decisions. Take it as you will.
-
he worst deceit i've experienced has been from German Suppliers as it happens. I've been let down by Australians, Chinese, Americas, New Zealanders, Germans and Koreans.. Theres good and bad everywhere, and basing things based on someones race, is going to land you in trouble.
Yet the Chinese are among those from whom you most likely should expect surprises. For example their mentality, you can have a deal with them and be 100% sure that you have 100% solid deal where all nuances are agreed. Hell NO, it's you who are thinking there is an agreement, not them. You can ask them time to time if all is going fine as per the agreement. They will always answer yes, all as expected... until you receive the product of their work. They always will try to do something in their own way, "rationalize" and so on. I deal with them only remotely (but have some "experience") though I personally know some people who deal with them directly. And what the say is that dealing with Chinese is hard as fuck.
-
Never ever ask a question that can be answered "yes". "What have you done?", not "have you done xxxx?"
-
I do business in china every day. both remotely from my desk and on the multiple trips per year. Theres people there who i trust and they trust me, years and hundreds of transactions later, its going good.
Buiness is hard. Business in China is made harder by some that the Chinese will produce amazing quality good at redicoulsy low prices, and many folks want to pay nearly nothing for it.
Its all about expectation. Anyway, thats all i'll say, this has got a bit off topic, but it just makes me a bit angry and disappointed when people make broad sweeping comments about large groups of people based on race.
-
I have had sufficient challenges dealing with Chinese vendors that I will avoid it if at all possible. I will pay extra to avoid dealing with Chinese products and companies. There is too little time to bother with the expected silly businesses and terrible products that are so common. There are some gems in there somewhere, but I will not take the time and financial risks digging for a sliver of gold.
I do keep my eyes on what others experience so I can see if any good stuff surfaces. There is also the fact that a number of my own products have been copied (very poorly) in China and sold for less than my hard costs.
Neoden sort of seems like they are paving their own road which is good. They need to focus on making the product good, not cheap. After it is a good product that is stable and meets the needs of the target market, then they can do some post cost engineering to finalize the margins. This machine is a good start, but I would be scared if my business depended on it.
-
Its all about expectation. Anyway, thats all i'll say, this has got a bit off topic, but it just makes me a bit angry and disappointed when people make broad sweeping comments about large groups of people based on race.
I can only go by my average experience when I am making a business decision. There is no way for me to know anything about the individuals and the nuances of the culture. I do know my own experiences dealing with Chinese companies and what I see out in the wild. While it is true that bad things and bad people are scattered all over the world, I have seen a heavier concentration in China. I cannot afford to take risks so I don't do it. There are a number of other companies that I have worked with that have taken the time to find the gold in China but not without kissing a number of frogs.
Trust is earned. I put China on my blacklist based on actual experiences. This of course is very sweeping but what else should I do? When I start hearing more good stories than bad, I will give them a chance with a low-value project.
-
The ironic thing is that very few Chinese will object to what I have stated because the majority believe it to be true. The majority of Chinese people don't trust Chinese suppliers. End of story. Case in point, baby formula. They are buying it by the truckload from all over the world, especially from Japan because they don't trust local brands and suppliers. Google "2008 Chinese Milk Scandal" for reference, which made international headlines. These types of occurrences happen with such a frequency that consumer confidence for Chinese brands in China is at an all time low. I believe what you are seeing with the whole German VW emissions debacle is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, whereas the Chinese people get confronted with that level of deceit on a weekly basis. Anyway, enough said.
-
Still some of the most high end products where western companies charge high prices for and have excellent quality are made in China. A lot of western companies let their products be made in China.
You just need to know who you are dealing with and most of us do not know that.
-
I get some pretty high quality and good priced solar products out of China. To date I have not received less than expected, I do consider my self lucky.
I feel getting a good quality PNP out of China is certainly a possibility but it's to early to tell since so few people in the USA have them and have shared their experience.
@TheSteve Any updates on your NeoDen4 progress?
Also can any of the more experienced guys give any commend on how much money and frustration a 5-10K machine with Vision that worked correctly could save a small business who may have a need to make up to lets say 10-100 boards a month?
I know having your own machine can cut down on how long you have to wait to get the boards completed but I'm not sure how much money one could expect to possibly save. I'm sure it depends on what type of board your producing but I would love some real world feedback on this aspect of having a small in house PNP machine.
Here are some more videos of the CharmHigh System and what the vision looks like while operating:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODc2MjUyMDU2.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2 (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODc2MjUyMDU2.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2)
Here is a video showing it using both heads with the vision: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODM4MTMzNTA0.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2#paction (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODM4MTMzNTA0.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2#paction)
And here is a 15 min video of a guy showing you how to setup the Charmhigh machine via the built in computer. He speaks in a foreign language. I wonder if YouTube could transcribe it automatically?
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODgwNTIyMzg0.html?from=y7.7-1-102.4.1-1.12-1-2-0&x (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODgwNTIyMzg0.html?from=y7.7-1-102.4.1-1.12-1-2-0&x)
And one more video of the machine in action: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI1NzcxNjgyNA==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2 (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI1NzcxNjgyNA==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2)
To me this machine and the NeoDen 4 look to be some of the best small vision based machines on the market.
CharmHigh emailed me back with the user manual for the system were seeing in the above videos. Here is a link to that user manual if anybody wants to look it over.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgnof608x1isilu/Charmhigh%20Automatic%20Chip%20Mounter%EF%BC%88CHMT48VA%EF%BC%89Operating%20Manual%28new150922%29.pdf?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgnof608x1isilu/Charmhigh%20Automatic%20Chip%20Mounter%EF%BC%88CHMT48VA%EF%BC%89Operating%20Manual%28new150922%29.pdf?dl=0)
-
Just was wondering if you guys had read up on this machine:
http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/vision-placer-vp-2x00d/ (http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/vision-placer-vp-2x00d/)
I've only seen it listed over on the dangerous prototypes forum.
They have a few different models but I'm interested in the high end ones.
Unfortunately it requires a PC to run and it's not a quad head system.They're also using shafts on the higher end models so there's no belt to change but perhaps it's not a big deal to swap a belt?
It looks like it has working vision and also the 15mm vertical clearance (at least that's how I read it in the spec)
Also the largest setup can handle (I believe) 81 different parts!
That's the big issues I have with the neoden 4. It can't handle a ton of parts.
I'm hoping to be able to afford one of these later this year so i very much I appreciate the discussion of you guys who know more about it than I do.
-
I was able to verify that the CharmHigh CHMT48VA machine just like the NeoDen 4 has a maximum part height of 5mm. See her reply below.
Our machine highest component is 5mm. If over 5mm height, not very much suitable for mounting.
------------------
Best regards,
Kimi Liu
kimi@charmhigh-tech.com
Tel: +86 135 106 75756
Skype: kimiliu89
Kimi responded to my first email within a 12 hours so they are responsive.
-
@spool_of_wire I had come across this before but lost the link. Thanks for providing it. I really like the screw drives (or spindles) for X-Y movement. I also like the fact it uses Samsung industry standard pickup nozzles. What I don't like is the fact that they have this pneumatic push feeder (a single one per north/west/south quadrant) that is back on a belt drive! I like the simplicity of a pull pin and solenoid over this solution and it also does not appear to improve their placement performance of 2000 CPH. The other issue that I see is that the reels are not attached and need to be mounted external to the machine. There is also no takeup reels for the tape covering. It looks quite messy. They claim a vertical pickup clearance of 15mm and a maximum component height of 12mm. Their software seems to be very impressive and allows you to select various optimization strategies. I think this machine is worth a further look.
-
VisionBot (http://visionbot.net/ (http://visionbot.net/)) is another one running around one those boards. It seems further towards the hobby end of the spectrum, but maybe that meets someone's needs..
Perhaps we should break up into separate threads for separate machines? Or maybe start collecting the reviews on the Wiki?
-
@TheSteve Any updates on your NeoDen4 progress?
Progress has been slow, we're still trying to get fiducial markings to work as we expect them to.
-
5 mm, I think it's for the components that are in the tape. Because they used pressure spring. And that size limits high component.
-
@TheSteve Any updates on your NeoDen4 progress?
Progress has been slow, we're still trying to get fiducial markings to work as we expect them to.
What specifically is the issue? I've got a NeoDen4 en route to me as we speak so I am also hoping to document any issues I run into, which will hopefully not duplicate of your issues.
-
@TheSteve & @MTNElectronics Can either of you guys speak about what your major motivation was behind purchasing the NeoDen4?
Was it the time savings of being able to run your own boards?
Was it the cost savings over having to pay a 3rd party to do this for you?
Was it that you like electronics and just wanted to buy a new toy?
I'm just getting into manufacturing my own PCB's for some products I'm building so I'm interested in hearing about how much time and money a reliable PNP machine can save you.
Any info on this subject is greatly appreciated :)
-
Ive gone full circle on this in the last few days, From liking to hating and back to liking.
the board size and 5mm limit were starting to worry me. Yesterday i sat down and made 12 boards, using my Manual PNP ( Dima FP-600). And it occurs me me that the combination of A low cost automatic Pnp Like this neoden, coupled up with a manual PNP might be a good idea. The manual PNP can handle the exceptions, the odd ball stuff. As a general rule they end up only being a few of the parts anyway, and if 95% of the parts are placed automatically its probably not all bad.
When we go to larger volumes ( > 500 boards ) then its time to send them to the factory.
-
I do not have the Neoden4, but I do have a sub $10k pick and place for my small business. In general, I needed one for a few reasons.
1. Small batches are slow and expensive.
The setup of the machine is not trivial and must be paid for. It is a small amount if you are doing a bunch of boards or your boards are very simple. My typical boards (6 different designs) are all double sided and odd shaped and low-volume. I have a high mix from 0201 passives to 56mm connectors. Various fine pith parts. To send a PCB to a CM, you need to document it and kit it (gather the parts and organize them). This is a slow process and very unforgiving so it needs to be done well. Not difficult, but time consuming. On the other end, the CM has to go through your kit and match everything up, verify that the parts are place-able, maybe splice short tapes, or whatever they need to do to prep the job for their system. The parts need to be over-supplied to make sure that you have enough. They will then put the job into the system, put the parts down, cook them, and send them to you. That is when you find out if your diodes are the right way or the wrong way - after it is all said and done a week or two after you start. If you are like me, needing 15pcs or 3 different PCBs, it's expensive, slow, and attracts problems if you don't pay attention to the tiniest of details.
2. I need to verify the 1st board before the rest are run. Most of my designs are new and may need tweaks.
Many of my PCBs are fresh and new designs that may need some decisions made on the fly. I could build a few manually on my bench and do all the testing/documentation or have a P&P line in-house that allows me to run one PCB, do the tests and changes and then just go run 10-15 more immediately. If the board is really not right, I can simply stop with no penalty.
3. I need assembly RIGHT NOW and be able to make changes immediately.
The PCBs I make are fairly high-cost so I really only want to make slightly more than what the current sales demand is. If I get a big sale, I can be making PCB's in minutes and all is well. With a CM, I would have to wait on whatever their schedule is and/or pay big bucks to expedite to the front of the line.
Having a P&P has turned out to be a very good decision for my little operation. It did not, however, come easy. The P&P machine itself is the fancy center of attention, but PCB assembly is a process with a lot of moving parts and skills. Managing the parts, paste printing, setup, inspection, etc. Tons of details regardless of what type of machine you have in the middle. It, like most things in manufacturing, is unforgiving. A few days ago, I made a batch of boards and forgot to check some SOD323 diodes that were backward. I had to manually repair all the boards which is of course a slow process. Best to catch silly mistakes on the first board, don't get lazy or impatient.
My line has just recently come up to full speed. Now I am focused on the details of physical organization of the pieces, parts, and machines involved to optimize the process for reliability and speed. Going from manual assembly to P&P, one of the biggest challenges was to keep track of how many parts I have. Passives are easy because they are cheap and easy to keep many 1000's on hand. For expensive silicon, I need to be more precise. I have created my own software solution that helps keep count but it is hard. Current active part list is about 120 or so.
A comment on the Neoden4 and others with small capacity. The machine I got was chosen largely because I could put a whole bunch of parts in it. The goal was to get enough parts in the machine to do all of my 'normal' designs without having to re-configure the machine. This required some tweaks and special holders but I did it. I can get around 110 parts in the machine which drastically reduces setup time (nearly zero) when running a batch of 6 different boards. As for speed, it does not matter much in my little world. My single head machine perfectly optimized can do 3600CPH. I run it slow (fewer mis-picks and less wear) at about 1000-1200CPH. At that rate I can still barely keep up with all the ancillary processes - baking, inspection, testing, printing.
I estimated that the financial and time cost of the machine will break even in about 2 months for my operation. It's tough to do a solid analysis, but that is about right. That includes the month of my time it took to get up and running (my machine was used/broken and needed many repairs).
The Neoden4 seems like a good value overall. If used wisely, can be a good stepping stone for a small business. Don't be naive to the challenge though. It does not make PCB's by magic, it still takes a lot of work which is true of ANY P&P machine.
-
I do not have the Neoden4, but I do have a sub $10k pick and place for my small business. In general, I needed one for a few reasons.
What do you have again.. maybe you said, but i can't remember.
-
Following on from rx8pilot's comments about having in-house P&P - totally agree with all those points. Another aspect is when you're doing small batches, it is very important to have a streamlined process for setup.
e.g. matching your PCB part library to the machine's library, with not just correct outline sizes, but different variants for different heights and vision attributes (e.g. caps vs. resistors in 0805), and polarities matched to feeder orientations so you know parts will be placed the right way round.
This is why software quality and documented file formats are probably more important on a low-end machine, as setup will often be a significant part of total end-to-end job time. You therefore want to set up a streamlined process, maybe with a bit of your own software to make conversion from PCB software pick/place report to file that the P&P machine wants, ideally including fiducial points, panelisation etc.
I'm just in the middle of a job that started from nothing last Monday afternoon - Design finalised Tues, PCB layout sent to local PCB place Wed AM, Firmware done Thurs/Fri, PCBs received today and 72 PCBs are now assembled, programmed and tested (including jigging to support large thin PCB panel), ready to be delivered to customer Monday.
Try doing that with a subcontractor!
-
Quad 4000C (An updated IV-C from Precision Placement Machines)
Manufactured late 90's, converted to Windows in 2009. Super flexible machine, but very clunky software. Stable and relatively bug-free, but strange and non-intuitive. Up and down vision but the real magic is the 'Quad Align' which is a head mounted side scanner that aligns the parts while traveling. I rarely need the up camera since the side scanner can nail just about any part.
Tall parts, wide parts, no problem. Heavy parts, no problem. 1005 passive, no problems. Quick programming, problem. Need to move the machine, problem.
EDIT: Quick programming can happen, it just required a lot of work on my part to get there. The learning curve is rather steep on may chosen machine. Things you would think are simple are carried out in seemingly endless steps. The scripts that I made and on-machine templates have vastly improved this.
Image was the day I picked it up, totally unusable.
-
Another aspect is when you're doing small batches, it is very important to have a streamlined process for setup.
e.g. matching your PCB part library to the machine's library, with not just correct outline sizes, but different variants for different heights and vision attributes (e.g. caps vs. resistors in 0805), and polarities matched to feeder orientations so you know parts will be placed the right way round.
HUGE! Great point.
I spent a considerable effort designing the library to match my MRP and EDA software. I wrote some scripts to automate the process of getting the design data into the exact format needed for the P&P. The up-front effort has a big payoff when you have that fast turnaround project like mikeselectricstuff just mentioned. I can now have my machine programmed very fast and totally setup when the PCB's arrive from fab. You can use a paper print of the PCB to verify programming ahead of the actual PCB.
-
@TheSteve Any updates on your NeoDen4 progress?
Progress has been slow, we're still trying to get fiducial markings to work as we expect them to.
What specifically is the issue? I've got a NeoDen4 en route to me as we speak so I am also hoping to document any issues I run into, which will hopefully not duplicate of your issues.
We had an issue where parts never really ended up where we wanted them, or where they should be. That specific problem may have resulted because we created our data and then updated to a newer software version but it left behind some board alignment data in the CSV file. We are not really sure where it came from. We do know there is an alignment button now greyed out in the newer versions that wasn't before.
So with that solved we had parts close but still in the wrong places. At that point we stopped following the video instructions and tried some other ways of setting it up. That lead to much greater results but still with one problem. The parts tend to walk to the left on the X axis as we go up the Y axis. This is occurs even with the use of fiducials. The panel we have been testing with can be seen in one of the pics I posted previously. It is 3 boards in a 1x3 matrix. We were using the fiducials at the edges of the panel. The last thing we tried was using fiducial markings on each board instead of the panel. This seems to make the placement plenty usable but does leave doubt in my mind over larger boards as these really aren't that big. The smallest passives we place are 0603 and the finest pitch IC is the FTDI FT232RL which is TSSOP28 0.65mm.
-
We had an issue where parts never really ended up where we wanted them, or where they should be.
That is somewhat of a serious issue for a PNP machine.
-
We had an issue where parts never really ended up where we wanted them, or where they should be.
That is somewhat of a serious issue for a PNP machine.
Agreed!
Yet at times it has placed parts perfectly. I feel like we may be hitting a software bug or something, I have seen enough to know the hardware is capable of producing results. I do believe in time the issues will get resolved. Once a few people have the machine we can compare results. We are also learning what speeds we can run the machine at, the defaults are pretty much 100% on everything which just isn't possible.
-
We use Assembleon Topaz. It's also possible to compare with Neoden TM-240A. Then of course the pros have won (Topaz), without a doubt.
TM-240A helps to reduce the time for passive parts only.
Now we think of Neoden 4. I'm worried that there is still need to work on soft.
I think not provide high accuracy even for 0201, 0402 size.
For deviations from the reper (feducial) marks, found themselves a problem on PCB also.
Possibilities of producing PCB isn't all perfect. Then any P&P automat not guilty.
-
I'm just in the middle of a job that started from nothing last Monday afternoon - Design finalised Tues, PCB layout sent to local PCB place Wed AM, Firmware done Thurs/Fri, PCBs received today and 72 PCBs are now assembled, programmed and tested (including jigging to support large thin PCB panel), ready to be delivered to customer Monday.
Try doing that with a subcontractor!
Now I am convinced you have a huge S on your shirt. Incredible. :)
-
I'm just in the middle of a job that started from nothing last Monday afternoon - Design finalised Tues, PCB layout sent to local PCB place Wed AM, Firmware done Thurs/Fri, PCBs received today and 72 PCBs are now assembled, programmed and tested (including jigging to support large thin PCB panel), ready to be delivered to customer Monday.
Try doing that with a subcontractor!
Depends where you are. :)
-
@TheSteve: I hope that your issues are resolved quickly. It is a bit discouraging to hear about the fiducial recognition and accuracy problems.
I already have a LitePlacer and was hoping that this machine would be a little bit more "turn key" than that one was (it is a kit, so issues were to be expected :) ). It took me 100+ hours to build that one and get it working well. I still use it a bit, but for the type of boards I build I realized in a hurry that I needed feeders---I spend way too much time reloading and playing around with that side of things. How NeoDen responds to these issues will be telling. I'm not naive enough to expect a perfect or easy experience out of the box, but I was hoping that most of the issues would be with my understanding of the machine and not the machine itself.
-
I already have a LitePlacer and was hoping that this machine would be a little bit more "turn key" than that one was (it is a kit, so issues were to be expected :) ). It took me 100+ hours to build that one and get it working well. I still use it a bit, but for the type of boards I build I realized in a hurry that I needed feeders---I spend way too much time reloading and playing around with that side of things.
Do you have a write up of your LitePlacer experiences?
-
@Royce Here is a thread that I started about the Light Placer :http://liteplacer.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=226
-
I already have a LitePlacer and was hoping that this machine would be a little bit more "turn key" than that one was (it is a kit, so issues were to be expected :) ). It took me 100+ hours to build that one and get it working well. I still use it a bit, but for the type of boards I build I realized in a hurry that I needed feeders---I spend way too much time reloading and playing around with that side of things.
Do you have a write up of your LitePlacer experiences?
No, I don't have a writeup. The mechanical build instructions were very well laid out, and although that part took a long time it was fairly frustration free. I spent a lot of time during the build making sure that everything had thread locker on it, was square, etc.
After the mechanical build portion was finished, the instructions on the electrical side were a lot less clear. I got everything hooked up but had several different issues with program crashes, loss of communication, poor accuracy, inability to get cameras to work correctly, etc. The cameras that came with the kit simply did not work well, and upgrading them was very helpful. I also upgraded a few other things, like adding a separate buck controller to be able to adjust the LED brightness, among others. I had a few faulty and missing parts, which were quickly replaced at no cost to me. It was a lot for me to take in because I had no experience with stepper motors, pick and place machines, etc. I would have been absolutely lost without the support forum and without the support of the machine's creator (Juha), who was very responsive all along the way.
It is a unique machine because it can be customized to do pretty much anything you want, as long as you are willing to take the time to learn the quirks and get it set up correctly. For me, the biggest detractor is the lack of feeders. I do a lot of small boards that have a component count of only 6-8 different SMD components, and I found out quickly that I was getting sick of reloading the tapes all the time. It would be an even better value for someone who does boards with lots of different components who doesn't have the budget for a machine with dozens of feeders, but I am at the point now where I want to load a reel of 5000 parts and let it run for a while.
I will probably end up selling the Liteplacer after I get the NeoDen up and running. It is a good machine, but just not the best fit for my needs. The speed isn't super fast (I don't run it at 100% speed usually), but it is plenty fast for anything I need (even 300-500 cph would be enough to keep up with the other steps of my process and would allow me to do other things during that time, so a 5000cph machine isn't really necessary for me).
-
Just was wondering if you guys had read up on this machine:
http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/vision-placer-vp-2x00d/ (http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/vision-placer-vp-2x00d/)
I'm hoping to be able to afford one of these later this year so i very much I appreciate the discussion of you guys who know more about it than I do.
Does anyone know of one of these in the wild? On paper at least this machine is a better fit for me than the Neoden 4. I'm In China in Late Feb, and i'm thinking that i might go and check these guys out. Its not too far out of my way, and would be a good day trip.
I'm not adverse to it running on a PC. I do really like that it will support a very large number of reels. Even if its a bit slow.
-
Some inaccuracies installation of parts you want? Then yes.
I wondered where does throw a component?
If it isn't successful. Where trashbox? I don't find this.
-
Hi I am Michael the engineer behind smallsmt.
We have a drop box location on the north feeder side you only need to add a box.
The machine speed is up to 3600 parts per hour for one head without vision but we have 2 heads.
Please review our posting on twitter.
If you like to ask me anything about the machines feel free to contact me.
Check my knowledge on Dangerousprototypes.com my username is supertronic
We do a web meeting for every customer who want to see machine and software working.
Ask me for a date it's for free no problem.
You can visit me in Germany too!
https://twitter.com/smallsmt/status/691733948074954753
Best regards
Michael
-
Does anyone know of one of these in the wild? On paper at least this machine is a better fit for me than the Neoden 4. I'm In China in Late Feb, and i'm thinking that i might go and check these guys out. Its not too far out of my way, and would be a good day trip.
I'm not adverse to it running on a PC. I do really like that it will support a very large number of reels. Even if its a bit slow.
After I made the post you originally quoted me on I got a pm at the dangerous prototypes forum from Michael (Smallsmt engineer).
He's a very up front guy and not pushy and was very open. Which I'd say is much better than a few other sellers of pnp machines who seem to just be pushing their business. He had said that they had about 120 in Asia and 24 overseas. Before I make a commitment to purchase one I'd really like all the feedback I can get. This is a big enough purchase for me that I can't afford to make a mistake. (I won't be able to afford another one)
If you post here (or start a new thread on another forum) pm me as I'd be interested in following it.
-J
-
@SmallSMT Do you have any videos of your machine in action? Would love to see some if you do! :)
-
If i get this right, this is German Engineered, and made in China?
NB, theres some videos on their twitter page.
I've started a new thread over here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/smallsmt-discussion-thread/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/smallsmt-discussion-thread/)
-
I am pleased to report we had some pretty decent success today, there is light at the end of the tunnel! It also built our boards a little quicker then the Juki 570L did and we should still still be able to speed it up.
-
Hi,
( First post :) )
I own a small comapny making solutions for drones as a hobby/extra job..
It's growing too big for me to hand assemble the units, and i'm looking into a small pick&place unit to help save some time on larger batches..
Is the Neo4 getting to the point where the software is ready to be used for production ? I've read all the posts in this thread, and i'm more or less convinced that it will get there eventually..
@TheSteve - how's Progress with the unit, and which issues have been solved with the "light at the end of the tunnel" ? ;)
Will follow this thread closely from now on..!
I need to Invest in a PnP somewhat around Q2 this year, so hopefully it has all been solved by that time :)
Can't wait to hear more about these smaller PnP's.. Keep the info rolling.. ;)
--
OCMaster85
-
I am pleased to report we had some pretty decent success today, there is light at the end of the tunnel! It also built our boards a little quicker then the Juki 570L did and we should still still be able to speed it up.
Good day TheSteve,
I posted this question before, but you did not respond... I was curious why you decided to abandon your Juki in favor of the Neoden? I ask, as one of the issues I see with these non main stream PnP machines is the lack of outside support and also I do not find them that much cheaper than an older PnP. The Juki/Zevatechs, although older machines, one can still get local or third part support for repairs, parts, ,etc. Adding to these these older machines are built like tanks and simply work. The negative side to them is that they are older and so the software is dated (i.e. DOS 6.3!) and are perhaps slower... but for some... like me... total CPH or placement speed is not really a big issue. A big plus for me is that my 575 can be loaded on all four sides and so I can load over 100 8mm feeders (less if 12mm or larger).
Anyway, I was just curious as to your rationale for the migration to the smaller non mainstream PnP machines.
Cheers,
Sam
-
Quite simply it was the size. We can easily move the Neoden around and get it through standard sized doors.
-
I hear that. My Quad is 1200 pounds and much bigger than a standard door. Moving it even a little bit is a project.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
@TheSteve So do you feel like you have most of the kinks worked out of the NeoDen 4 machine now? Enough that you can run your boards without issues?
Next time you run the machine can you take a picture of the what your finished panel looks like? A video would be awesome to if that's easy for you to do.
Is 60 feeders enough for you or do you wish you had more like 100?
How about NeoDen's latest software? Do you feel like you have a good handle on it now?
And @MTNElectronics - When do you expect to have your NeoDen 4 delivered and up and running? What kind of boards and what size parts do you plan on placing? Hoping that you share your experiences with the machine also. Hopefully with @TheSteve's help you can be up and running much quicker.
-
I noticed a few people mentioned the SmallSMT machine. They are a evolving rebrand of a machine made by Yushengtech in China. In any case, Yushengtech / HotHotSMT / SmallSMT are the same company / people.
A new individual has come on board, his name is Michael, and he is a very intelligent individual. However the machine maker he works with are not so reputable.
I bought the Yushengtech branded machine via HotHotSMT and got a decent mechanical machine. It definately needed some mechanical / software calibration, but after a few hours, I got things moving pretty accurately. When I had questions regarding setup, I was asked to contact Michael at SmallSMT for support.
The software / controller for the machine was to be a version of OurSMT (www.oursmt.com (http://www.oursmt.com)). Yushengtech / HotHotSMT promised free software updates both in their advertising and sales process.
Now for the problems....
First problem was nozzles. I ordered and paid for three full sets of nozzles for the machine. When I received the machine, only one set was included. I emailed the sales person (Sunny) and told her that the nozzles were missing. I was promptly told that they would not send me the nozzles unless I ordered other spare parts and paid the shipping. It wasn't about the cost of the nozzles or the shipping. It is the principle that they sold them to me, forgot to send them, and then wouldn't admit fault, and send me the nozzles and eat the shipping.
Then the real problems started. The camera switching board would not switch camera channels. The machine uses two composite video cameras for top and bottom vision. The board uses a couple of relays to switch the video feed to the USB video capture card connected to the PC. Once again, the manufacturer would not send a new video switching card unless I sent the old one back, and paid shipping for both the return and the new pieces. Anyhow, I disconnected the board and removed it from the machine. It was a combination of through hole and smd components. Everything was hand soldered using an iron, flux everywhere, and the solder joints were three times the height of the smd components themselves. Turns out there were some (2) cold joints on the board, and they melted the side of one of the relays with the iron. I ended up fixing myself with a new relay, and some fresh solder work. But in any case, bad customer service.
Next came the software. Under ideal lighting conditions, I could get the fidicual recognition to work 50% of the time. 805 resistor and cap bottom vision worked about 90% of the time, but other components were hit or miss. I hoped that a software update would fix some of the problems as the version supplied with the machine was a few revisions old from what was advertised by the software maker.
This is when shit hit the fan. The software update feature always indicated the software was current. So I contacted the sales rep (Sunny) and she did not return my emails regarding software. So I contacted the software manufacturer. After a instant message conversation with the sales person at OurSMT, I was clearly told that they would not update any software supplied by Yushengtech, but was not told why. After about an hour of asking questions, I was finally told that Yushengtech bought a single copy of the software, hacked / copied the protection dongle and shipped pirated versions to clients. The only way I would get updates was if I bought a new copy of the software for $800USD.
In any case, I would not buy from them. I complained to Michael, and he knew of the software issues. He did offer a big discount if I purchased a new upgraded machine with their new in-house software. This was appreciated, however, the new machine was more than the machine I allready paid for, even with the discount. I did not trust the manufacturer anymore at this point, so I declined.
I am 90% complete at converting the machine to OpenPNP.org software. I am losing bottom vision for the time being, as it is in development at the moment, but everything else works better than before, and at least if there is an issue / bug, I can edit the code. Also, the lead developer of openPNP (Jason) is fantastic.
Anyhow, that is my $0.02 worth regarding this specific PNP. Take from it what you will.
I do have high hopes for the Neoden. I really wish they made the software better. At the moment, it looks pretty basic, and honestly, they should not release a machine with half baked software. But if they can get the bugs out, I hope they do well, because the mechanical product itself looks really good.
-
@ttsthermaltech Thanks so much for the honest real world review and experience.
You certainly swayed my decision back towards the NeoDen & CharmHigh machines.
-
RWB,
Personally, I think Neoden is the only China based small PNP company trying to keep a reputation intact. Albeit their previous machines are not marvels of technology, they do seem to be supported well, and do what they are supposed to do, within the confines of non-vision placement.
I don't own a Neoden, but am considering it. I am fortunately in very close proximity to Steve and his new Neoden (about 20km) so I am trying to find the time to go check it out. Steve was kind enough to put me in touch with the owner of his company, and I intend to make the effort to visit them. I must admit, Steve has been very forthcoming with info, and also with extending the olive branch to put me in touch with his boss.
With regards to PNP's, the electro-mechanical systems are pretty simple. Its all software. The best pnp hardware is just a brick without good software.
-
MM. You've jumped in here on January 08, 2016, 04:03:29 AM. And made two posts.. Bo
Are you you must be Robert? ( https://github.com/openfeeder-org/openFeeder-org-V0.0.1 )
Just need to take everything on the internet with a grain of salt, and there will be a 2nd side to this story. Lets see what micheal has to say.
RWB,
Personally, I think Neoden is the only China based small PNP company trying to keep a reputation intact. Albeit their previous machines are not marvels of technology, they do seem to be supported well, and do what they are supposed to do, within the confines of non-vision placement.
I don't own a Neoden, but am considering it. I am fortunately in very close proximity to Steve and his new Neoden (about 20km) so I am trying to find the time to go check it out. Steve was kind enough to put me in touch with the owner of his company, and I intend to make the effort to visit them. I must admit, Steve has been very forthcoming with info, and also with extending the olive branch to put me in touch with his boss.
With regards to PNP's, the electro-mechanical systems are pretty simple. Its all software. The best pnp hardware is just a brick without good software.
-
nb, love to hear more of your story, we are always on line on irc in freenode #openpnp
-
With regards to PNP's, the electro-mechanical systems are pretty simple. Its all software. The best pnp hardware is just a brick without good software.
Conceptually simple. The nuances are not simple. I came to EE after 10 years of mechanical including owning my own manufacturing facility. The mechanics of a good machine have to be excellent. The mechanics of a great machine have to be absolutely jaw dropping. Hitting the same spot a million time in a row is not all that easy. Ball screws and linear encoders (IMHO) are very important. Linear guides are also important - I don't see any of that on the Neoden (although I could be wrong). It looks like a belt/pulley system on end-supported shafts with linear bearings. Meh.
With that said, bad software can kill the best hardware in an instant and great software can not make up for marginal hardware.
My hope and dream in the PnP arena is that someone will focus on making a great small machine designed for small businesses. Don't design solely to be the cheapest on the market. Design it to work well and be a good value. Neoden seems to be moving up, but it appears they need to run a few more laps to get a solid system out there. Something that is around $20-$25k all-in with a bunch of feeders and nice software would have my order. Nozzle changers, flexible programming, cut tape, tubes, tall parts, wide parts, easy change-over. It does not need to be the fastest horse in the race with a gazillion heads - it needs to be VERY reliable and easy to operate. 10,000CPH 'rating' is useless if you are always fiddling with it. To keep up with 10,000CPH - all other processes from printing to oven have to keep up as well.
My Quad won't last forever and I hope that there is a solid option to replace it when the time comes.
-
With regards to PNP's, the electro-mechanical systems are pretty simple. Its all software. The best pnp hardware is just a brick without good software.
My hope and dream in the PnP arena is that someone will focus on making a great small machine designed for small businesses. Don't design solely to be the cheapest on the market. Design it to work well and be a good value. Neoden seems to be moving up, but it appears they need to run a few more laps to get a solid system out there. Something that is around $20-$25k all-in with a bunch of feeders and nice software would have my order. Nozzle changers, flexible programming, cut tape, tubes, tall parts, wide parts, easy change-over. It does not need to be the fastest horse in the race with a gazillion heads - it needs to be VERY reliable and easy to operate. 10,000CPH 'rating' is useless if you are always fiddling with it. To keep up with 10,000CPH - all other processes from printing to oven have to keep up as well.
My dream is similar. I did'n see you lurking in the back of my head did i?
-
MrPacketHead.
Yes, I am the one starting the openfeeder.org project. It is a slow work in progress, as work (real job) has me pretty busy. When time permits, I will get the initial design out. Its nothing earth shattering. Just a simple electric feeder design.
Anyhow, I am not too worried about what the manufacturer or any of its employees have to say. I paid for a machine, that really doesn't do what they promised. Since they didn't provide a legitimate copy of the control software, it is pretty easy to place judgement on them. I could have easily forgiven bugs / small mechanical issues. Commercial PNP's get commissioned by trained people before putting into service. One can't expect a small machine to travel thousands of KM's and not get a little out of whack. I was fine with putting the time in to adjust / tweak, but one has to expect that when the make or break moment comes, the software can do the job, or be updated. This is the failure point.
The funny part, is that with a new $100 motion controller (smoothieboard), and some open source software (openPNP) and a weekend of time to rewire, configure, and test, I have the machine working far better than it ever did from the manufacturer. Yes, I am still lacking the bottom vision, but at least the machine functions correctly, can be updated, and is controlled by open source!
PS. Please forgive my overly simplified statement that "the electro-mechanical systems of a PNP are simple". Obviously, there is a large technology gap between tabletop / hobby PNP's that are sub $10K and commercial PNP's costing $500+K. The point I was trying to make was that with the general availability of quality open source motion controllers, stepper drives, and motion components, there is really no excuse for bad hardware. No one is re-inventing the wheel in hobby PNP's. Sure, you can keep throwing more money at a small PNP to get more features, but really, getting 0.1mm resolution these days, even with belts is pretty easy. Making a few hundred placements without losing position is pretty easy as long as you aren't losing steps. But once again, that is a mechanical issue causing grief in the electrical / software world. Where most fail is in the software implementation. As you said, it can make even the best hardware, useless.
Rob.
-
@ttsthermaltech
Dear Robert,
you know your SMT50 is not a SMALLSMT machine and I tried to help you to solve this issue before.
I personally own a SMT50 machine it was my first contact to YUSHENGTECH and started to improve the machines.
This OURSMT controller has no good vision system but my machine placed > 250000 parts so the mechanics was not bad.
At the beginning YUSHENG worked together with OURSMT a Chinese PNP machine controller manufacturer.
Unfortunally OURSMT and YUSHENG separated and OURSMT stopped supporting them.
The reason was OURSMT software had a lot of problems and YUSHENG decided to work together with me to build a new and better quality system.
I never sold any SMT50 and I am sorry for your problems you know!
This is when shit hit the fan. The software update feature always indicated the software was current. So I contacted the sales rep (Sunny) and she did not return my emails regarding software. So I contacted the software manufacturer. After a instant message conversation with the sales person at OurSMT, I was clearly told that they would not update any software supplied by Yushengtech, but was not told why. After about an hour of asking questions, I was finally told that Yushengtech bought a single copy of the software, hacked / copied the protection dongle and shipped pirated versions to clients. The only way I would get updates was if I bought a new copy of the software for $800USD.
I forgot to explain Yusheng bought legal copys because they sold controller software and a soft dog togeteher to YUSHENG.
OURSMT was the problem but that's now history.
I bought software and controller from OURSMT too and hoped to receive better support for the software but they send no updates to mee too.
So i hope you understand I dislike this Chinese business too!
We are different to common Chinese companies we care our customers.
The same story for me with NEODEN i bought a TM240A in 2010 was never satisfied with the performance of my system.
Because of Software problems machine stopped working sometimes had alignment and vibration problems.
I couldn't receive firmware update for my machine and the mechanics was to weak.
That was the main reason to start SMALLSMT!
YUSHENG + SMALLSMT working together we are responsible for development and oversea sales.
HOT HOT SMT is the Chinese company of XIAO JUAN WU (Sunny)
Sunny + me operate SMALLSMT
I hope this is clear enough.
We solve our problems and improve!
Our customers receive after sales support and updates too!
Best Regards
Michael
-
@ttsthermaltech
Dear Robert,
you know your SMT50 is not a SMALLSMT machine
[/quote]
Robert is this correct?
I never sold any SMT50 and I am sorry for your problems you know!
So, Robert your SMT50 which is not a SmallSMT machine, seems like it was a disaster.. But certainly two sides to this story.
"Anyhow, that is my $0.02 worth regarding this specific PNP. Take from it what you will."
So, what we know is not to buy a SMT50 from with the software from another crowd.. How does that relate to SmallSMT's new machines, with new software?
Just curious.
-
How does that relate to SmallSMT's new machines, with new software?
Yusheng developed a complete new controller system based on a ARM 32 bit controller inside machine and windows DotNet software.
The complete machine development is now in one company and our system works good.
You can review in our gallery!
We show working videos too.
Nobody need to buy a machine without having a web meeting with me to demonstrate the performance of our system.
In every business you have unsatisfied customers and I understand Robert.
-
After about an hour of asking questions, I was finally told that Yushengtech bought a single copy of the software, hacked / copied the protection dongle and shipped pirated versions to clients. The only way I would get updates was if I bought a new copy of the software for $800USD.
The other side says this is not factual and the software was not printed at all.
-
@TheSteve So do you feel like you have most of the kinks worked out of the NeoDen 4 machine now? Enough that you can run your boards without issues?
Next time you run the machine can you take a picture of the what your finished panel looks like? A video would be awesome to if that's easy for you to do.
Is 60 feeders enough for you or do you wish you had more like 100?
How about NeoDen's latest software? Do you feel like you have a good handle on it now?
At this point I think we understand how to use the machine better then any tech support at Neoden. The last run we did of a few panels was very successful. We are slowly dialing in the feeder settings and the accuracy issues now seem solved. It's not perfect of course and we could make quite a few suggestions on how to improve the software and just give the machine a better feel over all.
We have the machine almost fully loaded, can add a few more feeders still if needed. At this time we only have three different boards to make, we try to share as many parts as possible. We may have to swap one 16 mm reel to build everything, we have 8mm feeders to spare.
I will try to take a video of the entire build next time we run some boards. Our current panel takes about 6 minutes start to finish.
@ttsthermaltech - if we run some boards next week hopefully you can drop by.
-
@ttsthermaltech - if we run some boards next week hopefully you can drop by.
Does your machine run Windows XP underneath, and is it properly Licenced?
-
@smallsmt
If there are as you state different types/versions of an SMT50 machine from different manufacturers would it not be advisable to at least change the name and or remove any links such as demo videos from the website. A bit odd and raises a lot of questions if you ask me.
-
@smallsmt
If there are as you state different types/versions of an SMT50 machine from different manufacturers would it not be advisable to at least change the name and or remove any links such as demo videos from the website. A bit odd and raises a lot of questions if you ask me.
What web page are you looking at, i can only see the SMallSMT machines?
http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/gallery/ (http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/gallery/)
-
@ttsthermaltech - if we run some boards next week hopefully you can drop by.
Does your machine run Windows XP underneath, and is it properly Licenced?
Yes, the Neoden4 runs Windows XP. I don't recall there being a certificate of authenticity with the machine or a sticker anywhere with a license key. The machine boots to the PnP software and has the shutdown command embedded into the software. It is designed so you have zero interaction with the OS itself. All shortcuts and hotkeys are disabled in the registry(except one...). The install is in chinese so its not the easiest for me to navigate.
-
@smallsmt
If there are as you state different types/versions of an SMT50 machine from different manufacturers would it not be advisable to at least change the name and or remove any links such as demo videos from the website. A bit odd and raises a lot of questions if you ask me.
What web page are you looking at, i can only see the SMallSMT machines?
http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/gallery/ (http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/gallery/)
Ok look to the left it says SMT50 demo.
-
@smallsmt
If there are as you state different types/versions of an SMT50 machine from different manufacturers would it not be advisable to at least change the name and or remove any links such as demo videos from the website. A bit odd and raises a lot of questions if you ask me.
Yes you only see SMALLSMT machine i post the old videos of my SMT50 for education to show how a drag feeding machine works.
And you see it is working!
I remove it soon because it's confusing.
@smallsmt
If there are as you state different types/versions of an SMT50 machine from different manufacturers would it not be advisable to at least change the name and or remove any links such as demo videos from the website. A bit odd and raises a lot of questions if you ask me.
No I think they sold only a few machines in this configuration but i did'nt know exactly because at the time when i bought I was a customer like Robert.
The mechanics of SMT50 machine was build by YUSHENG and the controller and software from OURSMT.
-
@ttsthermaltech - if we run some boards next week hopefully you can drop by.
Does your machine run Windows XP underneath, and is it properly Licenced?
Yes, the Neoden4 runs Windows XP. I don't recall there being a certificate of authenticity with the machine or a sticker anywhere with a license key. The machine boots to the PnP software and has the shutdown command embedded into the software. It is designed so you have zero interaction with the OS itself. All shortcuts and hotkeys are disabled in the registry(except one...). The install is in chinese so its not the easiest for me to navigate.
Mmm , wonder if its legit. If anyone from Neoden is reading this, can you tell us if you are using properly registered WIndows? Without it, the entire machine coudl get be held up by customs on entry. Bogus software is really unhelpful. Also whys it running on an OS that is so old? Microsoft stopped support in 2012
-
Just figured that we have a dealer here on Denmark for NeoDen (pretty new, from Q4 last year they met them in Munick at an electronics fair)
They are currently waiting to recieve the first NeoDen4 unit, since the first one they got they had to return, since it could not get approved within EU standards.. Currently steppers (and last thing as it sounded on the dealer) motors did have too high RFI/EMI ratings.. They are currently fixing this issue at NeoDen and will send a new unit to the Danish dealer.. When setup, we will go and get a demo if it in their showroom..
I think it will be a higher standard, since they won't allow to sell a "half baked" product here in Denmark, since they know they have to deal with the problems coming Down the road.. (they normally deal with Yamaha pnp units)..
Looking forward to hear more in regards to improvements on both hardware and software..!! :)
-
It's not perfect of course and we could make quite a few suggestions on how to improve the software and just give the machine a better feel over all.
Have you fed these back to Neoden? How a company reacts to suggestions for improvement is a very good sign of how well they want to support their customers.
China is notorious for a "just good enough to ship" attitude with no interest in making further improvements.
If they take notice and make improvements based on feedback from their users it will set them way apart from all the other Chinese suppliers.
However I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a reply just explaining how to work around the issues (and them considering this to be good customer service) rather than express any interest in fixing them.
-
If I review this thread it looks like neoden sells a well tested machine and have a good reputation isn't it?
And their dealer in Netherland Uk and Denmark are involved in testing and quality management.
So it should be a good buy?
-
As I mentioned previously, Michael seems to have the best intentions. However, Yushentech still makes the mechanical machine for him. The sales girl (Sunny) from HotHotSMT, whom I bought the Yushentech machine from, is still listed as the sales person for SmallSMT. It is right on the SmallSMT.biz contact page...
Yes the OurSMT software is the problem. It was sold to me with a machine. The seller should be responsible for ensuring that the machine works properly, and that a good relationship is maintained with their vendor. I can only attest to what the OURSMT sales rep indicated to me regarding software. But when my machine arrives with a non-descript dongle, a non-descript CD-ROM with a copy of the software, and no manuals, things start looking like they walk, and talk like a duck...
Maybe things are getting better with the SmallSMT brand. All I know is I got hosed somewhere in the middle.
Also, if Yushentech / HotHotSMT is watching this thread, understand this. Customers are the lifeblood of a company. I am only giving others a complete and honest overview of my experience with the machine you provided. If this truly was a reputable company, they would upgrade the hardware, or a least controls / software free of charge. No questions asked. But I highly doubt this will happen... If it does happen, I would be pleasantly surprised.
-
Windows XP? Is it even possible it is legitimate? I don't think Microsoft is even issuing licensing for that?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
Windows XP? Is it even possible it is legitimate? I don't think Microsoft is even issuing licensing for that?
Could be XP embedded. Or old stock PCs.
-
Could be XP embedded. Or old stock PCs.
Saving money is an artful balance of choices. Delicate choices to balance the cost and benefit in a way that the end result is a good value. Choosing XP is not particularly artful or balanced.
Priority 1: Low cost.
Priority 2: Make it do something useful.
-
My machine was delivered yesterday afternoon and I was up until 2 AM putting it together.
The machine's packaging was excellent. The crate was sturdy and the machine was mounted on rubber isolators. The head was held tightly in place.
The stand, however was another story; it was slightly bent, but I was able to straighten it out, and none of the 30+ M5 screw holes had been tapped, so I had to drill and tap them all before I could assemble it. After that it went together fine, but it was unnecessary work and I'm not very happy about that. The stand is sturdy once assembled. Mine came with the rubber isolation piece and all of the hardware necessary.
The monitor came with a non-US power cord. Luckily it uses the standard PC/Monitor PS cord (I am not sure what the connector is called) and I had an extra laying around. Another oversight.
The machine seems to be put together well and it did boot up and run. The nozzles all seem to both blow and suck correctly (I am on 110V and TheSteve had mentioned that his machine did not blow correctly out of the box). I loaded up one reel of 0805 resistors and a stick of MCUs in the vibratory feeder to give it a go at 1:30 AM (usually a bad idea). I had watched the instruction videos several times before receiving the machine, but I was still lost at a couple of steps. I was able to get it to pick and place a few of the 0805 resistors successfully from the reel feeder before I went to bed, so it's off to at least a decent start. ;)
The machine seems like it moves way too fast on 100%, but I could be wrong. Placement speed is also super fast (without paste the parts go flying sometimes!) I still have a lot to learn about the UI and the quirks of the machine but I'll try report back here as I get some more experience with it.
-
My machine was delivered yesterday afternoon and I was up until 2 AM putting it together.
The machine's packaging was excellent. The crate was sturdy and the machine was mounted on rubber isolators. The head was held tightly in place.
The stand, however was another story; it was slightly bent, but I was able to straighten it out, and none of the 30+ M5 screw holes had been tapped, so I had to drill and tap them all before I could assemble it. After that it went together fine, but it was unnecessary work and I'm not very happy about that. The stand is sturdy once assembled. Mine came with the rubber isolation piece and all of the hardware necessary.
The monitor came with a non-US power cord. Luckily it uses the standard PC/Monitor PS cord (I am not sure what the connector is called) and I had an extra laying around. Another oversight.
The machine seems to be put together well and it did boot up and run. The nozzles all seem to both blow and suck correctly (I am on 110V and TheSteve had mentioned that his machine did not blow correctly out of the box). I loaded up one reel of 0805 resistors and a stick of MCUs in the vibratory feeder to give it a go at 1:30 AM (usually a bad idea). I had watched the instruction videos several times before receiving the machine, but I was still lost at a couple of steps. I was able to get it to pick and place a few of the 0805 resistors successfully from the reel feeder before I went to bed, so it's off to at least a decent start. ;)
The machine seems like it moves way too fast on 100%, but I could be wrong. Placement speed is also super fast (without paste the parts go flying sometimes!) I still have a lot to learn about the UI and the quirks of the machine but I'll try report back here as I get some more experience with it.
Did you see any evidence of the xp being genuine. This is really quite disconcerting that they might be shipping bogus copies of windows?
-
I agree here. Today need W10, W7 wouldn't want to. Maybe they have problems with the periphery, not all drivers completed yet at W10.
-
Maybe things are getting better with the SmallSMT brand. All I know is I got hosed somewhere in the middle.
I'm sorry if i've come across this the wrong way, but having re-read your posts yet again, I still feel like you think that Micheal and his company SmallSMT have some resposnbility for what happened with your OurSMT based machine. . Sunny the sales person has moved from one company to another, thats quite normal, and i'd guess she had no ability or authority to fix your problem...
To set the record really clear, do you, or do you not think SmallSMT has any responbility for your problem with your SMT50?
A. Yes
B. No.
-
Did you see any evidence of the xp being genuine. This is really quite disconcerting that they might be shipping bogus copies of windows?
I think we should just ask NeoDen what is going on with it and then see if their answer holds up instead of speculating. It seems like it would be a foolish thing to do, but then again the general Chinese business culture is a bit different than what most of us are used to dealing with.
-
Did you see any evidence of the xp being genuine. This is really quite disconcerting that they might be shipping bogus copies of windows?
I think we should just ask NeoDen what is going on with it and then see if their answer holds up instead of speculating. It seems like it would be a foolish thing to do, but then again the general Chinese business culture is a bit different than what most of us are used to dealing with.
IN deed. Neoden are you listening?
-
Obviously having properly licensed software is important but the version of the OS is totally irrelevant in this case as its designed so you don't see or interact with it at all.
@MTNELECTRONICS - the Z axis really fires those parts home by default! I recommend slowing everything down to start with, the defaults are pretty aggressive and possibly unrealistic.
It is nice you received all of the parts, sucks about the holes not being threaded properly.
My first impression of the machine is still that it is very "cute" - it just seems so small compared to all of the other machines I have had exposure to.
When you get a chance can you possibly post the pressure numbers you get for the "suck" and blow" tests(with the nozzles blocked of course).
You will want to turn the brightness down to 70% or so for the upward facing camera.
-
At no point did I say that SmallSMT was at fault. Nor will I say that now. I did not buy from them.
However, I bought a machine from Sunny (HotHotSMT) which sold me a machine made by Yushengtech. Both Sunny / Yushengtech would not stand behind the product that they sold me. Take a look at the Yushengtech website (www.yushengtech.com (http://www.yushengtech.com)) and you will find the exact machine that SmallSMT is offering.
Also, as said, Sunny now is working with SmallSMT. Maybe Michael runs his company differently. In all honesty, every time I talked to him he tried to be helpful. Michael got thrown into this as HotHotSMT / Yushengtech forwarded me to Michael for tech support when the machine did not operate correctly. So it becomes a endless circle.
But right now, to me, the only difference is that Yushengtech is hiding their sales behind another company name.
If Michael comes out and says that he buys the hardware from Yushengtech, and does all the controls and software development in Germany, then I will leave this topic alone. But if Yushengtech is doing both the hardware and software in China, then it is hard to say that they didn't leave me (and likely others) out in the cold.
In reality, they could have easily offered an upgrade to existing customers, but they didn't even consider making their new controls / software backward compatible. They (Yushengtech / HotHotSMT) just stopped answering emails.
Anyhow we will see how this plays out.
Rob.
Maybe things are getting better with the SmallSMT brand. All I know is I got hosed somewhere in the middle.
I'm sorry if i've come across this the wrong way, but having re-read your posts yet again, I still feel like you think that Micheal and his company SmallSMT have some resposnbility for what happened with your OurSMT based machine. . Sunny the sales person has moved from one company to another, thats quite normal, and i'd guess she had no ability or authority to fix your problem...
To set the record really clear, do you, or do you not think SmallSMT has any responbility for your problem with your SMT50?
A. Yes
B. No.
-
Obviously having properly licensed software is important but the version of the OS is totally irrelevant in this case as its designed so you don't see or interact with it at all.
..until you plug it into a network...
-
THankyou for clarifiying. Your original post was very unclear.
At no point did I say that SmallSMT was at fault. Nor will I say that now. I did not buy from them.
This is what you originally posted.
I noticed a few people mentioned the SmallSMT machine. They are a evolving rebrand of a machine made by Yushengtech in China. In any case, Yushengtech / HotHotSMT / SmallSMT are the same company / people.
A new individual has come on board, his name is Michael, and he is a very intelligent individual. However the machine maker he works with are not so reputable.
-
Obviously having properly licensed software is important but the version of the OS is totally irrelevant in this case as its designed so you don't see or interact with it at all.
..until you plug it into a network...
worm, virus.. bsod. gah.
-
Obviously having properly licensed software is important but the version of the OS is totally irrelevant in this case as its designed so you don't see or interact with it at all.
..until you plug it into a network...
Well if it had a network port that would be easier.
OK, there is one internally in the machine but its clearly not intended to be used. The PC is fully embedded, externally there are 4 USB ports and a VGA output, that is it.
The neoden software lets you install updates and read/write CSV files, that is it. They have no true file manager, you can't even rename a file.
-
How do you configure all the variable stuff that the machine will need to know.. like Vision Contrast and machine speeds etc etc.
Via a CSV file?
-
How do you configure all the variable stuff that the machine will need to know.. like Vision Contrast and machine speeds etc etc.
Via a CSV file?
No such thing as vision contrast. All of the settings are done via the included software, it is a windows program still.
-
That is the one thing that seems to be missing from many of the small PNP's. Having both contrast and illumination settings for each part type is pretty much a necessity for proper vision control. Illumination color is also a nice feature, but not absolutely necessary. Every part, due to shape, package color, plating, etc will capture differently, and assuming they will all capture properly with the same universal contrast and lighting setting is rather naive.
Even a digital brightness and contrast setting for each part would help, but alas, not seen on the low dollar machines.
-
That is the one thing that seems to be missing from many of the small PNP's. Having both contrast and illumination settings for each part type is pretty much a necessity for proper vision control. Illumination color is also a nice feature, but not absolutely necessary. Every part, due to shape, package color, plating, etc will capture differently, and assuming they will all capture properly with the same universal contrast and lighting setting is rather naive.
Even a digital brightness and contrast setting for each part would help, but alas, not seen on the low dollar machines.
This very much impressed me last night when i went through the demonstration of the SmallSMT system. It seems to have excellent recognititon of its parts, and much of that is due to the fact that you can tune the vision for every part, or fiducial etc. a Gold plated fiducial will behave differently to a HASL coated one, etc etc.
And it was pretty easy to setup.
-
However, I bought a machine from Sunny (HotHotSMT) which sold me a machine made by Yushengtech. Both Sunny / Yushengtech would not stand behind the product that they sold me. Take a look at the Yushengtech website (www.yushengtech.com (http://www.yushengtech.com)) and you will find the exact machine that SmallSMT is offering.
I think some days why are you doing this business?
You're trying to improve a situation in order to protect the customers and you receive people trying to pee on your legs.
We have brought a machine in the state that it is ready for use and in addition improved which simplify the use of all points.
We offer what many Chinese manufacturers do not.
A reliable support, feedback on customer requirements and further development of the existing product for the benefit of all customers.
My reputation is clean I do my business for more than 30 years and most of my first customers are still working with me. So I don’t need to tell lies or hide something .
We are the general sales agent for all Yusheng machines sold outside of China so Yushengtech sells in China and we do no support or give warranty for machines bought in China!
That's the last post about this topic!
I am sorry but I need to clarify!
Best regards
Michael
-
TheSteve
You made this comment below some days ago:
The parts tend to walk to the left on the X axis as we go up the Y axis. This is occurs even with the use of fiducials. The panel we have been testing with can be seen in one of the pics I posted previously. It is 3 boards in a 1x3 matrix. We were using the fiducials at the edges of the panel. The last thing we tried was using fiducial markings on each board instead of the panel. This seems to make the placement plenty usable but does leave doubt in my mind over larger boards as these really aren't that big.
Am wondering what you did to fix the 'wandering' issue that you've described.
Is it just that you work board-by-board now, or was it something to do with setting the 'initial vertical [Y axis] alignment' of the board?
Alternatively, did you detect any of the motor drivers missing some 'steps'?
-
Alternatively, did you detect any of the motor drivers missing some 'steps'?
Poetnially hard to detect..
-
@thommo,
Did this problem change if you change the speed?
If not it is a calibratiton problem and your machine need to be adjusted for travel way on each side.
Please put a steel ruler on your pcb and check the travel distance.
-
That is the one thing that seems to be missing from many of the small PNP's. Having both contrast and illumination settings for each part type is pretty much a necessity for proper vision control. Illumination color is also a nice feature, but not absolutely necessary. Every part, due to shape, package color, plating, etc will capture differently, and assuming they will all capture properly with the same universal contrast and lighting setting is rather naive.
Even a digital brightness and contrast setting for each part would help, but alas, not seen on the low dollar machines.
Seriously? That's just ridiculous. Nothing at all to set any vision thresholds or anything....?
My machine may have particularly finnicky vision, but I have to set individual thresholds for pretty much every part, and some, especially inductors with dark bodies can be really critical. At some point I intend to replace the feeble red illuminator with a really bright white, and stop the cameras down to make them less sensitive to ambient.
-
Hey folks, I received the Neoden 4 yesterday along with a reflow oven and stencil printer. Everything is pretty clearly labelled. I also found that the stand for the machine was bent, probably during shipping.... but the holes were tapped and everything went together fine.
The machine booted up and I activated everything using the test menu and all things seem to function. I haven't started placing components yet. One rather minor thing that could be improved would be an option for a monitor arm and a keyboard tray to attach to the machine. I'm planning to hack something together myself just to clean up the work area. My initial thoughts are that the machine is really solid. It does move the X/Y motors at a rather jerky and alarming speed. Another thing I noticed is that there isn't an easy way to access the internal electronics. I didn't look underneath (the thing is pretty heavy and takes 2 people to put it on the stand) but the entire bottom frame appears to be a single piece. No side access covers or anything.
My up-looking camera appeared to be installed on a bit of an angle. (which I fixed) It also had some fingerprints or gunk on the front glass. The downlooking camera appears slightly rotated, which I haven't tried to fix yet. When clicking on the screen to recentre the image, the points move to the centre pretty much perfectly so perhaps it's all fine.
Neoden sent me the latest software within about an hour of my request and I was able to update the machine. The update was about 850KB. The fact that it runs Windows XP is of no consequence to me... I figure either it's a licensed version, or could be considered abandonware by this point. In any case it boots up fast and goes straight into the app. There is no network connection so I'm not worried about viruses. I haven't investigated the file formats yet and it's not clear where the master machine settings get saved... I want to make sure I can back everything up somehow. Just for fun I tried running the updated software on a Windows XP sandboxed VM and failed to load because an OpenCV DLL was not found. :)
Here is a link to some pictures I've taken so far. I'll update it as I discover more: https://capybara.org/~andrew/pnp/ (https://capybara.org/~andrew/pnp/)
-
Quite simply it was the size. We can easily move the Neoden around and get it through standard sized doors.
Good day TheSteve,
Understood... indeed, these machines are heavy (450kg) and somewhat large ... As I mentioned before, they are tanks.
Cheers,
Sam
-
TheSteve
You made this comment below some days ago:
The parts tend to walk to the left on the X axis as we go up the Y axis. This is occurs even with the use of fiducials. The panel we have been testing with can be seen in one of the pics I posted previously. It is 3 boards in a 1x3 matrix. We were using the fiducials at the edges of the panel. The last thing we tried was using fiducial markings on each board instead of the panel. This seems to make the placement plenty usable but does leave doubt in my mind over larger boards as these really aren't that big.
Am wondering what you did to fix the 'wandering' issue that you've described.
Is it just that you work board-by-board now, or was it something to do with setting the 'initial vertical [Y axis] alignment' of the board?
Alternatively, did you detect any of the motor drivers missing some 'steps'?
I don't believe we have seen any lost steps. A nozzle alignment seems to be what corrected the problem, we also made a small tweak to the theta adjustment on the upward facing camera.
-
I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new Juki KP620 (Zevatech PM575) for $13K US. I went to see the machine and it is in pristine condition. The original owner purchased the machine new in 2002. It appears to have a DOS based control software and uses a 1.4MB floppy to read the SMT files. I found an FDD to USB converter for about $100 that allows me to use a USB flash drive instead of a floppy. My question is, has anyone fed this machine from Eagle? I had a look at the freeware software called PCBSynergy that appears to be able to convert from Eagle to the binary format that the Juki is expecting. For a dual camera system that can place up to 4000 cph (single head) with 102 x 8mm feeder capability and automatic nozzle changer (8 nozzles), it seems it makes more sense to me than a Neoden4. Anyone have a perspective that I may be missing?
-
I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new Juki KP620 (Zevatech PM575) for $13K US. I went to see the machine and it is in pristine condition. The original owner purchased the machine new in 2002. It appears to have a DOS based control software and uses a 1.4MB floppy to read the SMT files. I found an FDD to USB converter for about $100 that allows me to use a USB flash drive instead of a floppy. My question is, has anyone fed this machine from Eagle? I had a look at the freeware software called PCBSynergy that appears to be able to convert from Eagle to the binary format that the Juki is expecting. For a dual camera system that can place up to 4000 cph (single head) with 102 x 8mm feeder capability and automatic nozzle changer (8 nozzles), it seems it makes more sense to me than a Neoden4. Anyone have a perspective that I may be missing?
This seems like an all new thread. Should not take away from the focus on the Neoden4.
-
I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new Juki KP620 (Zevatech PM575) for $13K US. I went to see the machine and it is in pristine condition. The original owner purchased the machine new in 2002. It appears to have a DOS based control software and uses a 1.4MB floppy to read the SMT files. I found an FDD to USB converter for about $100 that allows me to use a USB flash drive instead of a floppy. My question is, has anyone fed this machine from Eagle? I had a look at the freeware software called PCBSynergy that appears to be able to convert from Eagle to the binary format that the Juki is expecting. For a dual camera system that can place up to 4000 cph (single head) with 102 x 8mm feeder capability and automatic nozzle changer (8 nozzles), it seems it makes more sense to me than a Neoden4. Anyone have a perspective that I may be missing?
If you have the space that looks like a super bargain ( assuming the price includes feeders)
-
I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new Juki KP620 (Zevatech PM575) for $13K US. I went to see the machine and it is in pristine condition. The original owner purchased the machine new in 2002. It appears to have a DOS based control software and uses a 1.4MB floppy to read the SMT files. I found an FDD to USB converter for about $100 that allows me to use a USB flash drive instead of a floppy. My question is, has anyone fed this machine from Eagle? I had a look at the freeware software called PCBSynergy that appears to be able to convert from Eagle to the binary format that the Juki is expecting. For a dual camera system that can place up to 4000 cph (single head) with 102 x 8mm feeder capability and automatic nozzle changer (8 nozzles), it seems it makes more sense to me than a Neoden4. Anyone have a perspective that I may be missing?
If you have the space that looks like a super bargain ( assuming the price includes feeders)
I'd just be cautious about parts avaialblity for a machine that is getting on 15 years old. Juki are pretty good, but theres stuff that is now hens teeth to get, If the machine is running, its probably worth buying for parts alone.
-
@rxpilot it is not my intention to take away from this thread. I'm deciding between a Neoden4 and a Charmhigh CMHT48VA and have been presented with the opportunity to buy the Juki. I have personally verified the opportunity to be genuine, so I am asking people with more knowledge and experience to judge the opportunity. Can the Juki be made to work with Eagle output without too much grief, has anyone done it?
-
I have never used a Juki, but I am a (reluctant) Eagle user with a Quad P&P. Being a DOS based machine, I would hazard a guess that the Juki uses a plain ASCII text file for program data. If that is true it is fairly easy to create your own ULP to create a program or import data. I wrote my own ULP after studying the program data and sample import data. Eventually, I ended up with a single ULP that can essentially create a complete program.
This is also probably true for Neoden4 and most others that import data. ULP writing requires some effort to learn, but its not too bad.
-
@rx8pilot the Juki uses a proprietary binary file format with file extension P5A. The PCBSynergy software is a converter that can output up to 11 different file formats used by various PnP machines.
-
@rxpilot it is not my intention to take away from this thread. I'm deciding between a Neoden4 and a Charmhigh CMHT48VA and have been presented with the opportunity to buy the Juki. I have personally verified the opportunity to be genuine, so I am asking people with more knowledge and experience to judge the opportunity. Can the Juki be made to work with Eagle output without too much grief, has anyone done it?
I'd considered the Neoden4 and had a looka t the Charmhigh system as well, then I found the SmallSMT systems and they gave me a demo last week. I'm used to usnign Juki and Yamaha systems for production, and to be honest I wished the software running on those was as good as what the SmallSMT system offers. I'm looking at a small machine for our office, and i'd suggest you take a look at this as well.
-
Pay attention to the size of the components 0201, 0402 as your P&PM can provide it. I'm in doubt for precision accuracy, nozzles, etc. Neoden 4 win old P&PM.
-
Well I worked with the machine a bit today and so far the software is a bit different than I expected. I wrote out a chip list for the machine as a CSV file, but the way the Neoden software configures the job seems strange to me, and so far I couldn't get it to work. If anyone has ideas on what I might be doing wrong please let me know... this is my first PNP machine.
- I tried setting up the rail feeder option which appears to detect the top edge of the board when bringing the PCB into the machine on the rail conveyor system. (the hardware is very smooth, btw!) But when I ran my job it never seemed to find the board. Either it would give a "PCB feed failure" or an error saying "coordinate movement range beyond the boundary" which I assume has to do with the edge not being detected correctly. In both cases the PCB appeared to be in more or less the right place inside the machine.
- The mark point (fiducial) setup seems odd to me as it needs to be done in the machine, and the coordinates appear to be absolute machine positions and not related to the PCB placement file. Wouldn't it make more sense to have these points linked to the placement file coordinates somehow? It was pretty easy to set these up and they don't have to be actual fiducials... some of my older boards don't have real fiducials but using mounting holes or other large holes seem to work fine! The camera realigns to the centre of the holes better than I could click with the mouse.
- The chiplist I loaded was relative to the board's bottom left corner, but I think the software expects absolute machine positions. There is no example in the manual PDF included with the machine on how to prepare the "chiplist". There doesn't seem to be any way to "offset" the X/Y positions to the actual loaded position of the board. I'm assuming I have to provide some kind of offset in my input data, but I'm not sure where to get this. The software knows nothing about the bottom corner of the board. It does know the mark points, the top edge (it's only Y though) and the centre position of the first part in the chip list. (you have to manually align this)
So, needless to say I'm not building boards just yet. I was hoping to try some tests with only a few components and no solder paste. But after failing to feed correctly it stops and won't continue. I've sent off email to Neoden and am hoping to learn what I'm doing wrong.
The good part is that overall I'm very happy with the build quality of the machine. There are a lot of hardware details that are clearly well thought out, and some ingenious design especially in the pickup head. I'm sure the software is actually useful because there are videos of it working on real boards. But the error messages are not very clear, and there is no help showing what to do if these errors occur.
-
Hi Elmood,
I don't have a machine 'yet', but have you reviewed all the YouTube videos that Neoden produced for this machine? Just search for Neoden 4. There are about 7 in the series and from memory, they deal with the sort of issues you are describing. I suspect that the PDF they send hasn't recently been updated.
I'd be asking for all the latest info from Neoden directly if it were me.
Good luck.
-
Well I worked with the machine a bit today and so far the software is a bit different than I expected. I wrote out a chip list for the machine as a CSV file, but the way the Neoden software configures the job seems strange to me, and so far I couldn't get it to work. If anyone has ideas on what I might be doing wrong please let me know... this is my first PNP machine.
Everything _Should_ be relative to the fiducials, but we are talking Chinese software here.....
If it's done right, your P&P files have x/y/theta coords of each part, and fid locations, and the only setup is to tell the machine roughly where the first fid is so teh camera can find it. It would then derive the actual position from the camera sighting the first fid, and rotation/scale offsets from second (and subsequent, if any) fids.
In my process I use a special "fid" component which is recognised by the conversion software I wrote and converted to reference points for the machine's file format.
-
Hi Mike: Your description is what I expected... simply pointing the machine to a reference and having it offset all of the other coordinates from the file. But it seems that they are relative to the bed 0,0 point on the machine all the time. (or else I'm perhaps missing something else)
thommo: I've been studying the manual and videos carefully but so far haven't seen any example of a workflow of importing data and actually using it. I have a script that makes all the data in the Neoden format... that's no problem. But now I'm thinking that I have to do something like this:
- find the fid point or some reference component point in the machine
- write down the X/Y absolute value
- tell my script the value and have it offset all others by the specific amount
- then import my part data
But that seems kind of round-about. I'd rather be able to export the data first, then go to the machine and set up everything, and then run the job. The other problem is that if the next time we run these boards the machine is set up slightly differently, does it mean I have to re-export all the offset data from my design files again with different offsets? That would be a pain!
BTW Neoden got back to me regarding the failure to find the edge of the PCB. Apparently "coordinate movement range beyond the boundary" means that the rails thought they went too far before sensing the edge of the board. Maybe I need to put the PCB closer to the input side. And "PCB feed failure" has to do with failing to find the mark point after feeding. I'm going to try again today and see if I can make it past that part.
-
Hi There,
I'm thinking of buying a Neoden 4. My boards are pretty small, do you have any specs:
- on the minimum fiducial size that can be used
- if it can be close to the pcb edge
- if the machine can handle well white pcbs? (since it seems there is no setup available for the cameras)
My concern is if that one of the points above can't be solved by the new Neoden 4, then it's useless for me to buy one.
Maybe one of you guys have already tested this, or the guys from Neoden could help me (anyone reading this?)
Best Regards
-
Hi There,
I'm thinking of buying a Neoden 4. My boards are pretty small, do you have any specs:
- on the minimum fiducial size that can be used
- if it can be close to the pcb edge
- if the machine can handle well white pcbs? (since it seems there is no setup available for the cameras)
My concern is if that one of the points above can't be solved by the new Neoden 4, then it's useless for me to buy one.
Maybe one of you guys have already tested this, or the guys from Neoden could help me (anyone reading this?)
Best Regards
Why would this matter ? you'd normally put FIDs on the panel borders
-
The machine expects the board reference to be your first part which is an absolute value from 0,0. The fiducial points are then are then a relative value from the first part. This isn't out preferred way of doing it. We have experimented with using the board bottom left corner or fiducial points as the start as well. You just create a new part at the top of the list and then tell the machine to skip it when placing.
-
TheSteve: Okay, but what happens to the rest of the parts in the chiplist? Do their coordinates get changed from the imported values? When I tested it and then tried to "align" them, it used the points as absolute coordinates.
-
You want all of the parts relative to whatever you picked as 0,0. I believe there is a button in the upper right of the screen that is slightly cutoff. If you click it it changes everything to absolute values - uncheck it!
-
Oh! I don't see any partially cutoff button... do you mean in the chiplist area? What's it called? That sounds like exactly what I'm after!
-
Normally the imported pnp data will be referenced to a user defined PCB origin.
Take care to define the origin in your CAD system near the PCB outline or use one edge.
So the exported data is not in the middle of nowhere.
Fiducials always depend on the PCB origin so this need to be set first.
@skywave
I think white PCB will be a problem for the machine we have a switch to invert the image before alignment so white pcb will work!
Does anyone know how much pcb space the conveyour need to hold the pcb?
If the conveyour covers the edge of the pcb no fiducial recognition is possible if the fiducial was placed there!
The common fiducial size should be 1mm circle having a 3mm circle openening for the soldermask
look here for an example : http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/know-how/mark-detection-demo/ (http://www.smallsmt.biz/home/know-how/mark-detection-demo/)
-
Smallsmt: I measured that approx. 0.200" would be needed to fully clear the rails on each side. I have a few older designs that will need some parts skipped due to this restriction, but normally it's not a problem. I don't put rails on boards because in the past the PCBA would do this to their specification. I guess now that I'm the PCBA I should do this. :)
-
I think white PCB will be a problem for the machine we have a switch to invert the image before alignment so white pcb will work!
Why would solde mask colour matter ? Fids should be clear of mask so it aligns to the copper.
-
I think white PCB will be a problem for the machine we have a switch to invert the image before alignment so white pcb will work!
Why would solde mask colour matter ? Fids should be clear of mask so it aligns to the copper.
absolutely! There are masks that will completely obscure the copper, So unless you had X-ray vision, you might be completely stuffed.
-
The PCB color is a problem if the color is white you will receive a black image for the copper and white for the PCB so you need to invert the image if the vision system use over saturation.
Without solder mask opening you receive reflections around the center mark point and that's bad for the vision too.
But there are different technologies for image recognition so it is maybe no problem.
-
The PCB color is a problem if the color is white you will receive a black image for the copper and white for the PCB so you need to invert the image if the vision system use over saturation.
It would only be an issue if your camera has auto-gain, where the white outside the FID area pushes the gain down. The actual fid will always be copper against bare PCB, and the camera image should mask out anything outside the fid area.
-
Hi, I'm the owner of the Neoden 4 TheSteve is referring to. I spent hours playing with the software,
I recently sent Neoden instructions on how to use their machine.
As far as I know No training video or manual shows the setup for relative x,y and fiducial data
Here is what I came up with
Setup for No rails using x,y data from cad and fiducials
copy and paste your x,y data in a working sample csv file that already has other basic info. You can also do import but it has to be in a specific format (haven't tried it yet)
uncheck manual in top right corner. Manual is for absolute values, normally done if you have no x,y data
See picture
1) For it to work X value(284.93) for Left top board must be the same as the Left bottom board
I this example picture the align button was used for Left top, this will cause part placements to be off, do not use the align button
?
To make it work you can not use the align button for top left board. I typed in the same x value as the bottom board. I also manually calculated value for y. My boards were 50.8mm high. so I added 50.8 * 2( for 2 boards) for the y value. So Left top should be 285.95(same as bottom) , 247.90 (bottom plus board height). These are absolute values so it will know where to look for the board and check fiducials.
I don't know why they don't simply have you enter board size instead of having to calculate
When doing align for bottom left board it must be the first part in your component list (you can even create a fake part and select skip and give it location 0,0 then align on bottom left corner of board, I'm assuming that is where your 0,0 is. There method may have the advantage if you have no idea where 0,0 is.
At bottom of screen Enter 2 Fiducial values relative to your board 0,0
I do not see these instructions anywhere. So a lot of time was wasted before I was able to figure this out on my own.
Finally we got to do a real production run.
-
Mike the camera has auto gain but our vision system use Overexposure to receive a bw picture to recognize the shape of the object.
It is very fast and reliable system.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37962674/Fiducialrecognition.jpg)
-
Smallsmt: If you are not talking about the Neoden 4 it might be better to start a new thread.
-
Sure but I tried to explain how fiducial recognition works!
-
Elwood
Sorry it took so long, but this is a link to one of the Neoden4 tutorials I referred to earlier - hope it helps. (And yes, don't forget to uncheck the 'manual' button)
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdzgZiMZUs (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdzgZiMZUs)
-
Hey thommo:
I had some success last night! I'm now able to export a workable file from my program that loads right into the machine and works with minimal extra setup. The feeders are still a bit of a pain to configure, and I don't have any multi-nozzle optimizations done yet. But I was able to place some parts. There are a few weird things like having to manually start the vibration feeder in the manual setup menu... there's no way for a job to start it by itself. Also, the footprint library contains width, height and thickness for the parts, but I can't figure out what the machine actually does with this data... Neoden says that the height is used to protect the nozzle, but the setting doesn't appear to affect the height setting in the actually feeder config panel.
BTW for those of you testing, I found that putting some spray glue on a blank PCB makes a good tacky surface for trying out placements. I was able to rerun the job many times. Also I really like the step run option to test each part one at a time. Things go so fast that it's somewhat impossible to troubleshoot otherwise. One other kind of strange drawback I ran across is that the downlooking camera cannot see the rearmost feeder locations... getting in there with a flashlight is probably the only way to confirm the correct alignment of the nozzle on the feeder.
Does anyone have suggestions for making reusable trays for larger parts? I want something with a solid bottom on it so I can use it for all different kinds of chips. The black plastic waffle trays are really only good for one size of chip.
I'll post a picture of the very first finished board hopefully by end of week! I know others here already have machines are not that impressed anymore, but it does feel like science fiction having robots building boards in a small shop like mine! :-+
-
Also, the footprint library contains width, height and thickness for the parts, but I can't figure out what the machine actually does with this data... Neoden says that the height is used to protect the nozzle, but the setting doesn't appear to affect the height setting in the actually feeder config panel.
Height should be used to offset the pick height from the imaging height for optimum focus, and the placement height.
BTW for those of you testing, I found that putting some spray glue on a blank PCB makes a good tacky surface for trying out placements
A better option is the thin-film double-sided tape, used among other things for tacking carpet down. Just lay it gently over the PCB without pressing down too hard, to make it easier to peel off
-
I'll post a picture of the very first finished board hopefully by end of week! I know others here already have machines are not that impressed anymore, but it does feel like science fiction having robots building boards in a small shop like mine! :-+
These reports are really helpful. I'm quite a ways from purchase, but when the times comes, having this type of record online will be invaluable.
-
For me at least, i think the reports in this thread have pretty much put me off buying a Neoden System, it just seems there are way too many issues that you have to compensate for.
-
@mrpackethead I have come to the same conclusion. What I can distill from this thread is that the machine is mechanically built well, but the software and documentation leave a lot to be desired.
I recently came across the official spec sheet for the Juki KP620/Zevatech PM575 and it lists an assembly reliability of 100 DPM or 100 parts per million placed (99.99%). This is a 15 year old model but somehow I am not convinced this brand new Neoden4 can even come close. Please someone correct me if this sentiment is not deserved.
I would love to hear more about the successes that @TheSteve has had with the Neoden4. As far as I can tell, he is the only one on this thread that actually has the machine working in a production environment. So far, we have only seen carefully choreographed assembly videos from Neoden. It would be great to see an actual panel with multiple PCBs being populated start to finish from an actual end user.
-
From my testing its seem part thickness you enter does not effect pick height or placement height. The good thing is the 3mm or 4 mm spring travel in the nozzle seems to do a pretty good job, so I think pick and place height is not very critical.
-
@elmwood Thanks for posting up all the pictures of the Neoden 4!
It's great to see so many people have purchased the Neoden 4 machine which means we should have a really good idea of how capable and reliable the machine is in the not so distant future.
Seems that software is not as user friendly as it should be but it's still all new so there is time for improvement.
Everybody please keep the feedback and multimedia coming for all of us who are interested in small scale PCB production :D
-
@elmwood Thanks for posting up all the pictures of the Neoden 4!
Everybody please keep the feedback and multimedia coming for all of us who are interested in small scale PCB production :D
I wonder if we should start a thread for a general topic rather than Neoden4 specific?
-
I think were good here if we can stay focused on the NeoDen 4 machine now that there are plenty of people who have them in hand and can begin supplying their experiences with the machine.
I meant keep the pictures and hopefully some video coming of the NeoDen 4 specifically.
This will probably turn into the one of the best single threads for the NeoDen 4 on the whole web, which it already is.
-
Guys - for my 2 cent's worth, it appears that we've lost perspective.
I'm amazed, considering how much integration is required for a PnP to even begin working correctly, that a brand new design released only 2-3 months ago, is fully functioning.
Of course, we're all spoiled by Apple's design and quickly forget the cost and effort, let alone the size of the R&D effort and Team, required to produce such an outcome.
At this price point I believe we need to pay in patience, for what we've saved in $. The alternative is to go out and purchase from a mainstream manufacturer and a minimum of 3x the price.
For anyone who has ever written SW & FW, there is always the issue with 'developer familiarity'. Because of the substantial HW element, there has been little opportunity for Neoden to get 'non-developer' feedback [until now].
All of this seems to be 100% fixable if Neoden remain responsive, as it ALL appears to be SW related at present.
Aside, that is, from elmwood's Cameravision in the Rear Feeder Bank [which I am hoping Neoden will quickly respond to]. So we all either wait, until it's sorted, or pay the small price of being an Early Adopter, and dealing with some bugs and an unfamiliar, and at this point, poorly documented GUI.
Finally, I think the the suggestion - eg from mikeselectricstuff [or any other well versed and experienced production professional], to re-write the SW Manual and provide professional video and still images, in a step by step document, is a great one! Mike - pls push for this and don't be afraid to ask for community support!
And, of course, that Neoden take note of Mike's suggestions for workflow improvement in the SW interface, and Mechanical process chain also.
If others feel that this is a worthwhile suggestion and approach, can I suggest that you either send an email to Neoden, or Skype Hiami at Neoden to voice your support?
Her Skype address is: haimi2008
-
I think were good here if we can stay focused on the NeoDen 4 machine now that there are plenty of people who have them in hand and can begin supplying their experiences with the machine.
I meant keep the pictures and hopefully some video coming of the NeoDen 4 specifically.
This will probably turn into the one of the best single threads for the NeoDen 4 on the whole web, which it already is.
I was more thinking about general this new general trend of "micro" in-house assembly. I'm sure this is going to be a growing trend and theres a lot more than just the PNP.
-
That might be a useful direction to consider, but it does not preclude the current thread from running on its own merits, being the Neoden 4 features, issues and comparisons to other machines.
If a more general conversation were to be struck up, then a new thread would be the likely place to start one.
-
I know a few people are put off by the "fiddly" nature of the Neoden software, but it is fair to say that it's only a few months old and will probably improve. Although I've never worked in a PCBA, I have used CNC machines and talked to a lot of friends who own or have used various industrial machines. It seems unusual that things are at all user friendly. Also, Neoden (Tonny) has responded every night to my questions so that by the next morning (Toronto time) I have a response. That seems good to me!
Yes there are little weird things to remember, but my own personal "setup a job" notes have not very many steps. And it's a frigging robot that builds electronics, not a toaster?!?! :wtf:
Just out of curiosity I'd like to know what the typical workflow is in a "proper" PCBA from when a job comes in to when it runs on the machine. I assume it's different than the Neoden, but have never seen what steps occur. The places I've dealt with sure do have a lot of people sitting at computers in the front, and only a few machines running in the back.
-
I know a few people are put off by the "fiddly" nature of the Neoden software, but it is fair to say that it's only a few months old and will probably improve.
I fear that may be wishful thinking - Chinese suppliers' standard practice is to ship something that 'just works' and not have any interest in making any further effort to improve.
Suggestions for improvements will probably be responded to with ways to work around the issue rather than actually fixing the problem.
I hope I'm wrong in this case but I'm not holding my breath waiting...
-
I know a few people are put off by the "fiddly" nature of the Neoden software, but it is fair to say that it's only a few months old and will probably improve.
I fear that may be wishful thinking - Chinese suppliers' standard practice is to ship something that 'just works' and not have any interest in making any further effort to improve.
Suggestions for improvements will probably be responded to with ways to work around the issue rather than actually fixing the problem.
I hope I'm wrong in this case but I'm not holding my breath waiting...
Having seen the software for the earlier machines, and having seen over a period of several years no or very little improvement, i think your justified in not holding your breath.
-
I know a few people are put off by the "fiddly" nature of the Neoden software, but it is fair to say that it's only a few months old and will probably improve.
The software is more than one year old I saw last year February in the factory!
They start selling in Asia last year.
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house , the latter being responsible for the software suite and maturing/upgrading process.
This would mean that there are seperate additional and yearly continuing costs for the software.
An alternative would be a fully open P&P software stack where the community contributes.
However since most users of P&P machines are rather HW engineers than SW engineers I fear that would not be a good idea.
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house ,
I agree but it's not going to happen - cultural thing about not losing face.
The only alternative would be a western company buying teh hardware and repackaging with theor own software, but that would come with their own markups.
It's so annoying when something is so "nearly" there but spoilt by something that wouldn't be that hard to fix if they had the desire to do so.
-
@KJELT
Do you think we find enough software engineers to build a common PNP software using a HAL to support different machines?
I will help to do!
Maybe we start a new topic!
-
Isn't OpenPNP a open source PNP software package? I've heard of it but never checked it out.
Is it any good? Could it be improved to run a NeoDen 4 successfully with vision?
-
Isn't OpenPNP a open source PNP software package? I've heard of it but never checked it out.
Is it any good? Could it be improved to run a NeoDen 4 successfully with vision?
It is, and it runs ok. It just needs more people to work on it, the guy running it ( Jason ) has done a really good job so far
-
The only alternative would be a western company buying teh hardware and repackaging with theor own software, but that would come with their own markups.
It's so annoying when something is so "nearly" there but spoilt by something that wouldn't be that hard to fix if they had the desire to do so.
This appears to be close to what SmallSMT have done. Comparing the software that they have to the software that Neoden has. small SMT eats the Neoden for breakfast. and I'd probably say its on par with ( or even possbily simpler ) the software that i use to program a Juki line.
-
Software like this is one of those things where as long as it works, it doesn't really matter if it's clunky or ugly. If there are actual serious bugs that never get solved in closed software like the Neoden, then I'd be interested in a better solution... time will tell whether it's nice to use on a daily basis.
I'd definitely buy a better package or contribute to an open source project financially. My only requirement is that it would be able to run on Linux, but most open source people probably want that anyway. :) I wish I had time to hack on this but alas it's not my core business.
-
I really think Neoden only needs to spend a week or so on the software to fix most of the glitches or non-features.
-
Sounds like everybody with a NeoDen 4 needs to make a list of issues and combine them into one list for NeoDen to review and fix.
They have been pretty responsive to everybody so I wouldn't be surprised if they did fix most or all of the problems to end up with a better machine.
At least if we want to see them fix the problems we need to let them know exactly what we would like to see fixed. They are making money selling the machines it looks like so we can only hope that they want the same as we do even with the cultural differences.
Let's make a list of fixes and supply them with it and see what happens.
-
Software like this is one of those things where as long as it works, it doesn't really matter if it's clunky or ugly.
Depends what you mean by "works...". A bad UI is likely indicitive of deeper quality issues.
Doesn't matter....
Until it crashes & drives the head across a 95% populated PCB with hundreds of $ worth of parts on it.
Or setup quirks mean you place hundreds of parts wrong (OK you should check, but with good software you shouldn't need to)
Or it costs you time because it just takes way longer than it should to set up jobs, or needs too much hand-holding during use.
Or it can't recover and continue gracefully after an unexpected powerdown or crash partway through a job...
If you're paying that much money for a piece of kit, on which your business may depend, you have a right to expect decent software quality, good responsiveness to problems, and a response to suggestions (based on what is effectively unpaid beta testing) which more than just a workaround.
-
@mikeselectircalstuff At what price point are the machines closest to the NeoDen 4 platform that have what you would consider good software + good hardware, something that a small business can rely upon? Not including the SmallSMT machine and not including a old used machine?
Does anything come right to your head?
-
I don't think there is really anything new in that price category. That is why I went with a used machine an upgraded it. The used/upgrade path is not easier and sometimes harder, but in the end I have a machine that can run circles around the Neoden4. The price was paid in blood, sweat, and tears though.
It is very hard to tell if the market is ready for low-cost P&P in a volumetric sense. The best way to keep the cost low, is to build high volume. The entry level machines do not need the ridiculous features found on the 24/7 ultra-fast machines but they do need to be easy and reliable. The only other company I know of playing in the low-cost space is DDM Novastar. They focus on easy and reliable at the expense of speed. The capability of the lower end models is not amazing from the perceptive of component count and precision. They are, from what I can tell after talking to them at length, a good option if your business is counting on it.
-
I think the problem is the Chinese are obsessed with making things as cheap as possible, and don't seem to understand that people will pay for quality.
From what I can see the N4 has reasonable hardware, but like pretty much all Chinese products is being let down by the same old Chinese problems - poor software, poor response to feedback and a lack of understanding of what the (non-China) market expects.
Their promotional video is a classic example of this attitude- good visuals but laughably bad script. It would surely have cost less than the profit they (should ) make on a single machine sale to have done this right
Up until recently there hasn't really been any viable low-end option except big, old machines. The Mechatronika M10V was probably the only new option.
The Neoden and similar machines mean that there is now something available at sub-$10K, and I'm sure that they are useable, just not as good as they could be for a relatively small amount of additional work.
They need to realised that they'll probably do better by aiming to be the best, not the cheapest.
-
"Bad SW/FW means Bad elsewhere"
I don't subscribe to this view.
We develop a lot of SW and FW, and also produce HW and Mechanical Engineering and Design.
GUI design is driven, almost totally, independently to functional FW and Mechanical design, in my view.
We really need Neoden to commission a GUI redesign [preferably in conjunction with the existing code, or just as a design, but integration may be an issue in this instance], and provide access under a contract for a western development of the GUI, from the code level interface. Seems to me the HW does what it's supposed to do - and does so very well, especially for the cost.
Would be great to begin a new preferred workflow design to submit. This can start as a simple flowchart, hopefully in the OpenDoc space, or even just a formatted list.
If we want and need change then I suspect that we have an opportunity to be primary drivers and directors of it here. Best if we stop complaining, and begin improving - after all, we're the ones who'll benefit short and long term. Such a collaboration will also likely make future mods and features come to life far more quickly and see the product survive many iterations into the future.
Finally, as far as the suggestion to OpenPnP is concerned, it appears there is nothing stopping this right now. It's just that we're almost there with an existing solution and I think it's worth considering those options seriously first off.
-
@Mikeselectricalstuff The M10V is indeed a well made machine! You pay for that though. Thanks for posting a link to it.
@thommo I agree with you 100% that the Neoden 3 looks to be almost perfect. I think if you guys just tell them what we need and why that they will work with us to make the changes.
I say we all focus on what we want to happen instead of what we do not want to happen with the NeoDen 4, at least until we come to the point of NeoDen simply refusing to make any changes which I don't see happening but of course it's possible.
@thommo How complex are the boards your about to start running on the machine? Any fine pitch IC parts? I have some IC with .5mm pitch and I'm curious how the NeoDen4 handles something like that.
-
"Bad SW/FW means Bad elsewhere"
I don't subscribe to this view.
Neither do I.
A lot of Chinese hardware is "acceptable" or above, but a poor UI is indicative of poor quality, poor design and lack of testing throughout the software.
-
"Bad SW/FW means Bad elsewhere"
I don't subscribe to this view.
Neither do I.
A lot of Chinese hardware is "acceptable" or above, but a poor UI is indicative of poor quality, poor design and lack of testing throughout the software.
OK sweet - violent agreement then - I love it !
From this base let's proceed with RWB's suggestion and focus on 'what we want'.
RWB - I don't even have a machine 'yet', so I'm unable to provide that feedback. Seems like TheSteve is the person who is closest to confirming 'machine precision capability' for now.
GUI - let's see if the HW interface to the GUI can be improved, and trust that the machine in it's current state is capable. So far, I haven't read a single issue where the 'problem' hasn't been fully rectified through either a better understanding of the [poor] GUI, or by applying a tweak in some [poorly documented] interface feature.
-
"Bad SW/FW means Bad elsewhere"
I don't subscribe to this view.
Neither do I.
A lot of Chinese hardware is "acceptable" or above, but a poor UI is indicative of poor quality, poor design and lack of testing throughout the software.
+1
With hardware, capabilities are pretty well defined by mechanical elements. Maximum speed, precision of movement and so on. Getting something built to physical standard means there are things it is able to do.
Getting it to do them is another challenge.
The software (and I include firmware here) is a completely different kettle of fish to mechanical construction and it is the one component that, especially in today's machinery, is key to getting the most out of any unit. It has the ability to have been written poorly or well. It has the ability to support many features or few. It can be fast or slow. It can be awkward or easy to use. It can be robust or fragile... and the list goes on.
One question is whether the manufacturer is looking to market a mechanism or an optimally functioning piece of equipment.
If a mechanism, then they've already done that (it seems) - and the supplied software is simply to demonstrate it isn't a glorified paperweight. The vision may be (just hypothesising) that the software nerds out in the world will look at this as a juicy project - and delve into a (possibly open source) project to make it sing and dance, which will add enormous appeal for purchasing of the mechanism.
If they want to provide a turn-key package solution, then they really need to get a serious programming effort happening.
-
"Bad SW/FW means Bad elsewhere"
I don't subscribe to this view.
Neither do I.
A lot of Chinese hardware is "acceptable" or above, but a poor UI is indicative of poor quality, poor design and lack of testing throughout the software.
+1
With hardware, capabilities are pretty well defined by mechanical elements. Maximum speed, precision of movement and so on. Getting something built to physical standard means there are things it is able to do.
Getting it to do them is another challenge.
The software (and I include firmware here) is a completely different kettle of fish to mechanical construction and it is the one component that, especially in today's machinery, is key to getting the most out of any unit. It has the ability to have been written poorly or well. It has the ability to support many features or few. It can be fast or slow. It can be awkward or easy to use. It can be robust or fragile... and the list goes on.
One question is whether the manufacturer is looking to market a mechanism or an optimally functioning piece of equipment.
If a mechanism, then they've already done that (it seems) - and the supplied software is simply to demonstrate it isn't a glorified paperweight. The vision may be (just hypothesising) that the software nerds out in the world will look at this as a juicy project - and delve into a (possibly open source) project to make it sing and dance, which will add enormous appeal for purchasing of the mechanism.
If they want to provide a turn-key package solution, then they really need to get a serious programming effort happening.
I think this applies to all the Manufacturers of these kind of systems.. Seems an awesome Opensource project?
-
I think this applies to all the Manufacturers of these kind of systems..
Yep - I was pretty much stating the obvious.
Seems an awesome Opensource project?
If Neoden don't step up to the plate, that's what I'm thinking.
-
I think this applies to all the Manufacturers of these kind of systems..
Yep - I was pretty much stating the obvious.
Seems an awesome Opensource project?
If Neoden don't step up to the plate, that's what I'm thinking.
openpnp.org ?
-
Sorry - I'm not familiar with specific groups or organisations, just the concept of open source.
Perhaps others might want to comment on the best way forward.
-
Sorry - I'm not familiar with specific groups or organisations, just the concept of open source.
Perhaps others might want to comment on the best way forward.
I was just pointing you to what looks like an open source project that is already making good progress on this exact problem.
-
Oh. Sorry.
Thank you.
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house ,
I agree but it's not going to happen - cultural thing about not losing face.
I wonder if it is cultural?
Perhaps (speculation) that Chinese people are happy to pay for tangible stuff like hardware but are reluctant to pay for (good) software?
The latter being easy to copy (without costs) and seeing the amount of illegal software in China I wonder if this is culturally defined?
To make things clear I am not judging here, just wondering if this is the current mindset.
Any native Chinese resident here that can/wants to comment ?
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house ,
I agree but it's not going to happen - cultural thing about not losing face.
I wonder if it is cultural?
Perhaps (speculation) that Chinese people are happy to pay for tangible stuff like hardware but are reluctant to pay for (good) software?
The latter being easy to copy (without costs) and seeing the amount of illegal software in China I wonder if this is culturally defined?
To make things clear I am not judging here, just wondering if this is the current mindset.
Any native Chinese resident here that can/wants to comment ?
This is a factor. Most of the people freely copying licenced software in China are outraged if someone tries to walk off with the media it is on. The media is someone's property, and is to be respected.
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house.
I think this is what the SmallSMT people have done. The Software dev is done in Germany and and the hardware is built in China. The Software doe'snt have the typical Chinese-isms about it from what I can see.
-
It would be a great improvement if Chinese hardware manufacturers would team up with a western software house ,
I agree but it's not going to happen - cultural thing about not losing face.
I wonder if it is cultural?
Perhaps (speculation) that Chinese people are happy to pay for tangible stuff like hardware but are reluctant to pay for (good) software?
The latter being easy to copy (without costs) and seeing the amount of illegal software in China I wonder if this is culturally defined?
To make things clear I am not judging here, just wondering if this is the current mindset.
Any native Chinese resident here that can/wants to comment ?
Hi
Not native Chinese, but I've spent a lot of time in the middle of this sort of thing with them.
Often they are "hardware guys". Physical devices make sense to them and they turn out a fine gizmo. That's where they stop. They may not even sell the device themselves. They are specialists at a very narrow part of the process, but quite good because of it. It is not uncommon for a large customer to buy the hardware and write software themselves. The big guy *was* building pick and place gear from scratch, so buying it outside is a big step for them.
Yes, it's a different approach.
Bob
-
So far I have placed about 10000 chips with my machine, including some panelized boards with very close component spacing at 360 degree rotations. The machine has done very well, but as others have noted the software leaves something to be desired. The general interface is OK once you get used to it, but there needs to be some improvements on relative component location. I have been doing the math by hand to make it work, but the software could easily have this function built in.
It seems to be the typical case of a lot of these types of Chinese products---they go about 90%-95% of the way to producing an excellent product, but never reach 100%. Like Mike has noted several times with the video; it has good production values with good shots, good graphics, etc., but they couldn't bother to have a native proofread and edit the script---so what could have been a good video is actually laughable. This machine is similar---the hardware seems to be decent, the vision system for all of its simplicity has seemed to work well, yet the software is lacking some very obviously needed functionality, UI, and bug fixes---all things that would readily apparent and obvious to anyone who actually sat down and used the machine for a few hours.
I am fairly happy with the machine, but hope that there are some software updates. That said, I would never advise someone to purchase a product like this based on any hope or promise of future updates. Only buy this machine if you are OK with working around its current limitations.
-
@MTNELECTRONICS Post some finished board pictures if you don't mind.
How often does the whole job run without any intervention needed by you?
Also after you learn how to work around the software does it run pretty smoothly?
-
@MTNELECTRONICS Post some finished board pictures if you don't mind.
How often does the whole job run without any intervention needed by you?
Also after you learn how to work around the software does it run pretty smoothly?
I'll take some pictures after my next run. Those ones are already all reflowed, and once reflowed you can't really tell how accurate it was because everything sucks into its proper place. I will say that for everything 0805 and above the placement has been visually very accurate and very repeatable across several boards using all four heads, and my farthest panel components are positioned about 250mm away from the camera.
The vision system was really useful on these boards because there are 32x SOT89 chips arranged in two rows fairly tight 360 degree circles---they are so tight that they nearly touch when installed. The components are actually quite loose in the tapes, so no matter how good your machine is there is a massive amount of variation in the pick rotational angle. I was using three heads for them and the placement was good enough for none of them to ever hit each other and for all to reflow without any issues. I had tried to do these on my Liteplacer PnP and gave up. Even at slow movement speeds there was just too much variation in the pickup for it to work without rotational correction after the pick.
After working out all of the initial bugs (feeder settings, pick height, placement height, etc.) it ran almost continuously without any issues. The machine has a very hard time with 0805 capacitors but I highly suspect it is because I do not have the proper nozzles (they shipped me two sets of the size bigger than what 0805 really needs instead of one set of each size) so I've had to baby it along with 0805 caps and deal with a lot of misfeeds and slow movement until I they send me the proper nozzles. I'll update this when I receive them.
I haven't tried any 0603 or 0402 yet because as I mentioned above, I don't have the proper nozzles at the moment. With the ones I have an 0603 would just get sucked inside! I am SOL for a few weeks as they are away on holiday. Very disappointing, but it is what it is at this point.
The software hasn't crashed on me or shown any glaring bugs, but it really does leave a lot to be desired. There are lots of functions that are not clear or require work arounds. The workflow is making some sense to me now, but it is convoluted. So far, once I get it going it works, but I question whether or not anyone who designed the software has actually used it on the actual machine, and if they have then their level of expectation for a $10K piece of hardware is very low. Stupid stuff like having to always resize the columns just so you can see the information in the X and Y columns all adds up to a bit of frustration after a while (if you watch the "training videos" you'll see what I'm talking about).
I also wish that there was some more user configurable options such as a user-variable speed for pick and especially place; it is extremely fast and fairly smooth, but with some components a slower speed would be nice. Options for error handling during placement would also be nice. There needs to be an easier way offset fiducial to components without having to resort to a calculator or spreadsheet.
In the end it seems that if the machine keeps on working the way it has been I will be satisfied with it for what I am currently using it for. That said, it is definitely not a perfect machine and some of the lack of polish, especially with the user interface, is readily apparent (I knew this from watching the videos and reading the manual). While I hope that they make some improvements to the software, I did not buy the machine expecting it, and I do not advise anyone to purchase a machine like this hoping for anything more than what it does already at the time of purchase.
I have been following the SmallSMT thread and like what I see there as well. I think that if I had known more about that before I had committed to the NeoDen I would be seriously considering one of those machines as well. They seem well built, have more feeder options, higher maximum component height, and an owner/engineer who actually listens to customer requests and complaints and is capable of providing solutions---which is perhaps the most valuable aspect of all.
-
The software on my machine is seriously convoluted as well and it costs far more than an N4. The machine is not new and the software has been around since about 2008 or so - still current and sold today. So convoluted in fact, that I believe I have never seen worse. It is very flexible and quite reliable, just excruciatingly non-intuitive.
With that said, I have learned how to make it work over time. It is just bizarre. It's not Chinese either, is all USA convolution. I only have $10k in it, but they are selling them for $50k with the same feeder package I have. Not sure how many they are selling, but that is the asking price.
-
MTNELECTRONICS - thanks for the extensive update. Really enjoying all the learning.
What, if any, of these issues you've raised, have you sent to the guys at Neoden, and what has been their response so far? [understanding that they're all enjoying the CNY holidays currently]
As I've said previously, we don't have a machine yet, but I recall there being information in a video regarding:
setting up panels
use of fiducials
identification of 1st part on each of 3 boards in the panel array
Without fully understanding what you're referring to when you say "an easier way offset fiducial to components without having to resort to a calculator or spreadsheet", I imagine that there is presently no link between the panel fids [or even the individual PCBs'] and the components to be placed.
How would it be if you nominated the 1st component in the PnP list [which the GUI asks you to identify], as being a fiducial - with the property 'do not place'. This sounds like it may avoid the current situation and issue you're experiencing. It's a 'work around type of solution' I know, but I think all systems have their own idiosyncrasies.
To the FORUM generally:
Has anyone from the current 'owners' group' begun compiling a list yet? If so perhaps you'd consider publishing it. Others could then 'add' to it even if only by copy/paste initially. This would be tremendously helpful - for the Neoden guys, all the current owners, and the new/potential ones alike.
1. identified bugs w/repeatable procedure steps
2. GUI improvement/modification
3. new feature - mandatory
4. new feature - wish list
-
@MTMElectronics Thank you very much for the review! Looking forward to the pictures and updated feedback after you get the new nozzles.
I also think the Small SMT machine hits a sweet spot for many different things including the better software.
And the M10V PNP also looks great but more expensive and slower.
-
Bump.
Any of you NeoDen 4 users have any more feedback about the machine and how its working out for you?
-
About a week later than we expected due to some things, but we finally tried to make a board today! The delay was mostly caused by the Puhui T-962C oven we bought along with the Neoden 4 being utter crap. I don't want to derail this thread, but basically don't buy one. Neodentech should offer something a bit less horrible. Things that get hot shouldn't be made with adhesive tape that burns while the product is operating normally.
The first run went somewhat okay, but not great. We had a few placement problems because the PCB was actually not located far enough into the machine. It's important to check that the entire PCB is within the movement area for all nozzles or else there will be an error during the job. Simple, but wasn't obvious until about half way through the job.
Another problem (since we restarted after a few errors) seems to be that the software lets you restart part way through the job (cool feature!) but it seemed like it would start at the component before the one I selected in the list. I didn't recheck this yet but it seemed weird when we were using it.
The main issue is that parts on the right half of the board were placed incorrectly. I've double checked all my math and the coordinates SHOULD be right. The Y positions were bang on, but the X is off by about half an 0805 resistor width.
We also placed a TQFP part and it was in a completely wrong spot. I'm not sure if it didn't image correctly but it was about 0.25" or more off. It was coming from a tray, so I'm not sure I'm using the trays correctly. The user manual has a lot of nice screen shots but the text is more or less unusable.
Also, when stopping a job the machine appears to drop the part randomly, instead of putting into the trash box. It also kicks the board out, but not enough to actually reset it. (you have to put the board outside the machine so it can draw it in on the rails for the edge detection to work properly)
Anyway, I think we're getting there... for a first try I'm not completely discouraged, but there is definitely some more learning to do.
BTW, if anyone has tips on using a manual solder stencil printer I would be glad to learn more.
-
Hi
Usually a part like your TQFP that comes up 1/4" off from all the others is a part coordinate issue. More or less, one side of the world talks about the center of the part and another side of the world talks about the part corner right by pin one. The net result is that the space mission misses Mars. I'd check your input data files and see what they say. The offset is about right if it is a 12 to 14 mm square part.
I don't have a Neoden so I can't really dig any deeper into the issue. No idea about how they handle the coordinates.
Bob
-
Thanks for the Update Elmwood :-+
Keep us updated as you progress forward.
-
I assume you're using the camera with the larger parts - make sure they are being detected/centered properly. You may need to fine tune the camera brightness like we did with the SSOT28 parts we use. And as I've mentioned before be sure to do a nozzle calibration.
-
TheSteve: Is there a way you've found to prevent multiple parts from being picked up at the same time? I found that the TQFP worked perfectly when it was the only part on the head. Previously my job had two different nozzles in the chiplist one after the other. The TQFP got picked up first, followed by a SOIC on a different nozzle. When it went to image the TQFP the other chip messed up the detection and then it placed it in the wrong location.
-
TheSteve: Is there a way you've found to prevent multiple parts from being picked up at the same time? I found that the TQFP worked perfectly when it was the only part on the head. Previously my job had two different nozzles in the chiplist one after the other. The TQFP got picked up first, followed by a SOIC on a different nozzle. When it went to image the TQFP the other chip messed up the detection and then it placed it in the wrong location.
Yes, you select if you want the parts picked/placed "jointly" or not. Pretty sure you can also select the camera to operate per nozzle or "jointly" as well. We do all of our camera parts one at a time.
-
I selected both individual and large component in the case of my TQFP part and it seems if adjacent parts in the pick list use different nozzles it will pick up multiple parts at once and then go and image them one at a time. But because there are multiple parts on the head at once the vision code cannot deal with the extra part showing up in the image.
Also, even after running the calibration of nozzles my resistors and small parts still appear to be placed incorrectly. I'm not sure where the error is coming from. I carefully set the first chip location and believe that the mark points are correct.
So those are my two currently issues. I'm not sure it's worth running another board with paste until I can figure them out.
-
We have never had it image more then a single part at a time with the camera - there is an option you need to find and change.
Are your X values on the screen for your PCB the same or different? I can't recall what the software calls things any more specifically as I don't have the machine in front of me and we didn't even turn it on last week so its been a while since we used it. I do know the X values should be the same but if you do things in the wrong order or click the wrong button they will be skewed a small amount and so will all of your parts.
-
It images parts individually if there are a bunch of parts from the same nozzle in a row. But in my case it used nozzle 3 for a large IC and the next chip in the list was nozzle 2. I'm not sure how to make it do each one separately.
Can you explain this thing in the wrong order problem again? I set the board edge align, and then I set the first chip align and create panelized list. I need to do more testing to see if all the parts are off or just ones from some nozzles.
Also, after doing a careful check of the alignment of camera and nozzles in the setup screen I compared new and old values and nothing was more than 0.1mm differently than the numbers from the factory. So that definitely wasn't the issue.
So close! Yet not close enough. :(
-
The first run went somewhat okay, but not great. We had a few placement problems because the PCB was actually not located far enough into the machine. It's important to check that the entire PCB is within the movement area for all nozzles or else there will be an error during the job. Simple, but wasn't obvious until about half way through the job.
Once again, let down by poor software - it should check this before it tries to place anything.
Another problem (since we restarted after a few errors) seems to be that the software lets you restart part way through the job (cool feature!)
Cool ? Essential more like. A partly-placed job is likely to be scrap unless it can be completed.
We also placed a TQFP part and it was in a completely wrong spot. I'm not sure if it didn't image correctly but it was about 0.25" or more off. It was coming from a tray, so I'm not sure I'm using the trays correctly. The user manual has a lot of nice screen shots but the text is more or less unusable.
It has vision - the pick position should have no effect in placement accuracy
Also, when stopping a job the machine appears to drop the part randomly, instead of putting into the trash box.
sigh.....
Further evidence that they have a lot more work to do on the software - such a shame they just don't seem to "get it"....
-
TheSteve: Is there a way you've found to prevent multiple parts from being picked up at the same time? I found that the TQFP worked perfectly when it was the only part on the head. Previously my job had two different nozzles in the chiplist one after the other. The TQFP got picked up first, followed by a SOIC on a different nozzle. When it went to image the TQFP the other chip messed up the detection and then it placed it in the wrong location.
Yes, you select if you want the parts picked/placed "jointly" or not. Pretty sure you can also select the camera to operate per nozzle or "jointly" as well. We do all of our camera parts one at a time.
..but presumably it;s not sensible enough to have a programmable clip area for the camera image to avoid imaging adjacent parts..?
-
I'm still not sure if there is a willingness to fix the software or not. If so, I would definitely recommend the Neoden 4. If not, then I would recommend against it. I'll have a better idea soon, as I've been in touch with Neoden about the issues. It's hard to tell if they care about the feedback. A few times they've said they'll have the engineers look into various issues. I'll believe it when I see a new release with at least one of the things I've requested fixed or added.
I've done more testing today and found that for some reason all parts on nozzle 1 are placed at bit "off" the mark. This is despite being imaged and despite having the nozzles all aligned according to the system calibration. I'm sure most of these parts will correct during reflow but I really just want it to be right. I'm trying to figure out if there is some kind of pattern to the error, but so far have to run more tests and analyze some macro photos of the boards.
Placing ICs on the larger nozzles is bang on! I was able to get my TQFP placing correctly by selecting "individual" vision instead of "large component"... apparently it fits within the range for the individual size. But it still picks up multiple parts since I had three parts in a row with nozzles 1, 2 and 3. Apparently there is no way to "block" it from optimizing this way. Maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm not sure for an even larger component how this would ever be able to work.
If I can work out the offset problem for small parts I'll probably be able to make some of my actual production boards!
-
Hi
Ok, so here's a few questions:
How many alternatives are there at the same price, with the same features?
How well are they supported outside their country of origin?
How good is their software?
Yes, there is stuff that is way better, for a higher price. If one spends more, they get more. Something that does not work is useless at any price. The main issue is -- can you get something that works at this price point or not?
Obviously it is never ever a works / does not work thing. As long as these machines have been around, there have been issues. Every machine I have ever owned (.. company owned ...) needed work arounds of some sort. The learning curve always was there. At the end of the struggle, they either placed the parts we needed or they didn't. If it was a fail, we either changed parts or changed the machine.
Bob
-
I don't expect any industrial machine to be completely smooth... these are low-run products with limited user bases. I definitely don't feel "ripped off" yet, provided that Neoden can help me sort out these remaining issues. A public announcement of new software with a changelog would go a long way toward showing goodwill for current and potential customers.
Speaking about price... every other system I looked at in mid-late 2015 was either in progress, or looked completely horrible / DIYish from a hardware perspective. Comparing the build quality of the Neoden 4 with the Liteplacer kit that I was working on prior to buying this machine is like night and day. The Liteplacer looks like it's made out of popsicle sticks compared with the solid frame of the Neoden. The motors are WAY bigger too, and the entire frame of the machine feels really solid. All of the other low-cost solutions looked like crappy 3D printer construction... one of them was even made out of wood!
mikeselectricstuff: I get the feeling like you don't want these low-cost machines to work for some reason. Yes there are a few wrinkles but I'm confident that the hardware is capable, and the software feels like it's at about 90% of what I would have expected for a first release. If Neoden fails to make any fixes then I might join your camp, but until then I'm hopeful.
For small shops such as mine having a machine that is physically small and affordable definitely opens up the doors to profitability. At least in Canada these days the PCBA landscape is the worst thing ever. The service and quality is so terrible, and the price is insane. We've been sending PCBA jobs to Thailand and they do amazing work, but the freight costs more than doubles the price!
BTW if you want to read a story about a "high end" piece of equipment and how awesome it was at first release, there is a famous article here that basically doesn't make me feel so bad about having a few issues with the Neoden 4: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/summer.scanned.pdf (https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/summer.scanned.pdf)
-
Hi
Ok, so simply put, there really isn't any competition at this price point.
Next up ... Is the software actually written by Neoden or by a third party?
I have no idea how you would be able to tell. It is a pretty critical point though. Often this sort of stuff gets jobbed out. An almost adequate job of multi-lingual software gets done. The software guy(s) now realize what they are into. Up goes the price for future work. The other side of the deal factored a fixed one time cost into the pricing. Instant impasse, both sides are at fault. I've seen this happen a *lot* of times. You can see traces of it in the interesting "we had to re-write the firmware from scratch" announcements. (= we brought it in house / found a different outsource location).
Bob
-
uncle_bob: I sure hope they make the code in house. But yes, at least as of December it's fair to say that nothing seems to beat the landed price of this machine. A lot of parts of it are very cool, and I feel that apart from some "nice to have" feature requests, it's nearly okay.
I know thesteve had success at his shop making real boards. Indeed during my testing I was having better luck but something must have changed that is now causing me some trouble. I'm hoping it's my fault and that a simple change to my setup or input file can correct it. As long as the machine is clunky yet consistent I have no problem with that. This is still to be confirmed. :)
-
Hi
At least based on the companies I've visited over there (I know *nothig* about Neoden) it is rare to find an outfit that is really good at hardware (as these guys seem to be) *and* that does software in house. The smaller outfits tend to get very narrowly focused. They sell the hardware to somebody else and that guy tacks on the software (or they job it out). The first involves a markup the second a potentially difficult relationship.
Further obscuring it, twin brothers Bob and Mike may be involved. Mike's company makes the great hardware. beer swilling Bob's company makes the software. Is it really one company or two ...
Bob
-
mikeselectricstuff: I get the feeling like you don't want these low-cost machines to work for some reason. Yes there are a few wrinkles but I'm confident that the hardware is capable, and the software feels like it's at about 90% of what I would have expected for a first release. If Neoden fails to make any fixes then I might join your camp, but until then I'm hopeful.
Quite the opposite - I'd love to see a low-end pick & place done well. If the Neoden4 had good software and could handle tall parts I'd very seriously consider getting one.
I just find it very frustrating that the N4 could be a very good machine, but like most Chinese products is badly let down by an inadequate attention to software design and implementation - something that would not be hard to fix if the manufacturers had the right attitude. IMO the utter balls-up they made with the video says it all.
-
mikeselectricstuff: I get the feeling like you don't want these low-cost machines to work for some reason. Yes there are a few wrinkles but I'm confident that the hardware is capable, and the software feels like it's at about 90% of what I would have expected for a first release. If Neoden fails to make any fixes then I might join your camp, but until then I'm hopeful.
Quite the opposite - I'd love to see a low-end pick & place done well. If the Neoden4 had good software and could handle tall parts I'd very seriously consider getting one.
I just find it very frustrating that the N4 could be a very good machine, but like most Chinese products is badly let down by an inadequate attention to software design and implementation - something that would not be hard to fix if the manufacturers had the right attitude. IMO the utter balls-up they made with the video says it all.
Hi
You might be surprised at just how small an operation many of these outfits are staff wise. It is *very* common to meed "the engineer" in a lot of these places (with sales in the > $30 M range !!!). They have a half dozen to a dozen guys who work for "the engineer". Once you start talking to them over a few days, it would be an exaggeration to call even 2 of them tech's. The rest are what we would call assemblers / prototype wiring guys or inspectors (he may also be the QA manager). In that environment, adding a full blown software development and support group is a really big deal.
Just so nobody gets offended here. The exact company details above are *not* for a Chinese pick and place company. The same business model exists in multiple countries in that region and covers a lot of electronic manufacturing / design / production. My intent is not to slam anyone. The model works amazingly well. The product is top quality. Often ....errr ... some people ..errr ... team up with these companies. The result is a product that has ... errr ... support .. and a higher price tag. Details hopefully well enough concealed to let me keep my job.
Bob
-
Just a quick update:
I finally got my replacement nozzles and after setting up the machine with them I'm happy to report that it is now working well with the 0805 caps. I have run the machine all the way up to 100% speed now and the placement accuracy doesn't appear to be visually degraded between 100% and 60% speed, but so far I have not done any fine pitch ICs or components smaller than 0603 so I am definitely not testing the machine's limits yet.
When I have turned on the "Jointly" vision recognition I get an obviously incorrect offset on the parts, even with fairly large 0805 parts. The calibration is obviously off, because the machine places much more accurately with the vision off, and very well with the vision set to 'Individual'. I have not needed the extra speed yet so I haven't bothered to try and calibrate it but it is on my "to do" list.
Make sure that your component library value actually matches what you are putting in the machine. If you are feeding the machine bad information, it cannot give you good results. I took a caliper and measured each of my parts then added that part to the component library for vision recognition. Check and make sure that the outline the vision is recognizing actually matches up with the part's outline.
The software does have some idiosyncrasies that could be fixed, although I am doubtful that they will be fixed. Those that I mentioned earlier (manual board offset being the biggest one), along with some that I just read (such as the machine just dropping the part where it sits if you press "stop" during placement). I also just began using the vibratory tube feeder, and while it works good enough once set up, it is disappointing that you have to manually go into the test menu to start and stop the vibrator both before and after a placement job, so if you forget to turn it on before a job you will start placing then run into feed errors, then have to exit out and start the job over again. In my mind, if one of the vibratory feeders is called for during placement then it should turn on automatically when you start the placement routine.
This is just like most of the Chinese flashlights I deal with---they go about 90%-95% of the way to making a truly great product, but then fall short on some of the small details that could elevate the product from 'acceptable' to 'great'. I am happy enough with the machine as it sits as long as it keeps running reliably, but if they had a more polished interface and a better sales pitch can you imagine how many more of these they could sell?
-
but if they had a more polished interface and a better sales pitch can you imagine how many more of these they could sell?
Unfortunately it appears they don't have sufficient imagination....
-
I've done more testing today and found that for some reason all parts on nozzle 1 are placed at bit "off" the mark. This is despite being imaged and despite having the nozzles all aligned according to the system calibration. I'm sure most of these parts will correct during reflow but I really just want it to be right. I'm trying to figure out if there is some kind of pattern to the error, but so far have to run more tests and analyze some macro photos of the boards.
Placing ICs on the larger nozzles is bang on! I was able to get my TQFP placing correctly by selecting "individual" vision instead of "large component"... apparently it fits within the range for the individual size. But it still picks up multiple parts since I had three parts in a row with nozzles 1, 2 and 3. Apparently there is no way to "block" it from optimizing this way. Maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm not sure for an even larger component how this would ever be able to work.
If I can work out the offset problem for small parts I'll probably be able to make some of my actual production boards!
Sounds like you are running just a few 'test' components currently [which is understandable Elmood].
Do the components you are selecting at Nozzle #1 require 'rotation' at the PCB placement position by any chance?
If that were the case, and you're assured that it is collecting the component correctly from the tape, then the 'seating' of the nozzle could be slightly out of alignment [not concentric with the shaft], causing the displacement error you are referring to. Just a thought.
-
thommo: I thought that might be the case, but in the setup screen I was able to do a rotation test where the machine will overlay images from multiple rotation angles, and it seems that it's not deviating.
My gut feeling is that somehow it's failing to calculate an offset or correct for it. I have to confirm this by checking the screen for how the part images each time. It seems like parts of both rotations are off. Obviously the imaging system works because it picks up parts from the trays and are able to perfectly align them on the pads. (TQFP parts) I do recall that previous tests worked better, but there are a lot of variables and things that have changed since I first tried it.
There was no response from Neoden last night so I'm hoping to hear from them tonight. I really hope it's something silly that I'm doing wrong. One feature that I think should be included is the ability to show the alignment of a component on the board. You can align with the camera the feeders, which is a great way to double check that the machine is set up correctly for a job. But I wish you could see each component with the downlooking camera to see where it thinks it's going to place the part. That would help to rule out errors in the input data.
-
But I wish you could see each component with the downlooking camera to see where it thinks it's going to place the part. That would help to rule out errors in the input data.
This isn't possible with larger parts as the camera has a fixed field of view - so while you can see smaller parts you'll only be able to see a small portion of larger components. I believe with all larger parts in the future we will place cross-hairs on the PCB to mark the center of the part. That will make it easy to verify position with the downward facing camera.
-
TheSteve: How do you go about actually pointing to the part locations with the downfacing camera? I imported my coordinates from a file and there is no option to do this manually it seems.
-
TheSteve: How do you go about actually pointing to the part locations with the downfacing camera? I imported my coordinates from a file and there is no option to do this manually it seems.
As long as "manual" is unchecked, you can't do it. The problem is that if you manually program some of your components with the machine coordinates using this method, you really have to program all of them including the fiducials using the machine's coordinates. This is why it would be extremely helpful if there were an offset setting that you could change.
-
You can view where it will place parts with down looking camera even with manual unchecked.
You need to mount file, step through fiducials then click on part you want to view, then click vision align button.
-
TankSparks: Thanks for that info! I didn't know about the vision align function because it always seemed greyed out. I guess it wasn't too obvious how to make it enabled, but doing the calibration part of the mounting routine makes sense. We had our first mostly successful run yesterday! I'm definitely finding out what needs to go on our checklist before starting a job each time.
Our placement alignment issues seemed to be due to the way our fiducials (mark points, in Neoden-speak) were being detected. Obviously it's necessary to have at least a few points because the rail system is not 100% accurate at positioning the board... there is always some room for error both side-to-side and while feeding in the PCB. A few things we found after some careful testing:
- The number of mark points and their positions has a big impact on positioning overall on the board. Too few / bad locations chosen will make some parts perfectly aligned while others are off a bit. Our test board is a worst case of an older design we have that doesn't use proper fiducials or rails. It was hard to find good points that would make the alignment bang on all over the PCB.
- The size of the mark point has a big impact! We had some drill holes approx. 3mm dia. (the default size range for detection is 0.8mm to 3.0mm) and they detected every time but there was some error in the detected position, maybe due to shadows in the lighting? Smaller vias seem to work better. It would be good if the Neoden software showed a circle around the detected point, or maybe print out some data after all the points were calculated. They have a nice big debug window on the mount screen but they hardly write any info to it.
- The Neoden software seems to only detect circles... I couldn't find an option in the menus to change the shape to rectangle, so using a copper feature like a resistor pad is not possible.
- The most unfortunate part is that there is no way to know / change the field of view while detecting the points. Occasionally the machine zeros in on the correct point and then all of a sudden jumps to a nearby hole instead. (It takes about 3 pictures of each point) We got in the habit of starting jobs with the Step function until we were sure it got all the points right. On a dense board I think rails might be the only option to ensure there is enough blank area around the point to guarantee reliable detection. How much blank area? This is still a mystery... it would be nice if Neoden would shed some more light on this.
As for placement, it mostly went as expected. Small parts like resistors and caps are bang on and the pick works every time. We had trouble with some larger components not picking up reliably. The nozzle seems to go up and down rapidly if it can't sense vacuum, but it seems far too rapid. Sometimes it would do this even if it had a part. We changed the vacuum detection threshold to a lower value to try helping it but it didn't seem to make much difference. The biggest problem is with the vibration feeder... if it doesn't think it has a part the nozzle just bobs up and down... if it actually did get a part it smashes that part down on top of the new chip which is already moving down the tube. This just makes a little train wreck all over the place. I'm not sure if the pick and place delay settings affect this retry speed since I didn't experiment with this yet.
The final note I'd like to share is that the nozzle sizes that Neoden suggests for various chips doesn't appear to be right. The smallest nozzle works well for all the passive parts but they suggest what seems like too large sizes for the ICs. After getting repeated pick errors I moved down by one size on all the ICs and things seemed to work much better. Perhaps the larger nozzles just don't get a very good seal on the part.
Anyway, we're still fighting with our oven which made toast out of one of our test boards, but I'd say that the Neoden 4 is workable. The software is still not really at 100%, but it does seem to work enough to make a board. Some more polish would go a long way into making the process enjoyable and save a lot of wasted time messing around with stuff though.
-
Hi
Not in any way specific to this machine (I don't have one ... yet):
A copper circle off in the middle of nowhere with mask pulled back from it is often the most universal fiducial. That's not just on this specific machine. If at all possible we put them completely outside the main board area so there is nothing of similar size or contrast to confuse things. Off the top of my head, no idea of the exact size we use other than 1 to 2 mm seems to be about right.
The gotcha with drill holes is that the "fine people" who did your board may (or may not) have their drill nicely aligned with the top (or bottom) copper. If you need <0.2 mm alignment (0.5 mm pitch parts) a hole that is 0.2 mm off is ..errr ... not going to help.
Bob
-
This just makes a little train wreck all over the place. ........ Some more polish would go a long way into making the process enjoyable and save a lot of wasted time messing around with stuff though.
Thanks. This really has confirmed what i was feeling.
-
Hi
Ok, so simply put, there really isn't any competition at this price point.
Just a general thought: take the price of the machine, add additional engineering hours lost over the course of 10 years, add addtional components tossed in the bin over 10 years and recalculate.
-
Hi
Ok, so simply put, there really isn't any competition at this price point.
Just a general thought: take the price of the machine, add additional engineering hours lost over the course of 10 years, add addtional components tossed in the bin over 10 years and recalculate.
This is a critical concept to consider. I even wrote a paper for my industry titled "Cheap Can Be Very Expensive". There are up-front costs that are easy to see and compare, there are operational costs that are very difficult to see. Over the past decade I have owned a small manufacturing business, I caught myself being suckered in by a 'good deal' that turned out to be very expensive. The unexpected expenses were usually lost time and/or bad parts. In the beginning, it seems like a few minutes here and there. A few minutes here and there every day for years add up to a LOT. It also, as the business owner, set me up to be scrambling nights and weekends to catch up - making up for the poor performance of my software or hardware choices. At that point, the money I 'saved' initially was long forgotten and I was bitter and angry working on a Saturday night.
A 'Long tailed' piece of equipment is one that has a low acquisition cost, but a high cost of operation - ink jet printer as an example. A short tailed piece of equipment may have a high initial cost, but simply works after that for a long time with little additional effort or money. In my commercial manufacturing experience, hardware and software that is focused on being low-cost as a primary design goal, tend to be the most expensive in the long run. A $10k machine seems like a deal, unless you have to fiddle with it, miss deadlines, throw away scrap, burn a relationship with a customer, etc. I have no specific knowledge of the N4, but that is what I would be calculating/estimating if I was considering the product. After some poor decisions, I will do anything to avoid a long tailed piece of equipment or software.
-
It serves as a continuous source of amazement to me that so few engineers have an awareness of what they cost...
-
It serves as a continuous source of amazement to me that so few engineers have an awareness of what they cost...
Let's have a go.
Engineer earning $75k/yr - $6250/mo - $300/day - $37.50/hr - $.625/minute
Say a fiddly machine takes about 5 minutes every hour - easy to overlook. $3.125/hour - $25/day - $125/week - $500/mo - $6000/year - $30,000 over a 5 year course of using the machine. So that is the direct cost. The missed opportunity and distractions preventing the engineer from designing something new and useful are far harder to estimate than just the lost time.
After owning/operating a machine shop, I because accustomed to counting seconds and analyzing the small details of repetitive tasks. The best equipment and software wastes the least amount of time possible and that seems expensive until you add up the value of all the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, of expensive labor saved.
-
rx8pilot: I agree with your "long tailed" approach. I've already upgraded from "build my own pick and place" to "buy one". And indeed if the next nearest competitor was 2x the price and had nicer software I probably would have found the money somewhere to get it. But the "real" machines cost at least an order of magnitude more money than I can afford... at which point it's no longer practical to have in the shop.
Every time I use the hardware on the Neoden 4 I'm impressed. But the software feels so close to being okay, but not quite. If a few other users wanted to go together for better software, I would gladly get a developer, write a spec and make it. After writing most of a complete PNP control software recently, I can tell you that it's not an overwhelming undertaking but does require some concentrated effort to get right. Let me know if anyone has serious interest in this kind of thing... perhaps Neoden will release something that puts the icing on the cake but honestly I'm not holding my breath.
As for the real cost of cheap solutions... sadly most of us don't have the option of buying the Rolls Royce right out of the gate, so the fiddling with a cheap machine is really an "investment" in hopefully earning enough to get something better.... or at least that's how I see it.
-
rx8pilot: I agree with your "long tailed" approach. I've already upgraded from "build my own pick and place" to "buy one". And indeed if the next nearest competitor was 2x the price and had nicer software I probably would have found the money somewhere to get it. But the "real" machines cost at least an order of magnitude more money than I can afford... at which point it's no longer practical to have in the shop.
Every time I use the hardware on the Neoden 4 I'm impressed. But the software feels so close to being okay, but not quite. If a few other users wanted to go together for better software, I would gladly get a developer, write a spec and make it. After writing most of a complete PNP control software recently, I can tell you that it's not an overwhelming undertaking but does require some concentrated effort to get right. Let me know if anyone has serious interest in this kind of thing... perhaps Neoden will release something that puts the icing on the cake but honestly I'm not holding my breath.
As for the real cost of cheap solutions... sadly most of us don't have the option of buying the Rolls Royce right out of the gate, so the fiddling with a cheap machine is really an "investment" in hopefully earning enough to get something better.... or at least that's how I see it.
I did not have the money to buy a fancy machine either. I was stuck with a very challenging decision - buy new/lowend or used/higher end. The decision was to go for the used machine which I expected would be a bear to get running and I was not disappointed. I spent around $5k on a broken machine, $4k on parts, and about a month fixing and learning how to use it. I traded nights and weekends to make up for my lack of money. So, clearly the upfront cost was higher (cash + time) but it is quite solid and far more capable than an N4 no matter how you look at it. It was a compromise that had a good result. There were some very scary moments where it could have ended poorly, so there was definitely some real risk that the project would fail. Now that it is up and running, the effort need to keep it there is tiny. It is fast and reliable. It can hold tons of parts up to 56mm tapes. I have over 100 parts setup in the machine at any given moment so it saves a LOT of time changing from program to program - almost no part changes needed. Tall parts, wide parts, small parts - 1005 passives if needed, cut tapes, tubes, 6 nozzle changer, side scan on the fly, etc. All time savers.
As for new machines, your are right, there is nothing out there in this range. Most machines (including mine) you would blast $10k on a small number of feeders. It is a tough transition for a business.
-
rx8pilot: I did look for a used machine for about six months and didn't find anything in my area. Being in Canada, it's rather complex and expensive to get anything from the USA... even a lot of people on eBay won't ship large items to Canada. Neodentech took care of everything and all I had to do was pay the local sales taxes when the stuff arrived.
I'd love to upgrade to a bigger machine later, but it would be a long-term project when I'm not relying on it for actual production. My DIY project based on the Liteplacer + my own software and surplus feeders kept dragging on so I finally just order the Neoden instead. I think I have it working well enough to start making real boards.
The major problem I've been trying to solve today is this T-962C craptastic oven that was part of the kit. It's the worst thing ever... I don't want to change this thread but if anyone has recommendations of a non-crappy oven that is plug and play, I'm ready to throw this one in the garbage. Like, does IR even work for PCBs? I got the oven to not burn itself by taking out all the flammable tape, but now it just cooks boards so that they get all bubbly with black epoxy goo oozing out. This is on the lead-free profile too! I put some instrumentation inside and it looked like some parts of the PCB was reaching 325C.
-
Finding a used machine requires a lot of luck and a lot of time. I was seconds away from buying one of the new Asian machines when my opportunity arrived on eBay - and it was local. I have not seen a similar deal since.
Glad to have a break once in a while.
-
rx8pilot:
The major problem I've been trying to solve today is this T-962C craptastic oven that was part of the kit. It's the worst thing ever... I don't want to change this thread but if anyone has recommendations of a non-crappy oven that is plug and play, I'm ready to throw this one in the garbage. Like, does IR even work for PCBs? I got the oven to not burn itself by taking out all the flammable tape, but now it just cooks boards so that they get all bubbly with black epoxy goo oozing out. This is on the lead-free profile too! I put some instrumentation inside and it looked like some parts of the PCB was reaching 325C.
Also without wanting to redirect this thread:
Reflow Oven
I'm considering a 'R350' from www.torchsmt.com (http://www.torchsmt.com) at around $5,750 USD, for what it's worth.
-
The major problem I've been trying to solve today is this T-962C craptastic oven that was part of the kit. It's the worst thing ever.
The Qinsi QS-5100 looks a bit like the T962C and its price is similar, but its built a bit better and has a controller which actually works. A number of people who have had bad experiences with the T962C seem to find these satisfactory. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzhkTR0K8-w (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzhkTR0K8-w) for a comparison.
-
rx8pilot:
The major problem I've been trying to solve today is this T-962C craptastic oven that was part of the kit. It's the worst thing ever... I don't want to change this thread but if anyone has recommendations of a non-crappy oven that is plug and play, I'm ready to throw this one in the garbage. Like, does IR even work for PCBs? I got the oven to not burn itself by taking out all the flammable tape, but now it just cooks boards so that they get all bubbly with black epoxy goo oozing out. This is on the lead-free profile too! I put some instrumentation inside and it looked like some parts of the PCB was reaching 325C.
Also without wanting to redirect this thread:
Reflow Oven
I'm considering a 'R350' from www.torchsmt.com (http://www.torchsmt.com) at around $5,750 USD, for what it's worth.
Good day Thommo,
I cannot speak about the Torch R350, but have you looked at the Puhui T-960 (www.tech168.cn (http://www.tech168.cn)) which is somewhat comparable? The T-960 has 5 heat zones (3-up 2-down) and works pretty well. Best of all it is a lot cheaper. I bought mine for $1150 US (shipping was an additional $200 to my closest Ocean port) just over a year ago. Overall the build quality is quite good.
Cheers,
Sam
-
I'd seriously consider a vapour phase setup.
rx8pilot:
The major problem I've been trying to solve today is this T-962C craptastic oven that was part of the kit. It's the worst thing ever... I don't want to change this thread but if anyone has recommendations of a non-crappy oven that is plug and play, I'm ready to throw this one in the garbage. Like, does IR even work for PCBs? I got the oven to not burn itself by taking out all the flammable tape, but now it just cooks boards so that they get all bubbly with black epoxy goo oozing out. This is on the lead-free profile too! I put some instrumentation inside and it looked like some parts of the PCB was reaching 325C.
Also without wanting to redirect this thread:
Reflow Oven
I'm considering a 'R350' from www.torchsmt.com (http://www.torchsmt.com) at around $5,750 USD, for what it's worth.
Good day Thommo,
I cannot speak about the Torch R350, but have you looked at the Puhui T-960 (www.tech168.cn (http://www.tech168.cn)) which is somewhat comparable? The T-960 has 5 heat zones (3-up 2-down) and works pretty well. Best of all it is a lot cheaper. I bought mine for $1150 US (shipping was an additional $200 to my closest Ocean port) just over a year ago. Overall the build quality is quite good.
Cheers,
Sam
-
Hi, this is my first post.
I have DDM Novastar LS60V (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/ls60v-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision) and currently need more capacity, after following this thread for quite some time i finally decide to order the Neoden 4 - now waiting for the shipment.
I want to comment on the 5 mm component height limitation, in my experience for low volume production up to 1000 board job, better to place tall/big/heavy components by hand!
YES, because the machine (lower end machine) will throw that kind of parts very often - even messing already placed parts.
I will share my experience with this N4 when i get it.
-ichan
-
@Ichan Can't wait to see some feedback from you once the machine arrives!
-
Thanks for assisting us all and agreeing to share your experience Ichan.
When are you expecting to receive your new Neoden4?
I have DDM Novastar LS60V (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/ls60v-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision) and currently need more capacity, after following this thread for quite some time i finally decide to order the Neoden 4 - now waiting for the shipment.
I will share my experience with this N4 when i get it.
-
I want to comment on the 5 mm component height limitation, in my experience for low volume production up to 1000 board job, better to place tall/big/heavy components by hand!
That's usually a case of using the right nozzle, which is why you really want an auto nozzle change facility
-
I tell the Neoden contact (Tony) to take his time preparing the machine to be the best in quality and professionally configured, because i will review it in here ;D.
The job is already waiting for the machine, i will review it doing a real job for at least 2000 panelized board (4 board / panel).
Let say they need 1 week to prepare the machine plus 2 weeks shipment + customs then i may receive it at about the end of 3rd week of march, so i hope i can start posts about it around the end of march.
The vacuum pump also a weak point of low end machine, even the LS60V - based on that experience i order the N4 with spare vacuum pump too.
-ichan
-
I want to comment on the 5 mm component height limitation, in my experience for low volume production up to 1000 board job, better to place tall/big/heavy components by hand!
That would kill me for sure. Just one of my boards has 10pcs 820uf aluminum caps - running a few hundred having to hand place those would be brutal.
-
Sometimes, hand placing is the only sensible solution though.. I've got an inductor that heavy and large. ( 22x22x14mm ).. The consequences of a drop are ruining an entire panel..
-
If you need to do manual placing of th smd elcos I would immediately switch to through hole for those components, i still think that the reflow process will affect the lifetime of electrolytics esp the smaller cases ofcourse but eveyone in the industry will probably tell me i am nuts. :-//
-
That would kill me for sure. Just one of my boards has 10pcs 820uf aluminum caps - running a few hundred having to hand place those would be brutal.
I started as a fully hand placer, ten caps is easy for me... :D
If you need to do manual placing of th smd elcos I would immediately switch to through hole for those components, i still think that the reflow process will affect the lifetime of electrolytics esp the smaller cases ofcourse but eveyone in the industry will probably tell me i am nuts. :-//
Me too prefer TH for elcos for two reason, smd elcos are easy to be pulled off from the board and they take much longer time to reflow than the small parts.
-ichan
-
I see another limitation of N4 when ordering it, which i think never talked yet.
They only over 8mm, 12mm, and 16mm reel feeders...
D2PAK in reel for example won't go with this machine.
-ichan
-
I started as a fully hand placer, ten caps is easy for me... :D
I too spent the last 2 years hand-placing many 10's of thousands of parts by hand - fine pitch and 0402's |O. A quantity that drove me to near insanity. I did, however, get very very good at it. I made special tools, organization, software, etc. I really feel like I totally maxed out hand placing. When I got my machine, it had some troubles with tall parts not fitting in the feeders, so I placed them by hand. The 'few minutes' delay getting them into the oven multiplied times each board was bringing back bad memories and adding up to a significant amount of time. I modified the feeders to fit the tall caps and now it goes direct from P&P to oven. Heavy inductors too - just got the right nozzles and slowed the machine down.
I am thankful for my sharp assembly skills, but I only want to use them in an emergency. Taking the PCB from P&P to the oven is such a joy. Having enough feeders to have 6 PCB's setup in the machine at a time is also amazing. The stress level has plummeted.
-
I started as a fully hand placer, ten caps is easy for me... :D
I too spent the last 2 years hand-placing many 10's of thousands of parts by hand - fine pitch and 0402's |O. A quantity that drove me to near insanity. I did, however, get very very good at it. I made special tools, organization, software, etc. I really feel like I totally maxed out hand placing. When I got my machine, it had some troubles with tall parts not fitting in the feeders, so I placed them by hand. The 'few minutes' delay getting them into the oven multiplied times each board was bringing back bad memories and adding up to a significant amount of time. I modified the feeders to fit the tall caps and now it goes direct from P&P to oven. Heavy inductors too - just got the right nozzles and slowed the machine down.
I am thankful for my sharp assembly skills, but I only want to use them in an emergency. Taking the PCB from P&P to the oven is such a joy. Having enough feeders to have 6 PCB's setup in the machine at a time is also amazing. The stress level has plummeted.
Hi
With a bit over a half million dollars worth of gear humming away placing and the like, we still have parts that get put on by hand. Sometimes it's for one reason, sometimes for another. We try to avoid it (by design) on the big runs. It's almost inevitable on the under a hundred pieces stuff ....
Bob
-
@ichan: if you have a DDM Novastar LS60V why on earth would you want a Neoden4? I think you're going to be grossly disappointed. I'm actually looking at the DDM LE-40V because my confidence level with the Neoden4 based on discussions in this group isn't there. Can you elaborate on why you need a Neoden4 when you have the LS60V?
-
@ichan: if you have a DDM Novastar LS60V why on earth would you want a Neoden4? I think you're going to be grossly disappointed. I'm actually looking at the DDM LE-40V because my confidence level with the Neoden4 based on discussions in this group isn't there. Can you elaborate on why you need a Neoden4 when you have the LS60V?
Hi
.... yes butting in .... sorry about that.
Short runs.
Keep the big stuff running the high volume boards. Move the dozens level stuff over to a small machine. Setup / teardown / validation on a cheap machine wastes less expensive machine resources. If the people time is roughly the same and you can keep the big stuff running full bore, you are ahead. If you keep the little guy tied up half of the time while the big guy(s) keep(s) running much closer to full time, you are making a lot of money off that little machine. It also beats hand placing those many batches of a couple dozen boards / panels ...
Yes, that is *very* mix / situation specific. My mix / your mix / his mix / how many parts / what kind of parts / programming time / scrap / quality ... who knows.
To move to the end of the page. We have tried this. It's one of those things that makes sense when you are maxed out or heading that way. It dies in the next slow down. The idea never seems to come back when things pick up again.
Bob
-
@sedelman, In short i am a dissapointed user of LS60V.
I can tell anything about that machine if someone ask, because i have repaired it by myself four times already.
Anyway, i bought it when the company name is still APS Novastar not DDM.
@uncle_bob, well that is not on my case :), i will gladly swap my LS60V with two fully configured N4 if anyone interested... ;D
-ichan
-
@sedelman, In short i am a dissapointed user of LS60V.
I can tell anything about that machine if someone ask, because i have repaired it by myself four times already.
Anyway, i bought it when the company name is still APS Novastar not DDM.
@uncle_bob, well that is not on my case :), i will gladly swap my LS60V with two fully configured N4 if anyone interested... ;D
-ichan
Hi
As I said ... everybody has a different situation. In fact, our experience with the "small line" idea has not been 100% roses.
Bob
-
@Ichan: what are you expecting from the Neoden4 that will be better than the LS60V? Do you have experience with a Neoden4 that makes it stand out over the LS60V? If I understand correctly, there are only two people in this thread who own a Neoden4 and they have been mostly silent about their successes running production with the machine.
In my opinion, this machine still needs to be proven and it's going to take more than a carefully staged Youtube video (horrible translation aside) from Neoden to convince me that the thing can actually run continuous production without hand holding.
Let's be clear, I want Neoden4 to be a winner because I also need a professional PnP for US $10K, so I appeal to the owners of the Neoden4 in this thread, please post a video of a successful production run so we can all get warm fuzzies that this machine can actually deliver.
-
Last production run the Neoden 4 I have access to dropped two FTDI chips but it didn't notice. As the one who has to do the rework when it screws up I'll say it still has potential but if it was my money, I wouldn't buy one.
-
Last production run the Neoden 4 I have access to dropped two FTDI chips but it didn't notice. As the one who has to do the rework when it screws up I'll say it still has potential but if it was my money, I wouldn't buy one.
Well, that its pretty much sums it up. And teaches you right or using FTDI Destroy the planet chips.
-
In my opinion, this machine still needs to be proven and it's going to take more than a carefully staged Youtube video (horrible translation aside) from Neoden to convince me that the thing can actually run continuous production without hand holding.
The chances seem slim that you can walk away from this thing while running any time soon.
Let's be clear, I want Neoden4 to be a winner because I also need a professional PnP for US $10K......
Maybe, just maybe it could be a pro-sumer level. For a machine to really stand up to a professional environment it has to be super solid in all respects. From what I have seen and heard so far, this thing seems like a good step up from hand placing prototypes and pilot runs, but not something I would count on for a living.
Last production run the Neoden 4 I have access to dropped two FTDI chips but it didn't notice. As the one who has to do the rework when it screws up I'll say it still has potential but if it was my money, I wouldn't buy one.
As old as my machine is, I doesn't drop parts, even the big heavy ones. If it did, it has two sensors that would stop and alarm the machine. The old machine seems like it saved me from the Neoden which I was planning to buy just before I found mine. I should call it the Millennium Falcon since it looks like a hunk of junk but can do the Kessel PCB in 12 minutes without missing anything. I have <$10k in it so far.
-
Last production run the Neoden 4 I have access to dropped two FTDI chips but it didn't notice. As the one who has to do the rework when it screws up I'll say it still has potential but if it was my money, I wouldn't buy one.
Well, that its pretty much sums it up. And teaches you right or using FTDI Destroy the planet chips.
Geeze, take your FTDI battle somewhere else.
-
In my opinion, this machine still needs to be proven and it's going to take more than a carefully staged Youtube video (horrible translation aside) from Neoden to convince me that the thing can actually run continuous production without hand holding.
The chances seem slim that you can walk away from this thing while running any time soon.
Let's be clear, I want Neoden4 to be a winner because I also need a professional PnP for US $10K......
Maybe, just maybe it could be a pro-sumer level. For a machine to really stand up to a professional environment it has to be super solid in all respects. From what I have seen and heard so far, this thing seems like a good step up from hand placing prototypes and pilot runs, but not something I would count on for a living.
Last production run the Neoden 4 I have access to dropped two FTDI chips but it didn't notice. As the one who has to do the rework when it screws up I'll say it still has potential but if it was my money, I wouldn't buy one.
As old as my machine is, I doesn't drop parts, even the big heavy ones. If it did, it has two sensors that would stop and alarm the machine. The old machine seems like it saved me from the Neoden which I was planning to buy just before I found mine. I should call it the Millennium Falcon since it looks like a hunk of junk but can do the Kessel PCB in 12 minutes without missing anything. I have <$10k in it so far.
The Juki 570L that I used before the Neoden 4 was actually an amazing machine all things considered. It had some quirks too but was 1000 times the machine the Neoden will ever be. However it wouldn't fit through a doorway, meaning it needed warehouse/garage space which was a long term problem for us.
For some use cases the Neodon 4 will work great I am sure. And it will continue to get used to build boards but I don't have too much faith in it and know it will lead to much more rework.
-
@Ichan: what are you expecting from the Neoden4 that will be better than the LS60V? Do you have experience with a Neoden4 that makes it stand out over the LS60V?
I am expecting much higher output rate at least double than the current one i have. No, what i know is about the same with most people in here - from their web pages, youtube videos, and this thread.
I do not want to talk much about LS60V, in summary mine is a far from perfect machine: it is slow, the feeders are sucks jams very often, dropping components often, vision not working very well, and the most important i got zero support from the maker.
I follow and read this thread more than once from page 1, what i found is most of the problems are about getting used to the "strange" workflow of the software, and the parameters / configuration which are not properly configured. All people says great things about the mechanical, that is a significant positive point for me.
When i finally decide to buy it, i understand that i have to accept the limitation and the learning curve wont be short. My learning curve with the LS60V was not short either - need sometime to understand all the parameters and set's them up properly. The software and user manual is not very good too, the software also run on windows xp and developed using Visual Basic 6.
Hope i will win this bet, but i have a good feeling because my expectation is not very high.
-ichan
-
Ichan I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out for you.
Hope you post up lots of photos and video :popcorn:
We all want the Neoden to be a workable solution.
-
..... My learning curve with the LS60V was not short either - need sometime to understand all the parameters and set's them up properly. The software and user manual is not very good too, the software also run on windows xp and developed using Visual Basic 6.
-ichan
Hi
That is a fairly important point on some of these machines. One of the reasons we have taken gear off-line has been the inability to do practical IT on a custom DOS / WFWG 3.11 / ISA / EISA PC. It may be software related. Often it's custom interface board related. When the last PC bites the dust, the machine goes on the auction block. This is not in any way unique to pick and place gear. We've seen it with a wide range of things that depend on a PC to keep them going. The machine its self still works ok, it's simply impractical to keep the "other half" of it working.
Good news or bad news? That depends on your viewpoint. If cobbling up a 1980's motherboard and keeping it running is a good use of your time, it's a way to get some fine old gear cheap. If keeping a stock of old computer parts around isn't in your game plan .. not such a good thing.
Bob
-
The PC issue is what will kill my machine but it's probably quite a few years off. It's on XP now but can go up to Windows 7. The vision system, stepper drives, and various interface stuff is going to be time consuming and/or expensive to repair if it goes.
I am keeping my eyes open for logical replacement options for the dark day when mine goes the the museum.
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
-
The problem is that they just progressively get more fiddly over time. Its less about being impossible and more about being time effective for me.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
Hi
Once you find that the spec includes multiple EISA sockets (for the custom cards) plus a floppy plus an ISA disk and a few other weird bits ... the supply is far from infinite. In some cases the last machine that had the "right" combo last shipped 30 years ago. We had one that the cards *only* would work on a "Genuine" IBM PC-AT. Anything past that ... not going to work.
Consider that you want a machine that will hold up in constant service. A quick lash up of flakey parts isn't going to do the job.
Bob
-
I just got confirmation from Tony of Neoden that the machine will be shipped today... woohoo.. 8)
From their place in Hangzhou it will be go to Shenzhen first then fly to my place, the most longer time usually on customs clearance - if anything goes smooth i should receive it within two weeks.
Tony also send me the user manual and a sample of working file, i will gonna start to prepare the job for the machine.
As promised, i will share many things about this... ;)
-ichan
-
@ichan I'm Excited for you! What will be the finest pitch parts you plan on placing?
-
The finest part has 0.5 mm pitch, they are STCC5021 (http://www.st.com/web/catalog/sense_power/FM1961/SC1906/PF255616)and MAX3421 (http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/interface/controllers-expanders/MAX3421E.html). There are some SOT23 transistor which usually rather hard to be pick and placed accurately, Resistors and Capacitors are large all in 1206 package.
I will post component list and the pcb picture soon.
-ichan
-
Have you talked to Tony at Neoden about the software issues the guys on this thread are having? Has he read this thread?
-
Yes - very exciting news Ichan. We are all behind you and wish you success and a speedy bring-up of the machine into service.
As RWB has also suggested ...
I have listed just 4 very good questions that you could ask Tony from Neoden at this point in time. I am absolutely certain that his response would be of much interest to a very large number of current users, and potential buyers.
1. When do they intend releasing an update to the Software Application?
2. What bug fixes does it deal with [in detail]?
3. What feature modifications and new features, if any, does it include [in detail]?
4. When will Neoden address the very many issues identified in this forum from current customers, and by what means?
Please let him know that he has a 'number of potential buyers' also awaiting his detailed response to these few questions - myself included. Likewise, I think he should know that a disappointing, or worse still, no response, will most likely drive this potential market to an alternate option [which could include new competition to Neoden].
This is a terrific opportunity for Neoden to build some real credibility in what at best is currently a very (understandably) skeptical market.
Thanks Ichan.
I just got confirmation from Tony of Neoden that the machine will be shipped today... woohoo.. 8)
Tony also send me the user manual and a sample of working file, i will gonna start to prepare the job for the machine.
As promised, i will share many things about this... ;)
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
Hi
Once you find that the spec includes multiple EISA sockets (for the custom cards) plus a floppy plus an ISA disk and a few other weird bits ... the supply is far from infinite. In some cases the last machine that had the "right" combo last shipped 30 years ago. We had one that the cards *only* would work on a "Genuine" IBM PC-AT. Anything past that ... not going to work.
Consider that you want a machine that will hold up in constant service. A quick lash up of flakey parts isn't going to do the job.
Bob
Ebay saved/favorite searches are really handy for finding obscure stuff for spares. I got a spare vision card and PC MB for my P&P after about a year.
-
@ichan Tell Tony to get on this thead and talk with us about the machine. We only want to help make it better for him and us.
I just came into a chunk of money that would allow me to purchase one of these machine if @ichan gets better results than the rest of the guys. I'm still hopeful.
Sounds like some tweaking is all that is needed to make this machine really great.
-
I am pretty sure Neoden people following this thread, they should answer all those questions for they own good.
I myself has no question yet about the software because i has not tried it, obviously.
How about peoples who already own the machine making a list of the software bug and feature request?
-ichan
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
Hi
Once you find that the spec includes multiple EISA sockets (for the custom cards) plus a floppy plus an ISA disk and a few other weird bits ... the supply is far from infinite. In some cases the last machine that had the "right" combo last shipped 30 years ago. We had one that the cards *only* would work on a "Genuine" IBM PC-AT. Anything past that ... not going to work.
Consider that you want a machine that will hold up in constant service. A quick lash up of flakey parts isn't going to do the job.
Bob
Ebay saved/favorite searches are really handy for finding obscure stuff for spares. I got a spare vision card and PC MB for my P&P after about a year.
Hi
Good luck sending "big corporate IT" out to eBay for parts ....
Bob
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
Hi
Once you find that the spec includes multiple EISA sockets (for the custom cards) plus a floppy plus an ISA disk and a few other weird bits ... the supply is far from infinite. In some cases the last machine that had the "right" combo last shipped 30 years ago. We had one that the cards *only* would work on a "Genuine" IBM PC-AT. Anything past that ... not going to work.
Consider that you want a machine that will hold up in constant service. A quick lash up of flakey parts isn't going to do the job.
Bob
Ebay saved/favorite searches are really handy for finding obscure stuff for spares. I got a spare vision card and PC MB for my P&P after about a year.
Hi
Good luck sending "big corporate IT" out to eBay for parts ....
Bob
I don't see a company with "big corporate IT" buying a Neoden 4 or a 20+ year old PnP machine.
-
There is a pretty much infinite supply of old PCs of all vintages, so I don't think this is a major issue. At least anything Win98 onwards supports USB media, which isn't going away any time soon.
Old DOS systems may have some connectivity issues, what with floppy drives going away, and finding a DOS compatible hard disk may at least involve some fiddling around.
Hi
Once you find that the spec includes multiple EISA sockets (for the custom cards) plus a floppy plus an ISA disk and a few other weird bits ... the supply is far from infinite. In some cases the last machine that had the "right" combo last shipped 30 years ago. We had one that the cards *only* would work on a "Genuine" IBM PC-AT. Anything past that ... not going to work.
Consider that you want a machine that will hold up in constant service. A quick lash up of flakey parts isn't going to do the job.
Bob
Ebay saved/favorite searches are really handy for finding obscure stuff for spares. I got a spare vision card and PC MB for my P&P after about a year.
Hi
Good luck sending "big corporate IT" out to eBay for parts ....
Bob
"it's not a computer, it's a spare part for production equipment"
-
None of these small machine vendors want to make some decent videos of their machines doing stuff. Including the UI. the smallSMT guy promised some videos a few weeks back, but as yet, they hav'tn materialised either.
Guess you get what you pay for.
-
Just a thought, but we could take things into our own hands also. It wouldn't take too much time to do a simple capture of the 'events' that our Users are reporting.
It can be done in a manner which is entirely 'illustrative' [and not damming of the machine or Neoden] - but rather as a better-illustrated call for help.
Then, if Neoden, or another User comes to the rescue with a solution, bingo. If not, the evidence is clear for Neoden to do something seriously about rectification of the issue.
I suggested a 'list' should be started some many posts ago, but no evidence of anything but 'grumbling' since. Of course many of the 'issues' were stemming from lack of knowledge of the Workflow and GUI, but nonetheless worth illustrating and capturing for the benefit of everyone else who's likely to follow the same path. We would all just like things to works out the way we intended and wished for but, sometimes additional effort is required to promote the cause.
The list can be in the form of one of these posts [for starters at least], so everyone can benefit and hopefully contribute. When a User wants to add another item, they simply copy or 'quote' the existing list. Ideally only NEW ITEMS would be posted in the list. ANSWERS or SUGGESTIONS could reference the LIST ITEM NUMBER #.
Let's start guys?
List Item #
Category
Description
1.
Fiducial Recognition
When we start a new build Blah, Blah.
2.
?
Any starters? Please.
None of these small machine vendors want to make some decent videos of their machines doing stuff. Including the UI. the smallSMT guy promised some videos a few weeks back, but as yet, they hav'tn materialised either.
Guess you get what you pay for.
-
I do not have a machine so I can't help with the list but I do agree that we are not going to get what we want if all we do is talk about what we do not want.
I think we have 4 people on this thread that have the Neoden 4 and have for at least close to a month now so that should be enough to build a decent list of improvements plus what Ichan comes up with as he moves forward.
Let's try to help make things better. We all want a 10K machine that works but it looks like it's going to require some work from us.
I just emailed Tony at Neoden and asked him to join in on the conversation here, hopefully he shows up. :D
-
I do not
Let's try to help make things better. We all want a 10K machine that works but it looks like it's going to require some work from us.
I just emailed Tony at Neoden and asked him to join in on the conversation here, hopefully he shows up. :D
Neoden is just one of many who are selling them. They probably are the one who's done the best marketing ( jokes aside from the neoden video ).
Id say also time to go looking at other options.
-
Who else is selling the same NeoDen4 design?
-
Who else is selling the same NeoDen4 design?
I've seen a few different ones around the traps.
BoreyTech seemed to be a viable option: http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22 (http://en.boreytech.com/a/product/taishi/32.html?cut=22)
http://www.zjyingxing.com/ (http://www.zjyingxing.com/)
Just in 2 minutes of looking.
-
Ahh I though you were saying many different companies were selling the Neoden 4 design like the non vision versions that all look very similar to each other.
Here is the official response from Tony at Neoden about the software. :
My email to him:
Hey Tony can you join the conversation over her on this forum post:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/neoden-4-pick-and-place/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/neoden-4-pick-and-place/)
4 people have purchased the machine so far and 1 other guy has one on the way now.
We would like to talk about the software.
Please join us.
Thanks!
His quick reply:
Hello Brown,
Thank you for your email and support on NeoDen Tech's machines.
Our company will give a official response about our software in the coming days,
pls take more patiences and wait for further news.
Many tks to you again.
Have a nice day.
--
Best Regards,
Contact Person:Tonny Chen
Tel:86-571-26263339
Mobile:86-13588787940
Skype: Tonny-NeoDen
Email: tonny@neodentech.com
Company Web:http://www.neodentech.com/
-
Hmmm,
Can't say it's moved me to a 'warm 'n' fuzzy, belly rub' kinda state, but let's see what happens 'in the coming days'.
I'm wanting to order a machine and getting tired of sitting on the fence, so I'm willing to wait until say the end of next week to receive news of the 'next generation Neoden'.
I truly hope that's what's arriving in this next release/announcement.
Tic Toc
-
Without trying the software yet, let me start for some suggestion:
1. Adjust the software for 16:9 display resolution which is more common these days, full hd resolution 1920 x 1080 will be good.
2. Explain the axis orientation on the manual and how to navigate it (seems only by mouse click)
-ichan
-
Below is my order to Neoden:
- Neoden 4 with rails, installed feeders 34x 8mm + 4x 12mm + 4x 16mm
- Working table
- Monitor + mouse + keyboard
- Spare feeders: 8x 8mm + 4x 12mm + 4x 16mm
- Spare vacuum pump: 2x
I have to order the monitor too, i am afraid i can not find display with 1280x1024 resolution anymore in here.
I am planning the component - feeders location now.
-ichan
-
I'm placing not a lot of weight on any "future" features that software might bring. It will be very much a decision based on the state of play as it is Today.
-
I asked Tonny & another sales lady about if any future software updates are planned for this machine.
-
Here is the reply from Cathy at Neoden;
Dear Ryan,
Glad to hear from you.
Yes, actually we are doing software improvement once we came up some bugs. And we are still collecting feedback from all NeoDen4 customers.
As you know, it would take us some time to review and upgrade selectively. We will have an official reply on EEVblog once we get this work done.
Thank you so much for your kind understanding.
They are responsive, I got email replies within the hour of asking.
I suggest we make a list of problems. They are watching this thread by the sounds of it. Hi Neoden!
-
Here is the reply from Cathy at Neoden;
Dear Ryan,
Glad to hear from you.
Yes, actually we are doing software improvement once we came up some bugs. And we are still collecting feedback from all NeoDen4 customers.
As you know, it would take us some time to review and upgrade selectively. We will have an official reply on EEVblog once we get this work done.
Thank you so much for your kind understanding.
Responive? you mean they acknowldged your email. Proof is in the now. thats what i'm buying with.
They are responsive, I got email replies within the hour of asking.
I suggest we make a list of problems. They are watching this thread by the sounds of it. Hi Neoden!
-
None of these small machine vendors want to make some decent videos of their machines doing stuff. Including the UI. the smallSMT guy promised some videos a few weeks back, but as yet, they hav'tn materialised either.
Guess you get what you pay for.
@mrpackethead
I was in hospital and busy so no time to do videos!
Second I am waiting for a new HP machine and I receive it end of March to do some more videos I told you before!
And finally I demonstrated the machine and functions to you so you mostly received all informations.
So you can guess what you receive !!!
Best regards
Michael
-
...
I suggested a 'list' should be started some many posts ago, but no evidence of anything but 'grumbling' since. Of course many of the 'issues' were stemming from lack of knowledge of the Workflow and GUI, but nonetheless worth illustrating and capturing for the benefit of everyone else who's likely to follow the same path. We would all just like things to works out the way we intended and wished for but, sometimes additional effort is required to promote the cause.
...
Seems the grumbling had stopped, i would be happy if i can assume the problems had been solved and now they are too busy making money with the machine, can I ?
-ichan
-
Hi mrpackethead,
I couldn't see mention of it, so I ask ... are you a current owner?
If not, then I'm not at all certain what you are basing this comment on.
We are producing a product/system at present. The amount of time we have spent dictates it will be in the highest end of the marketplace.
But here, it appears that we are all shopping in the very [or close to] lowest end for our PnP solution, but are expecting the output of something costing many, many times the price. I can tell you 'it ain't going to happen'.
Beyond all the issues that have been reported, I must agreed with what others have observed in this forum - from their first hand experience. That is, the problem everyone appears to be experiencing exists between the Keyboard and Mouse. The machine appears very capable and well designed mechanically - and the issues that have been reported don't seem to continue to be reported any longer by those, or new, Users.
Sure, the Workflow and the GUI are not what some users have 'expected' but I don't believe that there is any road map set in concrete here to conform to.
Neoden have chosen their path and we should be prepared to travel it, write another solution, or get out of the way.
From what I can see, Neoden have been responsive to their User-base, if not so much the 'punters' on the sideline.
Looks like a bloody terrific little machine to me, and will most likely get my purchase order very soon.
I'm placing not a lot of weight on any "future" features that software might bring. It will be very much a decision based on the state of play as it is Today.
-
@Ichan I don't think that is exactly the case but lets ping these guys and ask. It seems like most of the new owners were impressed with the hardware but let down by the software.
I would love to hear a update from these guys and see some finished board pictures that some promised to post up.
-
Great work Ichan,
Thanks for starting 'the list'.
I hope it encourages other to contribute also. Even if the 'issue' Users experienced was due to a lack of understanding, it would be great to list the situation, and maybe point to the resolution from the forum, to assist others.
Thanks again - let's make it grow!
Without trying the software yet, let me start for some suggestion:
1. Adjust the software for 16:9 display resolution which is more common these days, full hd resolution 1920 x 1080 will be good.
2. Explain the axis orientation on the manual and how to navigate it (seems only by mouse click)
-ichan
-
Good point rwb,
To the current owners - please consider helping us in making our decision, by providing your response to these 6 questions.
1. do you have the machine functioning now?
2. are you able to determine a workflow that actually works [even if it takes a bit of learning curve to figure it out]?
3. have Neoden been responsive to queries or requests, and did the info they gave provide a solution?
4. does the machine still have the attractiveness it had when you made the purchase?
5. do you believe you'll be able to use it for the purpose you had intended?
5. you had you money returned would you purchased a different machine?
@Ichan I don't think that is exactly the case but lets ping these guys and ask. It seems like most of the new owners were impressed with the hardware but let down by the software.
I would love to hear a update from these guys and see some finished board pictures that some promised to post up.
-
Hi mrpackethead,
I couldn't see mention of it, so I ask ... are you a current owner?
Sorry if my comment was not obvious in what i meant.
I am not going to place a lot of weight on any promises of what might be fixed in the future. I'm going to make a decision on what I'm going to buy on what works today.
-
gottchya
Sorry I didn't understand that point clearly - you seem to be supporting the product also, like me. We live in hope!!!
Hi mrpackethead,
I couldn't see mention of it, so I ask ... are you a current owner?
Sorry if my comment was not obvious in what i meant.
I am not going to place a lot of weight on any promises of what might be fixed in the future. I'm going to make a decision on what I'm going to buy on what works today.
-
gottchya
Sorry I didn't understand that point clearly - you seem to be supporting the product also, like me. We live in hope!!!
Im not backng any particular machine at this point in time. Theres quite a few to pick from.
-
Sure, the Workflow and the GUI are not what some users have 'expected' but I don't believe that there is any road map set in concrete here to conform to.
Neoden have chosen their path and we should be prepared to travel it, write another solution, or get out of the way.
Anything which is more difficult, confusing or time-consuming that it could be, is a fault, not a different roadmap. Time is money. Ditto anything that for no good reason differs from the way established machines work.
Unfortunately Chinese vendors don't seem to value and understand the importance of of good software, and the evidence so far doesn't seem to show Neoden as any different. From what we've seen so far, they are OK at dealing with obviously problems like missing parts or things that don't work, but aren't interested in making improvements that make the machine better/quicker/nicer to work with.
This is immensely frustrating for potential customers that would like to use a machine in this price range, as it undermines confidence in quality in all other areas.
The video, and lack of response here speaks volumes - IMO it's not so much that they can't be bothered, but they just don't understand why it's important.
If the machine could do 10mm high parts, 24mm feeders, decent software and showed responsiveness to suggestions for improvement, I would almost certainly buy it. Even just the last two would make it tempting as feeders can be adapted and other limitations probably worked round.
It's such a shame as this could be a world-beating machine with very little addiitonal effort
There's an English expression that sums it up - "spoiling the ship for a ha'penny of tar"
-
Below is the component list and pcb layout of the job waiting for the machine, it need 20x 8mm, 4x 12mm, 7x 16mm, 2x 24 mm, and a tray feeders. My machine is pre installed with 4x 16mm which less 3 than required. I may try to install the spare feeders or just place some by hand (the green color), the 24mm reel (yellow) can not go to the machine.
-ichan
-
Ichan, so your planning on making 2000 of these boards on the Neoden 4 right?
-
Ichan, so your planning on making 2000 of these boards on the Neoden 4 right?
Hopefully more, the job is 6000 board currently worked by my spoiled LSV60, attached is the photo of the panelized board - populated and unpopulated.
The panel size is 204x144 mm, i am a bit worry because the N4 (with rail) spec for max board width is 140mm if waffle tray used.
This board has no fiducial so i will try to use drilled holes, also i want to try the bad board detection on the coming machine.
-ichan
-
Well I would say your about to put the machine to the test :box:
I'm excited to see how this turns out for you as I'm sure everybody else is also.
I would say most guys are leaning towards the machine not being able to get the job done but only time will tell.
I think you can make a custom waffle tray to increase your working area.
-
Hey folks,
I like the idea of collecting together our observations. I've put the stuff I already sent to Neoden and some other notes and ideas on a collaborative text editor here:
http://collabedit.com/hfe7r (http://collabedit.com/hfe7r)
It's not pretty but you should be able to edit without signing up for anything. Please feel free to edit / add / rearrange things. It would be great to see everyone's experience.
elmood
-
Oh, by the way... we made a few successful boards, but the crappy oven wrecked them so we haven't run anymore jobs... we found a small Essemtec oven on ebay which we are hoping to have up and running this week. (need to put in a proper exhaust for it)
Here's a video of our first mostly successful test so far:
https://youtu.be/Wyn8Cg2i6Wo
-
Thanks so much for posting that video Elmwood.
It looks like it placed the IC parts pretty well.
Have you ran it any quicker with the same results?
-
Here is a video of a guy going over all the PNP machines he came across in the under 10k range after which he built his own:
https://youtu.be/dvwZeb2uwkg
-
Thanks so much for posting that video Elmwood.
It looks like it placed the IC parts pretty well.
Have you ran it any quicker with the same results?
The camera dwell time looks like it could lose a few hundred mS....
-
Do you really need to use vision on every part? My TM220 reliably places 0604 parts at maximum speed without vision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezpL3zNf1w0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezpL3zNf1w0)
-
You can turn the vision On or OFF on the Neoden 4.
I would rather have vision ON than OFF just to be safe unless I was under a time crunch where I needed maximum speed.
So how many boards have you successfully ran using the TM220 machine? What are its limits as far as fine pitch parts?
-
rwb: By no means was my video showing an attempt at the highest speed. I was just trying to get a successful placement of a board. I used vision on all parts and ran the entire job at 50% speed. Still seems fairly okay to me for a board with only 63 parts.
-
Elmwood - Yea I had nothing bad to say about the speed. That speed would work fine for me as long as it placed all my fine pitched parts accurately.
I just wonder how well it holds its precision at the higher speeds.
How long did it take to to get to that point of placing everything correctly?
-
You can turn the vision On or OFF on the Neoden 4.
presumably on a per-part basis, not globally?
-
If I remember correctly yes on a per part basis.
A Neoden 4 owner will have to confirm.
-
Yes you can adjust the vision per feeder. Same with speed of placement and a few other things.
It took longer than I thought to get going mostly because of external things regarding my oven... I wasn't going to place a full board with no way to keep it.
Also this old board has no fiducials so it doesn't have reliable marks to use for alignment. I spent a long time trying to work out why some parts would place well and others not so well. It turns out that using larger features is not a good idea. The machine doesn't show the centre point it thinks it got when detecting the marks... It looks perfect on the camera crosshairs but there was obviously some error.
I found that at least 4 points were required in all corners of the board for perfect placement. Keep in mind that I have a lot of other work going on so it took a Saturday with a colleague to verify all my coordinates and file managing code was okay when exporting the placement job file. (No rounding errors, etc.) Once we confirmed that we started experimenting with different mark points and found that it made a huge difference! It seemed reliable after that.
I'm pretty sure that these kinds of tweaks would be needed on any machine, but the bad UI and lack of how-to docs makes it extra difficult.
-
So how many boards have you successfully ran using the TM220 machine? What are its limits as far as fine pitch parts?
0604 is the smallest I've tried. Occasionally it will place one of these 0604 resistors on it's side. That is a result of the tape advance being too fast and shaking the part a little so that it's picked up that way. The software really needs to be able to allow adjustment of the vacuum sense and tape-advance speed for these situations. The finest pitch part is an FT231X which it places within tolerance every time. That did surprise me. I've run ~65 boards so far. It has been a tremendous benefit to me even with it only placing 80-90 percent of the parts.
-
Martin - Yes the Charmhigh version with vision looked to be a killer little machine. Same thing yours does except it has vision for part correction.
-
Ichan,
There is another post in this forum where an owner was frustrated with issues related to alignment drift and accuracy.
This maching is designed [as are all PnP machines] to access a clean reference marker on a board, or panel border - fiducial.
There are two problems with using a hole [although it is also round] :
1.
It is 3 dimensional, which means the light source will likely have a substantial effect on the 'shape' it sees once the gamma is set high - eg no grey tone, just black and white.
At best you will end up with an ellipse - certainly not a circle. What is 'seen; through the hole will likely also have some effect on the outcome. Would highly recommend that you place fids on all boards, and also on panel boarders, especially if there is no space available on the PCB.
I believe once that issue was recognised, the placement drift and accuracy issue disappeared.
2.
Although the through holes are usually very reliably placed, each PCB house works to different tolerances.
This means that the actual through hole 'could' be offset from the footprints by the amount in the 'tolerance'.
What this means for component placement is that you are now placing in reference to a location that is 'not known' relative to your footprints.
I recommend you place fiducials on all future runs of your boards if you are going to use a PnP machine.
Your contract manufacturer most certainly would have done so in the past, if only on the panel borders which may have been removed prior to delivery.
This board has no fiducial so i will try to use drilled holes, also i want to try the bad board detection on the coming machine.
-
Well done guys - despite the steep learning curve, I reckon if you were to run that board for some hours, you would be a lot more relaxed with it, than without it.
Keep the info and pic/vids coming please - it's a major confidence booster for all of us considering desktop PnP.
Oh, by the way... we made a few successful boards, but the crappy oven wrecked them so we haven't run anymore jobs... we found a small Essemtec oven on ebay which we are hoping to have up and running this week. (need to put in a proper exhaust for it)
-
Another short video of a Neoden 4 running slowly.
https://youtu.be/nIFlSOgJ3n0
I asked this guy to come on over here to discuss :)
-
Have any of you guys calculated out how much the NeoDen 4 can save you over sending the boards out to be populated & reflowed? That is something I have heard little about but am interested in hearing about.
-
Another short video of a Neoden 4 running slowly.
https://youtu.be/nIFlSOgJ3n0
I asked this guy to come on over here to discuss :)
I just spotted something really dumb that it's doing - it's obviously been told to use a lower speed on the ICs in the trays, yet it's also using the slow speed when moving to the feeder with nothing on the nozzle :palm:
-
It also desperately needs an independent speed control for the Z axis.
-
Have any of you guys calculated out how much the NeoDen 4 can save you over sending the boards out to be populated & reflowed? That is something I have heard little about but am interested in hearing about.
This would be different for everyone, and would vary by job type and costs of potential subcontractors.
And it's not always about cost - can be convenience, speed etc.
-
It also desperately needs an independent speed control for the Z axis.
Seriously? you can't set this independently...? :palm:
-
It also desperately needs an independent speed control for the Z axis.
Seriously? you can't set this independently...? :palm:
No, if you slow the X/Y it also slows the Z. We would often prefer a a higher speed X/Y with a slower Z for fine pitched parts.
-
These are great points / bugs... Please add them to the collaborative page.
http://collabedit.com/hfe7r (http://collabedit.com/hfe7r)
Let me know if there is any trouble editing.
-
@elmood, thanks for the video and the list - if only i already have the machine on my hand then i surely will add some on the list.
On your video, you use drilled hole as "marking point" right? What size is it? How is the resulted placement accuracy?
The machine expects the board reference to be your first part which is an absolute value from 0,0. The fiducial points are then are then a relative value from the first part. This isn't out preferred way of doing it.
The information above is just too important to be missing on the manual.
Edit: just check the tracking, my machine just received by the forwarder company in Shenzhen - hope they ship it to me asap.
-ichan
-
Guys, don't forget that 'Fiducials' can actually appear as 'components' in a BOM / PnP file eg. FID1, FID2, FID3, and the 'First Part' can actually be FID1 with its coordinates set to 0;0 if that's what you want [albeit with a DoNotPlace status for that component/FID1].
@elmood, thanks for the video and the list - if only i already have the machine on my hand then i surely will add some on the list.
On your video, you use drilled hole as "marking point" right? What size is it? How is the resulted placement accuracy?
The machine expects the board reference to be your first part which is an absolute value from 0,0. The fiducial points are then are then a relative value from the first part. This isn't out preferred way of doing it.
The information above is just too important to be missing on the manual.
-
When we generate pick and place files from the CAD the current origin point will become the reference point, not the first part.
"Mark points" on Neoden term are several coordinates to inform the position and rotation / angle of the board on the machine - it can be fiducials or any other precision reference mark.
-ichan
-
Exciting to see all this first hand knowledge come together.
Ichan how much do you have invested in the machine at this point?
Are you saving any money by running the boards yourself vs outsourcing the job? Just curious.
-
I was seriously looking at this machine, but all of what has been said here made me think again.
Plus, this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfE4PwWALtI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfE4PwWALtI) at 2:17 and 2:28 shows the machine happily placing some TQFP's that have been very obviously used and abused before.
I'll stick with my ancient DIMA Optimat for a while longer.
-
Ichan how much do you have invested in the machine at this point?
Are you saving any money by running the boards yourself vs outsourcing the job? Just curious.
I pay about $12K for my machine order, will have to spend some more for the shipment later.
Well, not only for my own job i take outsource job too in here - like the current job which is waiting for the machine ;)
...at 2:17 and 2:28 shows the machine happily placing some TQFP's that have been very obviously used and abused before.
:) Interesting findings, but i accept that as a positive thing ;D
-ichan
-
Well later today or tomorrow we plan to build two panels that have just under 1600 parts each(10x10 matrix). So we'll see how the machine does. No tough parts, all 0805/soic.
Some other bugs to report:
-When using a tray if there is an error it will display the incorrect tray number on the screen - it is always off by one.
-When we try to use 3 fiducial points it never seems to get the parts in the proper place, using only 2 seems to work fine.
-
:) Interesting findings, but i accept that as a positive thing ;D
-ichan
There's two more; at around 2:37 and 2:50
Would you accept a machine that places those "as a positive thing"?
-
... hm ... why bent pins in the photo
-
Probably their firmware test unit with some damaged scrap parts run through it a ton of times ;)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
I understand, they are just using the same parts over and over for demo's and testing.
It's not like they are making real boards in the training videos.
-
it's clear, the sight has an offset, which is then adjusted. But the loss of speed is required.
Is it always exactly?
...
I find it hard to accept that the software for XP
-
:) Interesting findings, but i accept that as a positive thing ;D
-ichan
There's two more; at around 2:37 and 2:50
Would you accept a machine that places those "as a positive thing"?
That IC actually looks like it was desoldered. Even if not, there is some residue on it's bottom, probably adhesive from the sticky tape they used instead of the solder paste. Anyway, I don't think it is the machine itself which bent those pins but it happened while the part was salvaged for reuse.
-
Flux is ... 100% believe my experience 30 years. It's not accurate, just laugh
-
:) Interesting findings, but i accept that as a positive thing ;D
-ichan
There's two more; at around 2:37 and 2:50
Would you accept a machine that places those "as a positive thing"?
All that really matters from that picture is that the vision system correctly identified the leg outline and position of the chip so it can be placed accurately - which it looks to have done just fine.
-
My ancient 20+ year old machine will reject a QFP with one bent pin - which is a good thing.
-
Would you accept a machine that places those "as a positive thing"?
So i can use refurbished chip too with the machine ;)
-ichan
-
@theSteve Hey when you run those boards tomorrow will you take some video or pictures for us interested folk on here? :-+
-
2nd that RWB .. TheSteve!
In fact, if you had time, we'd even sit through an episode of a tripod-mounted real-time capture, from start to finish, with your narrative. Would be a great insight into what's ahead, and give Neoden a better understanding of how the machine/user interface operates.
@theSteve Hey when you run those boards tomorrow will you take some video or pictures for us interested folk on there? :-+
-
+1
Good or bad please make some videos.
-ichan
-
Anyway, I don't think it is the machine itself which bent those pins but it happened while the part was salvaged for reuse.
That was not my point and neither did I even suggest that.
My point is that the vision system on this machine obviously doesn't care about the fact that several pins are bent to the point of actually touching adjacent pins! That's just completely stupid.
-
Robk_NL I think all you need to do is spend $20,000 + extra to get that software feature built in. The Neoden 4 is is a $8500 machine so you can't expect all the features of a machine that cost many times more than that.
-
I am curious, how much is the price of Dima ATOZ PP-050 with let say 48x 8mm feeders and full vision option?
-ichan
-
I found it for $35,000 without feeders.
http://www.pcbunlimited.com/pick-and-place.php (http://www.pcbunlimited.com/pick-and-place.php)
-
To match the feeders I have on my Quad, it would cost about $91k. At that level, it needs to make a lot of PCBs flawlessly and with an easy setup routine.
I think the target audience of the N4 are those looking for the 'occasional' run, prototypes, modest volumes, etc. A full-up commercial solution eats up too much money for the small operation, but they are worth it if you are fully engulfed in production every day.
If it were possible/available, I would get an N4. Scrap the software completely and pay an additional $10k for really nice/easy/reliable software. At that point it would be a $25k solution that could cover anything my small business would need.
-
I think if a software solution could be created to fix the current issues for 10K then it probably would not be too hard to get the current and future owners to chip in to get it created.
-
Board 1 of 2 is done and 2 of 2 is in progress right now.
It didn't go too badly overall I guess. There is video of much of it, but it isn't mine to post.
Some things to note:
-The machine can't count and often gets a number +1 or -1. Our panel is a 10x10 matrix, it skipped the first board, no idea why. When we wanted it to skip board 60 it changed the number to 59. This isn't the first time we have seen this type of problem.
-The feeders require so much tuning with some parts it is nuts. We have SOIC-8 IC's in a reel and it likes to spit the parts everywhere. You have to get the feed box and peel box settings perfect, and that is a setting we haven't been able to find yet. We have had the same problem with our FT232RL's.
-We had a thicker 8mm part that wouldn't feed properly. Turns out there is a plastic spacer in the feeder that can be removed so thicker parts work better.
-When stopping/starting it sometimes forgets where it last picked a part from a tray and can go back to the beginning.
-If you have 0805 sized parts that fit quite well in the tape pocket they can probably be placed without the camera, if the pocket is quite large then use the camera.
We don't plan to build more of these boards so we threw together a quick mount to hold it. We are also using a tray made of cut tape to use up our stock of crystals.
-
I think if a software solution could be created to fix the current issues for 10K then it probably would not be too hard to get the current and future owners to chip in to get it created.
$10k would only be viable if a number of people signed up for it. 20-25 users would be enough for a small group to be interested. 40+ users could be a genuine business.
It needs to start with a developer - not a coder. Get the concepts and logic worked out before the coding whiz starts hammering into stone.
-
I think if a software solution could be created to fix the current issues for 10K then it probably would not be too hard to get the current and future owners to chip in to get it created.
The problem with this is that the independently created software would only be applicable to a particular version and/or manufacturing run of the N4... What happens if Neoden changes the hardware design a bit (i.e. slight hardware I/O change, etc> as they sell more units? Sadly, the custom software will be somewhat at the mercy of the hardware.
Cheers,
Sam
-
Full disclosure: I am the author of OpenPnP.
If ya'll are serious about retrofitting a Neoden 4 with new software, please check out OpenPnP. OpenPnP is a working, Open Source pick and place platform that can be used for nearly any machine.
I don't know of anyone who has done a Neoden 4 retro fit with it yet, but others have done TM-240 (older Neoden machine) retros. We also recently have a Zevatech retrofit and there are numerous examples of people DIYing their own machines with OpenPnP.
Now, OpenPnP doesn't have all the features that the N4 software currently has - the biggest two being bottom vision and conveyer support. Bottom vision is my current focus and will be the next major feature release. Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it because there's really no need to develop a new solution from scratch. OpenPnP has a completely modular model for machines and it can be adapted to run nearly anything. I personally think the N4 is a great candidate for a retro fit. It's an incredible hardware platform but it really needs better software to make it shine.
So, if anyone would like to talk about doing a retrofit of this machine with OpenPnP, please come check us out! We have an active mailing list and IRC channel which you can find at http://openpnp.org/. (http://openpnp.org/.) I will personally devote time and resources to helping make it happen.
-
Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
True, but the ability to reload a long panel manually ( with fids on each section) would be a useful facility, and probably not hard to do.
-
Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
True, but the ability to reload a long panel manually ( with fids on each section) would be a useful facility, and probably not hard to do.
Not quite sure what you are getting at. In OpenPnP you can certainly load a panel in and (re)start the job. Fids are checked on each board. We just don't have automatic conveyer support yet. It's definitely something that will get added eventually, but it's low on the priority list (for me) since it's not a very commonly requested feature.
You can see "the list" here, if you are curious: https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/issues
Jason
-
Full disclosure: I am the author of OpenPnP.
If ya'll are serious about retrofitting a Neoden 4 with new software, please check out OpenPnP. OpenPnP is a working, Open Source pick and place platform that can be used for nearly any machine.
I don't know of anyone who has done a Neoden 4 retro fit with it yet, but others have done TM-240 (older Neoden machine) retros. We also recently have a Zevatech retrofit and there are numerous examples of people DIYing their own machines with OpenPnP.
Now, OpenPnP doesn't have all the features that the N4 software currently has - the biggest two being bottom vision and conveyer support. Bottom vision is my current focus and will be the next major feature release. Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it because there's really no need to develop a new solution from scratch. OpenPnP has a completely modular model for machines and it can be adapted to run nearly anything. I personally think the N4 is a great candidate for a retro fit. It's an incredible hardware platform but it really needs better software to make it shine.
So, if anyone would like to talk about doing a retrofit of this machine with OpenPnP, please come check us out! We have an active mailing list and IRC channel which you can find at http://openpnp.org/. (http://openpnp.org/.) I will personally devote time and resources to helping make it happen.
as a side note.....I would love to do a retro on Quad machines. There are a lot of carcasses out there that are a really solid platform without modern controls. Swap in servos and software and it would be a sub <$10k machine with truly professional capability.
As for the N4, I could design the mechanics of the machine in my sleep and build it in the morning (slightly overstated, but not much). If a group came together and we pooled resources, my contribution would be leading the electro-mechanical development all the way to production. Then, there would be no need to worry about what Neoden will do. It would be a platform designed from the beginning to be used with Open PnP.
-
Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
True, but the ability to reload a long panel manually ( with fids on each section) would be a useful facility, and probably not hard to do.
Not quite sure what you are getting at.
Obviously any P&P, subject to mechanical constraints can potentially do a bigger PCB than its placement area by treating it as two or more seperate jobs, but this would mean splitting the job into two (or more), and reloading the job files for each panel, which would be a pain.
What would be good is if you could generate a single pick/place file to cover the whole PCB, which would include additional fids for each section. The machine would use the global placement positions and fid positions to work out which parts go in which section.
The machine would then place each section, and then prompt the user to reload the PCB for the next section. Or if there is a conveyor, send the 'move conveyor by <section length>' command.
-
Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
True, but the ability to reload a long panel manually ( with fids on each section) would be a useful facility, and probably not hard to do.
Not quite sure what you are getting at.
Obviously any P&P, subject to mechanical constraints can potentially do a bigger PCB than its placement area by treating it as two or more seperate jobs, but this would mean splitting the job into two (or more), and reloading the job files for each panel, which would be a pain.
What would be good is if you could generate a single pick/place file to cover the whole PCB, which would include additional fids for each section. The machine would use the global placement positions and fid positions to work out which parts go in which section.
The machine would then place each section, and then prompt the user to reload the PCB for the next section. Or if there is a conveyor, send the 'move conveyor by <section length>' command.
Ah! I see what you mean now. Yes, that is an interesting idea and a use case I have not come across before. I think we could currently facilitate that with careful job preparation but it would be entirely manual. Having that be something that software would figure out for you and prompt for movement is a really neat idea.
Jason
-
Ah! I see what you mean now. Yes, that is an interesting idea and a use case I have not come across before. I think we could currently facilitate that with careful job preparation but it would be entirely manual. Having that be something that software would figure out for you and prompt for movement is a really neat idea.
Jason
The concept is certainly sound - I have done this in CNC machining applications many times. It is a great way to overcome limitations of the hardware which can grow in cost exponentially as the travel distance increases.
-
Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
True, but the ability to reload a long panel manually ( with fids on each section) would be a useful facility, and probably not hard to do.
Not quite sure what you are getting at.
Obviously any P&P, subject to mechanical constraints can potentially do a bigger PCB than its placement area by treating it as two or more seperate jobs, but this would mean splitting the job into two (or more), and reloading the job files for each panel, which would be a pain.
What would be good is if you could generate a single pick/place file to cover the whole PCB, which would include additional fids for each section. The machine would use the global placement positions and fid positions to work out which parts go in which section.
The machine would then place each section, and then prompt the user to reload the PCB for the next section. Or if there is a conveyor, send the 'move conveyor by <section length>' command.
Ah! I see what you mean now. Yes, that is an interesting idea and a use case I have not come across before. I think we could currently facilitate that with careful job preparation but it would be entirely manual. Having that be something that software would figure out for you and prompt for movement is a really neat idea.
Jason
It's probably not too big a deal if the job setup needs some extra work, you could even do it with a seperate preprocessor that takes a "big board" job and generates a job for each section,
The main thing is to not have to manually load a new job file for each section, as if you're doing several panels you're bound to do it wrong at some point.
In fact, from the point of view of minimum effort to implement, if you were to (at least initially) take the approach of preprocessing or manually splitting into multiple jobs, maybe all you need is the facility to automatically "chain" jobs together so they can be auto-loaded in the right sequence with user prompts.
-
The Neodon4 hardware is all controlled via a single serial port from the PC. Sounds like it is time to start sniffing.
-
The Neodon4 hardware is all controlled via a single serial port from the PC. Sounds like it is time to start sniffing.
What about the cameras?
-
The Neodon4 hardware is all controlled via a single serial port from the PC. Sounds like it is time to start sniffing.
What about the cameras?
Both cameras are USB.
-
The Neodon4 hardware is all controlled via a single serial port from the PC. Sounds like it is time to start sniffing.
I would personally love to see some traces from that :) And if someone has any info about the cameras (manufacturer, model, etc.) which should be available from the OS, that would be very helpful as well.
-
I believe the cameras on the N4 are just generic USB webcams. There are two EXE files ... one for each camera. And I see an OpenCV DLL hanging around there. If I were to guess I'd say that each one probably connects to a camera and then allows the main app to grab pictures / detection data when it wants. In my efforts to do my own PNP software I basically did the same thing except that the camera interface was part of the main app.
BTW, to the OpenPNP guy... do you offer commercial support at all? If there was a "ready to go" N4 version that supported the conveyor and both cameras I would be pretty much ready to give you money! I understand that a lot of open source projects are "for fun" but as I'm relying on my N4 for commercial purposes it would be nice to know that I could pay to have some reasonable turn-around on bugs and help with stuff... certain Neoden (who I already PAID for the software basically) aren't doing anything to give me confidence any of their bugs will be solved in this century. It's the same old empty promises that they took my comments to the engineers, blah blah.
Perhaps there is a bit of an income stream for your project from us frustrated N4 owners so far. :)
Andrew
-
BTW, to the OpenPNP guy... do you offer commercial support at all?
Perhaps there is a bit of an income stream for your project from us frustrated N4 owners so far. :)
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Currently no. I might do something like this in the future, but it's a ways out as the software is still in an alpha or early beta state. That's on top of the fact there would need to be a development effort required to get the software working with the N4 beforehand. We'll need to figure out control protocols and machine specifics first.
Jason
-
Hey Jason,
Would a reverse engineered prototcol help or do you need actual access to a machine? I'd like to help out of possible with this.
-
Sweet! Things just got a lot more interesting with the Open PNP software developer joinging the discussion :-+
-
I wonder if it would be worth asking Neoden for info on protocols - probably not but can't hurt to ask...
BTW some pics of the internal hardware would be interesting to see... :)
-
Guys - you can count me in as a contributor for sure.
Just a thought, but perhaps we could deploy a simple 'commercial plug-in' approach to the OpenPnP solution. The benefit would be a 'reasonable' limit on the number of Kings [I'm thinking say 5 at $2k each to start with], the Servant had to answer to. Of course, this doesn't mean other requests couldn't be addressed from outside.
What it does mean is that each King could have access to the source code for their own custom requirements [and then could contribute it to the group if they wished].
The group could offer the NEW solution to Early Adopters of N4 at a discounted rate - say $500-1000 per license, and everyone would benefit. This way the commercial development could continue to be refined.
Not suggesting cutting out the Open PnP either - the whole thing could be handed over to Open PnP, if agreed, once the initial costs were recovered.
We could even sell it back to Neoden if it came to that - or both.
Either way - pls count me IN as a foundation member if it gets up, and I don't even own a machine yet.
-
TheSteve
Hey, sorry your last build, and the post for it, got swallowed up in 3rd party Development discussion.
It seems that something along these lines could go a long way toward making your current [or company's] aquisitation a lot more valuable and practical though.
I've got some questions for you, but will need to come back a bit later.
Just wanted to say thanks for the post!
Board 1 of 2 is done and 2 of 2 is in progress right now.
-
Oh - I forgot to mention another thought.
Consideration could be given to requesting Neoden hand over their 'vision library' strictly for use in 3rd Party SW running on a Neoden machine. Either as Dynamic or Static - whatever they felt most secure with.
It takes the pressure off them so they can concentrate on the hardware [and still offer it at the same price point], and rest assured that it has the best available, English Interface operating it.
This could move very fast once the ground swell began!
-
Hey Jason,
Would a reverse engineered prototcol help or do you need actual access to a machine? I'd like to help out of possible with this.
Hi elmood,
Protocol would be enough to get started. I would not be surprised to find out they are just using a modified / cloned Smoothie, to be honest. I'm seeing a lot of that recently.
To get a solid port going I'll eventually either need access to a machine or access to someone who has one and is interested in helping at a pretty in depth level. Ideally, the way this would go is someone who owns the machine is interested enough in running OpenPnP on it that they will do the development work and I can assist with the complex bits.
I don't own a N4, so my interest in this purely that I'd like OpenPnP to be available for more machines and after having seen the N4 in Shenzhen last year I was quite enamored with the hardware.
The first step, though, is to get some basic information about the hardware and protocol. From there I can kind of give an idea of whether this is something that would be a quick port or if it's going to require in depth work.
Jason
-
I wonder if it would be worth asking Neoden for info on protocols - probably not but can't hurt to ask...
BTW some pics of the internal hardware would be interesting to see... :)
Someone from the OpenPnP IRC channel asked them for information on their feeder protocol. If I remember correctly they said they would be okay with this but nothing has actually appeared.
-
If I went down the development road.....I would never consider relying on the Neoden hardware. Not because it is useless, but because it comes from a source that could change at any moment or go away entirely. For the effort needed on the software side, it would be tragic if the hardware did not cooperate. Drivers, controllers, etc would have know and published interfaces and protocols.
With the goal of being low-cost, the bare hardware could be done better and lower cost than what Neoden is charging IMHO. Maybe not by much, but enough to justify a hardware design that is solid and reliably available.
-
thommo: I'm guessing that the chances of Neoden sending you any code or protocol docs or anything are probably zero. It's just not how these Chinese companies operate. The fact that they went to some kind of lengths to ensure that the English language pack can only be used with specific authorization from them leads me to believe that they take the software aspect of their design fairly seriously.
Jason: I would have more details on the driving electronics except that I can't find a simple way to open the N4 without some major disassembly. There don't appear to be any access covers other than by removing the build table and perhaps a lot of the mechanical parts on top as well. If anyone had theirs open I'd be curious to know how... for fear of messing up any calibration before getting more familiar with the machine I didn't, in fact, do what Dave Jones says to do.
-
Elmood - simply lay the machine in its back and remove the access port on the bottom to see everything.
btw, board 2 of 2 went pretty good. If not for the darned SOIC-8 feeding problems it may have done the 1550+ parts with no stopages. We have it running pretty slow - it took 1.5 hours or so to do the board. There was no optimization of the feeders at all as this was a board we hadn't planned to build.
-
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
-
You're probably right on that one elmood.
My thoughts were that if Neoden could see advantage in being a Hardware Only Operation, and market the machine in China with their own SW application, and elsewhere with a 3rd party English plug-in option, they would have nothing [or next to nothing] to lose.
On the other hand, we just need to identify a capable image-recognition source that will do what is required - even if it needs to be purchased as a license.
thommo: I'm guessing that the chances of Neoden sending you any code or protocol docs or anything are probably zero.
-
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough. They seem to work well enough with 0805 sized parts but the 0603s we have done have not gone as well. The feeders just don't seem smooth enough and cause parts to jump out of the pocket, flip over etc. We didn't spend tons of time on the SOIC feeder but we did try to optimize it and at that point it still flipped the chip etc 10% of the time which meant the machine needed a constant presence/intervention for the entire build.
-
hmmm
All I can say is that you should hold in there on that one a bit longer - for reasons I can't disclose, I'm bound not to say any more.
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough. They seem to work well enough with 0805 sized parts but the 0603s we have done have not gone as well. The feeders just don't seem smooth enough and cause parts to jump out of the pocket, flip over etc. We didn't spend tons of time on the SOIC feeder but we did try to optimize it and at that point it still flipped the chip etc 10% of the time which meant the machine needed a constant presence/intervention for the entire build.
-
Any chance you can post some video of the FEEDER ISSUE elmood?
Odd this doesn't appear to occur in their videos, but I guess it's a bit difficult to tell for certain.
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough. They seem to work well enough with 0805 sized parts but the 0603s we have done have not gone as well. The feeders just don't seem smooth enough and cause parts to jump out of the pocket, flip over etc. We didn't spend tons of time on the SOIC feeder but we did try to optimize it and at that point it still flipped the chip etc 10% of the time which meant the machine needed a constant presence/intervention for the entire build.
-
thommo: It's TheSteve you want on that one... so far I haven't had any weird feeder problems. It does definitely take some tweaking of the settings and for ages I couldn't figure out how to set the length of the feed advance... it's called "feed rate" which to me doesn't sound like "distance" but is.
-
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough. They seem to work well enough with 0805 sized parts but the 0603s we have done have not gone as well. The feeders just don't seem smooth enough and cause parts to jump out of the pocket, flip over etc. We didn't spend tons of time on the SOIC feeder but we did try to optimize it and at that point it still flipped the chip etc 10% of the time which meant the machine needed a constant presence/intervention for the entire build.
I bet it's the peel box causing the issue. The feeder should be able to feed smoothly enough but the peel box is designed in such a way that it's going to be hard for it to peel smoothly.
I bought one of the feeders and peel boxes and tore it apart. The peel box uses what I guess I would either call a solenoid or linear motor to advance a one way meshing gear. As best as I can tell the peel box just slams the coil to one side to advance the gear a bit and then is returned by a spring. I assume it does this as many times as needed to peel the tape the amount required.
I took some pics of the thing: http://imgur.com/a/osEGC (http://imgur.com/a/osEGC)
Jason
-
Nice series of pics there Jason!
Tell me, what is it you do, for which they pay you?
How long have you had the OpenPnP project going for?
Finally, do you have anyone in mind that this N4 group could task [paid] with the job of creating a solution for their commercial requirements, and who you've happily worked alongside previously?
I think there's a very real chance of getting a 3rd party N4 SW solution up and running.
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
...
I took some pics of the thing: http://imgur.com/a/osEGC (http://imgur.com/a/osEGC)
Jason
-
Nice series of pics there Jason!
Tell me, what is it you do, for which they pay you?
How long have you had the OpenPnP project going for?
Finally, do you have anyone in mind that this N4 group could task [paid] with the job of creating a solution for their commercial requirements, and who you've happily worked alongside previously?
I think there's a very real chance of getting a 3rd party N4 SW solution up and running.
Hi thommo,
I'm a software developer by trade. I mostly write Java and JavaScript for my day job, lots of web based work.
I've been working on OpenPnP for about 5 years. I started it because I needed a cheap pick and place machine to build some boards I was selling. It turned out to be a bigger project than I thought it would (like they all do) and since then it's become a passion of mine. It's a side project that is more like a second job :)
Unfortunately I don't have anyone I can recommend to take on the commercial aspect. I'd suggest you join the OpenPnP mailing list and ask there. There is a large audience and there may well be someone who is interested.
Jason
-
Thanks Jason,
I'll hold on and see where this excitement leads in the short term. Right now it feels good and it may get up. Thanks for joining the conversation.
Do you think you could possibly find more time if, say, the group sent you a Neoden 4 as payment - in advance?
Nice series of pics there Jason!
Tell me, what is it you do, for which they pay you?
How long have you had the OpenPnP project going for?
Finally, do you have anyone in mind that this N4 group could task [paid] with the job of creating a solution for their commercial requirements, and who you've happily worked alongside previously?
I think there's a very real chance of getting a 3rd party N4 SW solution up and running.
Hi thommo,
I'm a software developer by trade. I mostly write Java and JavaScript for my day job, lots of web based work.
I've been working on OpenPnP for about 5 years. I started it because I needed a cheap pick and place machine to build some boards I was selling. It turned out to be a bigger project than I thought it would (like they all do) and since then it's become a passion of mine. It's a side project that is more like a second job :)
Unfortunately I don't have anyone I can recommend to take on the commercial aspect. I'd suggest you join the OpenPnP mailing list and ask there. There is a large audience and there may well be someone who is interested.
Jason
-
vonnieda - Out of curiosity how did you end up over here in this thread? Did we summon you with our combined energy? ;D
-
Thanks Jason,
I'll hold on and see where this excitement leads in the short term. Right now it feels good and it may get up. Thanks for joining the conversation.
Do you think you could possibly find more time if, say, the group sent you a Neoden 4 as payment - in advance?
Thommo,
I'll have to get back to you on that. I'd like to collect some more information about the machine before I'd be able to commit to doing a full port for it. While I think it's unlikely that there's any security features, I'd hate to find out I can't reverse engineer the protocol for some reason.
It's an interesting thought though, so let's let this bake for a little while and see what comes of it.
Jason
-
vonnieda - Out of curiosity how did you end up over here in this thread? Did we summon you with our combined energy? ;D
rwb,
It's a fairly safe bet that if someone on the Internet is talking about pick and places machines I am probably lurking somewhere nearby :)
In this case, someone from this thread posted it on the IRC channel several weeks ago and I've been keeping up with the posts since then. Mostly I've just been enjoying the conversation, but when the topic turned specifically to writing pick and place software I figured I should speak up! :)
Jason
-
Jason - where are you based?
Thanks Jason,
I'll hold on and see where this excitement leads in the short term. Right now it feels good and it may get up. Thanks for joining the conversation.
Do you think you could possibly find more time if, say, the group sent you a Neoden 4 as payment - in advance?
Thommo,
I'll have to get back to you on that. I'd like to collect some more information about the machine before I'd be able to commit to doing a full port for it. While I think it's unlikely that there's any security features, I'd hate to find out I can't reverse engineer the protocol for some reason.
It's an interesting thought though, so let's let this bake for a little while and see what comes of it.
Jason
-
Jason - where are you based?
Seattle, WA, US
-
@TheSteve, thanks a lot for sharing you experience - at least my confidence goes up a little that i will not loose the bet.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough.
Good news and bad news...
...so far I haven't had any weird feeder problems.
Turned back to be good news. So where is the feeder weirdness? I saw feed and peel "strength" setting, what is that - speed setting?
-ichan
-
Hmm... seems we have to ask Neoden for their recommendation about these feeder setting related with components / reel type.
-ichan
-
If you like to adopt our machine to an open source software we have all hardware descriptions and controller commands for our machine ;)
And it's possible to control all speed and acceleration settings for any motor in our machine.
The vision is based on USB digitizer so it's easy to adopt to OPEN CV we use too.
Best regards
Michael
-
On the other hand, we just need to identify a capable image-recognition source that will do what is required - even if it needs to be purchased as a license.
What's wrong with OpenCV?
-
What's wrong with OpenCV?
Are there any serious alternatives to OpenCV left? Its really pervasive these days.
-
Vision for pick & place is really not a hard problem as vision tasks go - lighting, focus and backgrounds can be well controlled, and you're just looking for position and rotation of objects you mostly know the posiiton and size of. Wouldn't take much to do it from scratch, but id OpenCV can already do it, why reinvent the wheel - is there any reason ( licensing?) not to use it?
-
OpenCV is a reliable solution many PNP machine manufacturers are using this library.
So it's a good starting point for vision system programming.
-
Vision for pick & place is really not a hard problem as vision tasks go - lighting, focus and backgrounds can be well controlled, and you're just looking for position and rotation of objects you mostly know the posiiton and size of. Wouldn't take much to do it from scratch, but id OpenCV can already do it, why reinvent the wheel - is there any reason ( licensing?) not to use it?
It certainly isn't that demanding in either complexity or speed. 1980s PnP and die bonding machines implemented their vision systems with very simple (by current standards) hardware and software.
-
Hi Mike,
Nothing that I'm aware of.
I've never had to work with it.
Seems others have, or at least know about it, and say good things.
On the other hand, we just need to identify a capable image-recognition source that will do what is required - even if it needs to be purchased as a license.
What's wrong with OpenCV?
-
From what I can see, OpenCV does have some nice features that you probably wouldn't bother implementing if you were doing it yourself, in particular lens geometry correction. The ability to get good accuracy out of a cheap camera and/or lens is a very worthwhile benefit.
-
Hi guys, the Neoden 4 was a bit out of our price range; we settled for the TVM802A, the cheapest machine ($3,400 plus VAT / customs duty) to provide dual vision. Unboxing is here:
http://servokit.com/blog/2016/03/04/unboxing-the-pick-and-place-tvm802a/ (http://servokit.com/blog/2016/03/04/unboxing-the-pick-and-place-tvm802a/)
I'll post more info in the coming days as we get to know the machine a bit better.
Regards, Axel
-
Sweet Axel! I was considering the CharmHigh version that has the camera + LCD display + extra feeders for 5K since it looked like the perfect step up from the versions without vision. Looking forward to seeing how it works out for you :clap:
Thanks for sharing :popcorn:
-
From what I can see, OpenCV does have some nice features that you probably wouldn't bother implementing if you were doing it yourself, in particular lens geometry correction. The ability to get good accuracy out of a cheap camera and/or lens is a very worthwhile benefit.
+1
OpenCV is pretty awesome. For my applications, I would love to use the color recognition to decide what PCB is in the machine. In general, I have about 6 designs being produced at any given moment. All the parts are in the machine to populate any of the PCB's. I also use custom aluminum pallets to hold the PCB's on the conveyor. It would be nice to have colored dots on the pallets to indicate the program to run. An operator can put in any of the PCB's in any order and the machine would know what to do - verified by the fiducials.
-
@rwb: I had considered the Neoden and Charmhigh machines without vision but I don't think they make much sense anymore when the premium for vision is only a few hundred currency units. The CHMT48VA at $5,400 was tempting, not only because of the display but because it's the only machine in the price range (I think) that has a 24mm feeder (and when I say feeder I mean a spool for cover tape of that size and the little metal frame were the tape is fed through). Eventually it came down to price...
Regards, Axel
-
Axel please do update us when you have the machine up and running. Please post some video of it.
All the videos I have seen of the Charmhigh machine were pretty good with no errors.
-
From what I can see, OpenCV does have some nice features that you probably wouldn't bother implementing if you were doing it yourself, in particular lens geometry correction. The ability to get good accuracy out of a cheap camera and/or lens is a very worthwhile benefit.
+1
OpenCV is pretty awesome. For my applications, I would love to use the color recognition to decide what PCB is in the machine. In general, I have about 6 designs being produced at any given moment. All the parts are in the machine to populate any of the PCB's. I also use custom aluminum pallets to hold the PCB's on the conveyor. It would be nice to have colored dots on the pallets to indicate the program to run. An operator can put in any of the PCB's in any order and the machine would know what to do - verified by the fiducials.
Why colour and not number of dots etc.?
-
From what I can see, OpenCV does have some nice features that you probably wouldn't bother implementing if you were doing it yourself, in particular lens geometry correction. The ability to get good accuracy out of a cheap camera and/or lens is a very worthwhile benefit.
+1
OpenCV is pretty awesome. For my applications, I would love to use the color recognition to decide what PCB is in the machine. In general, I have about 6 designs being produced at any given moment. All the parts are in the machine to populate any of the PCB's. I also use custom aluminum pallets to hold the PCB's on the conveyor. It would be nice to have colored dots on the pallets to indicate the program to run. An operator can put in any of the PCB's in any order and the machine would know what to do - verified by the fiducials.
Why colour and not number of dots etc.?
It could be many number of things for the vision system to succeed - I am thinking about what is easy and most obvious to the human operator. In the CNC shop, my machines would recognize various fixtures by measuring a reference hole size. It was easy for the machine, but the operators could not tell the difference without measuring (variable). We colored the fixtures so they could be recognized from a distance without any need to measure.
Utilizing OpenCV can enable such an implementation without much effort. If it is not needed, don't use it. May or may not be a great idea, but OpenCV will support just about anything that a PnP would ever need - including AOI applications after the parts are done.
-
Hi Axel,
Thanks for sharing the details of your new purchase with us. That machine certainly look to be incredible value. Based on what you've no doubt read in this forum recently, we'll all be very interested in your experience over the next few days - particularly what you feel about the quality of the software and workflow design.
Fantastic quality pics too - well done. Good luck and keep posting.
Peter
Hi guys, the Neoden 4 was a bit out of our price range; we settled for the TVM802A, the cheapest machine ($3,400 plus VAT / customs duty) to provide dual vision. Unboxing is here:
http://servokit.com/blog/2016/03/04/unboxing-the-pick-and-place-tvm802a/ (http://servokit.com/blog/2016/03/04/unboxing-the-pick-and-place-tvm802a/)
I'll post more info in the coming days as we get to know the machine a bit better.
Regards, Axel
-
We would love to be able to feed multiple jobs (different PCBs) into a PnP and have it recognise what their type is. One of our projects has 7 different PCBs in a single system, with different (up to eight) quantities of each).
Whether by colour, fiducial count, or shape, the ability would be sensational.
Regrettably, still no response or feedback from NeoDen about joining this party.
If this gets up (full blown SW App) and they don't come to the party, next step could be HW.
Let's hope Tonny from NeoDen joins in ... quickly.
Does anyone in our group have a candidate to take on the design brief, and implementation, (most likely different people) of those things mentioned so far - machine vision, PCB extended feed, and conveyor system? With a view to integration with OpenPnP, and then porting the interface across to Neoden4?
From what I can see, OpenCV does have some nice features that you probably wouldn't bother implementing if you were doing it yourself, in particular lens geometry correction. The ability to get good accuracy out of a cheap camera and/or lens is a very worthwhile benefit.
+1
OpenCV is pretty awesome. For my applications, I would love to use the color recognition to decide what PCB is in the machine. In general, I have about 6 designs being produced at any given moment. All the parts are in the machine to populate any of the PCB's. I also use custom aluminum pallets to hold the PCB's on the conveyor. It would be nice to have colored dots on the pallets to indicate the program to run. An operator can put in any of the PCB's in any order and the machine would know what to do - verified by the fiducials.
Why colour and not number of dots etc.?
It could be many number of things for the vision system to succeed - I am thinking about what is easy and most obvious to the human operator. In the CNC shop, my machines would recognize various fixtures by measuring a reference hole size. It was easy for the machine, but the operators could not tell the difference without measuring (variable). We colored the fixtures so they could be recognized from a distance without any need to measure.
Utilizing OpenCV can enable such an implementation without much effort. If it is not needed, don't use it. May or may not be a great idea, but OpenCV will support just about anything that a PnP would ever need - including AOI applications after the parts are done.
-
It may sound like a weird comment but, could it be caused by running the machine too slowly? The NeoDen videos all show correct placement of the 0603 packages (and others) in their post-placement close-up images.
It may be that a number of discrete, single (slow) advances cause the 'flipping' to occur. Of course, the temperature, humidity, etc can all effect the tape peel also.
TheSteve - I also wanted to thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience with the machine today :-/O
Sounds like things are getting better once all the quirks get acknowledged and worked out.
Plus it looks like were getting closer to some possible software improvements even without Neoden helping out which is a step in the right direction.
My biggest concerns with the machine at this point are not the software, it is that the feeder hardware simply isn't good enough. They seem to work well enough with 0805 sized parts but the 0603s we have done have not gone as well. The feeders just don't seem smooth enough and cause parts to jump out of the pocket, flip over etc. We didn't spend tons of time on the SOIC feeder but we did try to optimize it and at that point it still flipped the chip etc 10% of the time which meant the machine needed a constant presence/intervention for the entire build.
-
Theres a couple of different threads going on in here now, just wondering if anyone else thinks we could split them sideways?
-
From the research I've done, the TVM802A is inferior to the Charmhigh CHMT48VA in terms of design. The CHMT48VA has encoders on the stepper motors so that the machine is aware of any missteps and compensates automatically. The steppers are also much larger. The unit is also completely self contained running embedded Linux and does not require the use of a PC. The TVM802A that I have seen operating runs the illuminating LEDs on the camera all the time and the empty tapes have to run underneath the board and out to the other side of the machine. The CHMT48VA has a slot that allows you to run the tapes down and away from the PCB. The LEDs on the camera operate as a "true flash".
If I had to choose for either one, my money would be on the CHMT48VA. If only they could have provided me with customer feedback of a North American user, I probably would have bought one. My two cents.
-
Theres a couple of different threads going on in here now, just wondering if anyone else thinks we could split them sideways?
I agree.
One thread per machine - or at least per manufacturer.
-
Axel has a separate blog post about his new machine.
I think splitting this post up into multiple post will break the concentration of info that is accumulating here.
I say we just stay focused on the NeoDen 4 even though other options get talked about on here also. It's a really hard decision to pick which machine is best and there are not that many to choose from.
Juts my 2 Cents.
-
References to other machines in itself is not the problem, so long as it is relevant. Problems arise when the thread starts following the tangent more strongly than the original topic.
If Axel starts a new thread on the CharmHigh when there is more to tell, then its all good.
-
Sure guys, I will open another thread on the TVM if I have more news.
Regards, Axel
-
Agree totally with Brumby & RWB.
Axel - please let's know [on this thread] if you do go ahead and open another for TVM. I'm sure we'd all be interested in your journey. This is just about 'management' at the end of the day.
References to other machines in itself is not the problem, so long as it is relevant. Problems arise when the thread starts following the tangent more strongly than the original topic.
If Axel starts a new thread on the CharmHigh when there is more to tell, then its all good.
-
If you down load OpenPnp ( http://openpnp.org/ (http://openpnp.org/) ) and install it, it will run a compeltly simulated cycled, so you dont' have to even have a machine to see what the UI looks like.
Seriously this would be the way to go, keep it all open and everyone benefits.
-
Does anyone in our group have a candidate to take on the design brief, and implementation, (most likely different people) of those things mentioned so far - machine vision, PCB extended feed, and conveyor system? With a view to integration with OpenPnP, and then porting the interface across to Neoden4?
I reviewed the openPNP interface and I think it's not a real improvement to use for the NEODEN 4!
A lot of functions need to be rebuild to drive the neoden hardware.
First the OpenPNP software UI and functions need to be improved.
Then we should do the interfaces to different machines.
-
Does anyone in our group have a candidate to take on the design brief, and implementation, (most likely different people) of those things mentioned so far - machine vision, PCB extended feed, and conveyor system? With a view to integration with OpenPnP, and then porting the interface across to Neoden4?
I reviewed the openPNP interface and I think it's not a real improvement to use for the NEODEN 4!
A lot of functions need to be rebuild to drive the neoden hardware.
First the OpenPNP software UI and functions need to be improved.
Then we should do the interfaces to different machines.
Im not sure how much we can read into this comment. One vendor picking holes in another one, really annoys me. an frankly for everyone else, at least they can see the UI for this sytem, unlike the much promised by not delivered videos of his system
-
Does anyone in our group have a candidate to take on the design brief, and implementation, (most likely different people) of those things mentioned so far - machine vision, PCB extended feed, and conveyor system? With a view to integration with OpenPnP, and then porting the interface across to Neoden4?
I reviewed the openPNP interface and I think it's not a real improvement to use for the NEODEN 4!
A lot of functions need to be rebuild to drive the neoden hardware.
But the huge difference is that unlike the Neoden4 software, it is under continuous development, and you can improve it yourself.
-
Yes Mike & MrPackethead,
I think you both make good points.
SmallSMT will possibly have a bias (understandably), but the machine that they have is well built. If it had a conveyor drive, and a cartridge tape load for components, it would be a real contender. Particularly their latest 4 head design with nozzle changer options.
On the other hand people say good things about the SmallSMT software.
Whatever we do - new SW, or OpenPnP, there is going to be a substantial body of work to integrate and interface, and port all the drivers, and of course the machine vision, etc.
My preference would be to try to adopt the OpenPnP base, and pay for a commercial solution to develop those 'missing features' which the Neoden4 HW currently provides, and then closely observe the rate of change in the NeoDen and other HW platforms.
If Neoden don't want to work alongside and update us re HW mods and variations, then of course it opens an opportunity to look at building a HW element. Oddly, the fundemental elements are probably the simplist part of the whole deal - Cartesian plotter with 3 axis + rotation of the heads. The component feeders are the most custom parts, and I believe there are changes coming on that front too.
I think it's time to speak with NeoDen and explore if there is an opportunity to develop this in conjunction with them. I'll make the call and start things off unless anyone's got an issue.
Best if we can work with as much existing infrastructure as possible I believe. I want to concentrate on what we are best at, and have limited resources to allocate to the peripherals. I need a simple commercial solution that works, and preferably one which is 'open' so we can customise where and if needed.
-
It is always the same people want to not contribute to the solution of a problem and are looking for only the criticism points.
I really want a common usable pick and place software using HAL layers to support different machine types.
I am engineer and know how much time you need to spend to build a good solution.
OpenPNP is far away from a good solution it's maybe a starting point.
We developed some Linux based vision systems before and I know it need a lot of work to debug and support over years because you need to handle too many influences caused by software versions and hardware.
So multi platform support is an option but totally useless!
Another big problem is you need a good project team and time to develop a neat solution so I want to support this work!
And it's not a problem for me to support the NEODEN4 or any other hardware!
I was in the same situation some years before. You bought a machine and received some problems and hope the manufacturer solve it in a short time.
But first the communication is not easy then you feel nothing happens.
I am sure NEODEN will solve the problems soon but they never change the software interface completely.
Did anyone talk to them if it is possible to receive the controller command set and communication protocol?
At this point it will be possible to build a driver to support the machine and I hope they support this work.
It's not a big problem for them because they sell the hardware and don't loose customers.
-
Created a new thread about the TVM802A/B here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/pick-and-place-machine-tvm802a-tvm802b/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/pick-and-place-machine-tvm802a-tvm802b/)
Regards, Axel
-
Good day All,
Just thinking out of the box...Given that there is an interest in developing better software for the N4, what if someone approached the fellow who designed and developed his own PnP called VisionBot (http://visionbot.net/ (http://visionbot.net/)) and perhaps convince him ($) to port his software to support the N4? This might be a viable approach if his software is solid, etc... and it does look fairly mature.
Cheers,
Sam
-
Good day All,
Just thinking out of the box...Given that there is an interest in developing better software for the N4, what if someone approached the fellow who designed and developed his own PnP called VisionBot (http://visionbot.net/ (http://visionbot.net/)) and perhaps convince him ($) to port his software to support the N4? This might be a viable approach if his software is solid, etc... and it does look fairly mature.
Cheers,
Sam
Hi
Inevitably there is a certain amount of "secret sauce" in the firmware inside a pick and place. For better or worse, there is no standard interface language to talk to these beasts. You need a bunch of information from the hardware / firmware guys first. You then need to check that over (validate it). Often there are things in the information that simply don't work quite as described. (quick note --- I don't know anything about the Neoden firmware. I do indeed do this for a living). Once you have that, the guy on the other end needs to have a chance at looking it over. Without seeing the way they did there "stuff", he has absolutely no way to know how hard the process will be.
At this point he can give you a quote on what it's likely to take to do a port. He comes up with an estimate (say a year's work) and you hand him the first installment payment. He now needs a Neoden 4 and some parts to thump on as he does his thing. He also needs a line to the guys at Neoden. The "hey Bob, this thing you wrote doesn't work the way you say it does" conversation will take place a *lot* of times (like a few times a day) for the first few months. Since this is a retrofit, you will be fixing firmware bugs in the driver code rather than having the firmware guys do the fix.
So now you hand him his final check and he gives you a piece of code. Just like all the other stuff, it's about 90% there. (It's always only going to be 90% of the way). Out it goes to the field and in come the bug reports / upgrade requests / feature mods / support questions. Taking care of all of that *is* a full time job for somebody. In fact it's probably a full time job several guys. He politely requests *more* money to do that for a year than the original software cost to port.
Net result, you now have a company. It has running costs and a workforce. It pays taxes and has a web site. It needs a regular income to keep all of that going. Hmmm.....
Bob
-
Good day All,
Just thinking out of the box...Given that there is an interest in developing better software for the N4, what if someone approached the fellow who designed and developed his own PnP called VisionBot (http://visionbot.net/ (http://visionbot.net/)) and perhaps convince him ($) to port his software to support the N4? This might be a viable approach if his software is solid, etc... and it does look fairly mature.
Cheers,
Sam
Hi
Inevitably there is a certain amount of "secret sauce" in the firmware inside a pick and place. For better or worse, there is no standard interface language to talk to these beasts. You need a bunch of information from the hardware / firmware guys first. You then need to check that over (validate it). Often there are things in the information that simply don't work quite as described. (quick note --- I don't know anything about the Neoden firmware. I do indeed do this for a living). Once you have that, the guy on the other end needs to have a chance at looking it over. Without seeing the way they did there "stuff", he has absolutely no way to know how hard the process will be.
At this point he can give you a quote on what it's likely to take to do a port. He comes up with an estimate (say a year's work) and you hand him the first installment payment. He now needs a Neoden 4 and some parts to thump on as he does his thing. He also needs a line to the guys at Neoden. The "hey Bob, this thing you wrote doesn't work the way you say it does" conversation will take place a *lot* of times (like a few times a day) for the first few months. Since this is a retrofit, you will be fixing firmware bugs in the driver code rather than having the firmware guys do the fix.
So now you hand him his final check and he gives you a piece of code. Just like all the other stuff, it's about 90% there. (It's always only going to be 90% of the way). Out it goes to the field and in come the bug reports / upgrade requests / feature mods / support questions. Taking care of all of that *is* a full time job for somebody. In fact it's probably a full time job several guys. He politely requests *more* money to do that for a year than the original software cost to port.
Net result, you now have a company. It has running costs and a workforce. It pays taxes and has a web site. It needs a regular income to keep all of that going. Hmmm.....
Bob
Good day Bob,
You are quite right... I was just suggesting another option. That being said what are your thoughts and/or direction options?
Cheers,
Sam
-
Smells like a kickstarter, with the guy/company in the end disappearing with your Neoden and the backers money.
-
Good day All,
Just thinking out of the box...Given that there is an interest in developing better software for the N4, what if someone approached the fellow who designed and developed his own PnP called VisionBot (http://visionbot.net/ (http://visionbot.net/)) and perhaps convince him ($) to port his software to support the N4? This might be a viable approach if his software is solid, etc... and it does look fairly mature.
Cheers,
Sam
Hi
Inevitably there is a certain amount of "secret sauce" in the firmware inside a pick and place. For better or worse, there is no standard interface language to talk to these beasts. You need a bunch of information from the hardware / firmware guys first. You then need to check that over (validate it). Often there are things in the information that simply don't work quite as described. (quick note --- I don't know anything about the Neoden firmware. I do indeed do this for a living). Once you have that, the guy on the other end needs to have a chance at looking it over. Without seeing the way they did there "stuff", he has absolutely no way to know how hard the process will be.
At this point he can give you a quote on what it's likely to take to do a port. He comes up with an estimate (say a year's work) and you hand him the first installment payment. He now needs a Neoden 4 and some parts to thump on as he does his thing. He also needs a line to the guys at Neoden. The "hey Bob, this thing you wrote doesn't work the way you say it does" conversation will take place a *lot* of times (like a few times a day) for the first few months. Since this is a retrofit, you will be fixing firmware bugs in the driver code rather than having the firmware guys do the fix.
So now you hand him his final check and he gives you a piece of code. Just like all the other stuff, it's about 90% there. (It's always only going to be 90% of the way). Out it goes to the field and in come the bug reports / upgrade requests / feature mods / support questions. Taking care of all of that *is* a full time job for somebody. In fact it's probably a full time job several guys. He politely requests *more* money to do that for a year than the original software cost to port.
Net result, you now have a company. It has running costs and a workforce. It pays taxes and has a web site. It needs a regular income to keep all of that going. Hmmm.....
Bob
Good day Bob,
You are quite right... I was just suggesting another option. That being said what are your thoughts and/or direction options?
Cheers,
Sam
Hi
I think one *practical* way to do something like this is to have an open interface standard. Something the "hardware guy" can build to and verify against. Multiple outfits all use the same this or that command to do the same thing. You have a descriptor table somewhere in eeprom or flash that gives all the details of what is what. This is basically the way things like USB and Bluetooth work. The guys on the "other side" can then go write code that works against the standard.
Using USB as an example, you quickly find that it is rare to have a driver for this or that device come out without it being done by the people who made the target gizmo. Indeed third party drivers *do* exist and that validates the whole scheme. If you dig a bit deeper into USB, you find that the mothership (usb.org) charges various fees and issues licenses for this and that. Setting up an organization to administer something like this for pick and place .... not likely to happen.
That gets you back to a three way deal. Some sort of user group funds a process. There are contracts with various people. Doing some math:
Developer guy gets $120K a year and takes a year, gets same per year after that
Equipment and software for compatibility testing runs $20K to $60K a year
Two support guys get $60K a year after the first year.
Somebody manages all this and gets $120K a year.
You have about $200K in the first year and about $400K a year after that. Before you go off on the numbers, try setting up and paying all the taxes, utilities, mandatory benefits and the like on a group of people.
So to fund that, how many people own one and are ready to pay a yearly support fee?
If it's 1,000 people ... you each owe $400 a year. If it's 100 people, you each owe $4,000 a year. Consider that this is support contracts and not machines. You inevitably will have people with multiple machines who will not expect to pay on a per machine basis. Your support costs do not go up by 8 when Bob has 8 machines, so that is a reasonable assumption.
So what happens? You start with the assumption that you will get 1,000 people. You charge $400. You get 121 people ... end of project.
How was it done initially? They paid the guy his fee for initial code. The machine he worked with was a prototype they already had. The 120K gets spread out over a run of a couple machines a working day for the first year. It's an incidental expense spread out over 500 to a thousand machines.
We don't see it from "our end" of the pipe, but the price of these machines goes down on a monthly basis. The one here / two there sales are not what keep a company afloat. It's the guy who wants 10 or a hundred machines that really sets the market. He may not be an end user, he could be a dealer. It's a good bet that whoever it is, the price just keeps going down. That's why the software gets done up front and there isn't any money later on.
This is why decoupling software support contracts from machine sales is a really good idea. You buy your machine for price X and it comes with support for a year. Past that, you pay a fee (and have some level of expectation about support). Inevitably your expectation is a bit higher than what gets delivered but you pay the "ownership tax" to keep things going. Essentially what the costs at the top of this are looking at is the real sort of fees and costs associated with even a "bare bones" approach to that.
Bob
-
I think one *practical* way to do something like this is to have an open interface standard. Something the "hardware guy" can build to and verify against. Multiple outfits all use the same this or that command to do the same thing. You have a descriptor table somewhere in eeprom or flash that gives all the details of what is what. This is basically the way things like USB and Bluetooth work. The guys on the "other side" can then go write code that works against the standard.
Just like Gcode is very universal across multiple CNC plaforms, E1.31 is universal for Lighting.. SMTP is universal for email.. It can be done, and ultimately open standards win. Where various vendors win/loose is their implementation of those standards into products.
Setting up an organization to administer something like this for pick and place .... not likely to happen.
Its likely that you dont' even need to find such an organisation.. Just find a standard that is a very near fit already.
-
Hi SmallSMT,
Can I please suggest that you consider doing something positive for your company and post a step-by-step instruction set for the operation of your machine/interface? Check out the link to the latest blog which Servokit has posted (above).
This way the critiscism will stop and things will become productive instead, and there'll be no (or less) need for defensive comments.
I believe your product is really good. I personally have a preference for NeoDen at present because I prefer their feeder system, it has 4 heads, and a conveyor transport system.
The market is very clearly telling you that these are features that a certain level of user is looking for.
If your machine had these too, I believe you'd be selling machines to them, and me.
You are totally correct in relation to the difficulty and amount of work involved in developing a 3rd party system, either by integrating OpenPnP, or starting with another machine's base. Are you suggesting that SmallSMT would consider porting its code to the Neoden4 platform? If so, you should make this clearer and explain how you suggest the process may look and a timeline.
Everyone on the forum is clearly looking for a solution.
It is always the same people want to not contribute to the solution of a problem and are looking for only the criticism points.
I really want a common usable pick and place software using HAL layers to support different machine types.
I am engineer and know how much time you need to spend to build a good solution.
OpenPNP is far away from a good solution it's maybe a starting point.
We developed some Linux based vision systems before and I know it need a lot of work to debug and support over years because you need to handle too many influences caused by software versions and hardware.
So multi platform support is an option but totally useless!
Another big problem is you need a good project team and time to develop a neat solution so I want to support this work!
And it's not a problem for me to support the NEODEN4 or any other hardware!
I was in the same situation some years before. You bought a machine and received some problems and hope the manufacturer solve it in a short time.
But first the communication is not easy then you feel nothing happens.
I am sure NEODEN will solve the problems soon but they never change the software interface completely.
Did anyone talk to them if it is possible to receive the controller command set and communication protocol?
At this point it will be possible to build a driver to support the machine and I hope they support this work.
It's not a big problem for them because they sell the hardware and don't loose customers.
-
I got information that my machine had landed in here today :), next is custom clearance process - a very non deterministic time process :(.
I hope i can get it at the end of this week. In the meantime i make a simple plan calculation.
The first picture is part placement plan, 296 parts without vision, 56 parts with vision, and 20 parts manually placed - for each panel.
Neoden claims placement rate 10000 CPH without vision and 5000 CPH with vision, i take half of it as on the second picture.
I will be very happy if this plan can be realized...
-ichan
-
Ichan
I'm curious about what other equipment you have, or intend to use, in your production line, in order to maintain your projected throughput.
For example, what paste machine and reflow equipment will you be using.
Could be another trip back to the camera once again for you.
-
Ichan
I'm curious about what other equipment you have, or intend to use, in your production line, in order to maintain your projected throughput.
For example, what paste machine and reflow equipment will you be using.
Could be another trip back to the camera once again for you.
Getting paste onto pcbs incorreclty is the root of 90% of failures in my experience. Don't under estimate this step.
-
What does your short-run production line look like MrP?
What stencil paste system are you using, and reflow oven at present?
Ichan
I'm curious about what other equipment you have, or intend to use, in your production line, in order to maintain your projected throughput.
For example, what paste machine and reflow equipment will you be using.
Could be another trip back to the camera once again for you.
Getting paste onto pcbs incorreclty is the root of 90% of failures in my experience. Don't under estimate this step.
-
What does your short-run production line look like MrP?
In the workshop where we do the small run stuff... ( this is only relaly prototypes and stuff that is 20-100 pces tops )..
I use frameless stencils mounted into a Quick Frame. ( http://www.quickstencil.com/proframe1217.aspx (http://www.quickstencil.com/proframe1217.aspx) ). This works really well for me, its easy to store stencils as they are flat. I bought a reletively low cost stencil printer in china.. Its like this one ( http://www.aliexpress.com/store/914873?spm=2114.10010108.0.149.nQyUfu (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/914873?spm=2114.10010108.0.149.nQyUfu) ). Though i bought it at the SEG, and brought it back with me as checked baggage. I get stencils from sitopway to match the quickstencil for about $60.
I want to make a smaller "quick frame" type setup, so i can use smaller stencils. Just a matter of time to do that though.
I have one of those crappy IR ovens, its been relegated to the bottom shelf and collecting dust. My $90 Kambrook oven and the old sparkfun controller kit, has worked really well for me..
It takes time and pratice to get manual pasting nailed. And good paste at the right temp, that is well mixed. You can place parts with all the precision in the world, but if the paste is bad. Your screwed.
>What stencil paste system are you using, and reflow oven at present?
-
I have Novastar SPR-25 (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/stencil-printers/manual-systems/spr-25-stencil-printer) stencil printer and GF-120HT (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/reflow-ovens/low-volume/gf-120ht-reflow-oven) reflow oven. They both are good, but as the oven is high wattage and the PP machine is much slower than the oven cycle time then a kitchen oven is a far more cost effective solution.
Pictures below tell all, note that the kitchen oven has no special controller but a flash light... :-DD
-ichan
-
I have been looking at the SPR-25. Would you recommend it for low volume fine pitch?
-
I have been looking at the SPR-25. Would you recommend it for low volume fine pitch?
No idea, but my ~$300 printer with the quickframe works well for .4mm pitched QFNs and 0402s. A lot more comes down to stencil thickness and applicaiton of paste. the better printers won't help you much there, but what they will help you with is aligning the stencil. The cheap ones are really painful, and it can take a few minutes per panel to get your aligngment!
-
@ichan I'm excited that your NeoDen 4 is almost in your hands :-+
I looked over your IC list and I see some fine pitch IC parts that have the same pin spacing as parts that I would want to use the machine to lay so this will be very interesting to see how well the NeoDen 4 handles them at any speed at the quantity that you will be running.
This should be a really good test. Your either going to be really happy or stuck fixing problems constantly.
Can't wait for the party to start :popcorn:
-
Hey ichan, here's my oven with controller (and flashlight).
It's surprising how good this works, 5mins and you are done.
Regards, Axel
-
The cheap toasters do get the job done on the cheap :)
-
The cheap toasters do get the job done on the cheap :)
They sure do. If you take the time, to get it sorted out they are a really good option. Obvisouly you cnat' do thousands of boards, but they are great for prototyping.
-
Hey ichan, here's my oven with controller (and flashlight).
It's surprising how good this works, 5mins and you are done.
Regards, Axel
<joke>
Axel, your place look way to clean, kmoon :))
And that Owen, kmoon, it's like in Severin showroom or some Pharmacy device :D
<end joke>
Have the same model from Severin, working like a charm :-+
-
I have been looking at the SPR-25. Would you recommend it for low volume fine pitch?
Yes, SPR-25 is a beast for a manual stencil printer, rock solid and heavy (about 50 KG) - the downside it is expensive, and the frame size is large.
...
This should be a really good test. Your either going to be really happy or stuck fixing problems constantly.
Yeah, there is where the bet lies ;)
To tell the truth, i have a hidden agenda with this machine purchase... (whispering on) i want to try to use the extra feeders on my existing machine (whispering off). ;D
-ichan
-
Just to chuck somethign else into the mix. Boreytech are offering what seem like quite resonable machiens for this sub $10k market. I've had a quick chat with them, and they seem to be sensible folks.
http://en.boreytech.com/ (http://en.boreytech.com/)
https://youtu.be/7U3b4rx_1cA (https://youtu.be/7U3b4rx_1cA)
https://youtu.be/dYzK-yTSKLA (https://youtu.be/dYzK-yTSKLA)
https://youtu.be/LFMQ4cXU1zg (https://youtu.be/LFMQ4cXU1zg)
https://youtu.be/5LPw9792ObY (https://youtu.be/5LPw9792ObY)
-
Were you able to qualify the max practical part placement/resolution? I know you're wanting to place 0.4mm QFNs.
Which model is under $10K MrP?
Were you able to get a cost indication for their 'feeders' by any chance?
Just to chuck somethign else into the mix. Boreytech are offering what seem like quite resonable machiens for this sub $10k market. I've had a quick chat with them, and they seem to be sensible folks.
-
I've seen their machines on AliExpress but was put off by the shipping costs.
Also, I wonder why it is so difficult for some companies to do a properly lighted, high-res video of their machines in this day and age. I'm using a run of the mill S6 on a cheapo tripod for all my vids and pics and you have seen how they turn out.
Regards, Axel
-
@servokit I was going to ask you which camera you were using to shoot your videos and pictures because they are very clear. So by S6 your talking about a Samsung S6 smart phone right? That's really good if so.
-
Yup, that's the one. I've not once used it for making phone calls, it's only for imaging. The lighting in my shop is the usual tubes on the ceiling, nothing fancy. To attach the S6 to a tripod, I'm using a Shoulderpod S1.
Also, as a rule, everything that doesn't belong is moved outside the view of the camera (see TJ232's comment above).
Regards, Axel
-
I've seen their machines on AliExpress but was put off by the shipping costs.
Also, I wonder why it is so difficult for some companies to do a properly lighted, high-res video of their machines in this day and age. I'm using a run of the mill S6 on a cheapo tripod for all my vids and pics and you have seen how they turn out.
Regards, Axel
Something very wrong with those shipping costs. teh machine costs are about right though. thats just a admin error.
-
Not so extremely very wrong if looking at standard DHL pricing. Shipping 150x60x60 (5'x2'x2') box @ 120 kilos (260 pounds) from Shenzhen to New York is $3300. I guess the machines in the pictures are heavier and have larger crates than that...
-
The merchant's invoice that came with my machine at 60kg gross (120x80x50 or so) listed $200 for shipping from Wenzhou to Germany. This is probably too low, the same seller quotes shipping costs of $400 for a 20kg (?) stencil printer. But still - $8K?
Regards, Axel
-
The merchant's invoice that came with my machine at 60kg gross (120x80x50 or so) listed $200 for shipping from Wenzhou to Germany. This is probably too low, the same seller quotes shipping costs of $400 for a 20kg (?) stencil printer. But still - $8K?
With $200 they have a really nice deal with DHL - standard quoted price at the DHL site is $2800 :-)
-
They must - i paid $3'4K in total... I think the $2'8K price from DHL is like paying retail for airline tickets; you don't, you shop around.
Regards, Axel
-
you can also get it sent seafreight..
-
I think the high shipping costs are about reducing Aliexpress commission - not uncommon to see stuff a lot cheaper than other sellers but very similar once you compare cost+chipping.
-
Good point, Ali collects 5% IIRC.
Regards, Axel
-
the best "buying" for Chinese stuff is www.taobao.com (http://www.taobao.com)
Its a web site for the chinese domestic market, and so its in chiense, and its a bit painful. but you'll often find the same goods for 50% less there, that you'll find on aliexpress.
Theres "agents" in china, who will buy stuff for you for a commission. and freight is highly comeptitive over there.
Have a look at this.
Seach for "SMT??" on taobao and see the treasure chest you'll find!
-
NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.
If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.
An optional additional explanation is:
-
Just got the machine today... Yippee... 8)
(http://s7.postimg.org/varb29lh7/N4_Arrived.jpg)
-ichan
-
@Ichan I was thinking this morning about how I can't wait to see how this machine works out for you. Glad it arrived and your ready to rock and roll with it.
Let the games begin :popcorn:
I'm sure were all excited to see how this plays out for you :D
Keep the pictures and videos coming :-+
-
Sure, i will share everything! Just ask which part i should take the pictures off, then i will do.
The machine arrived on the afternoon (i am on UTC+07 time), today we just uncrate it and assembly the stand - will continue with it tomorrow.
Just uncrated, seems everything is good. Some feeder block pulled off from it's place, not a big deal.
(http://s20.postimg.org/7vyotwobx/N4_Ucrated.jpg)
Assembled stand. Some parts a bit bent but can be straightened easily just by hand - missing the M5 bolts but i have a bunch of it. All holes are tapped and they do not forget to put the rubber sheet ;D.
(http://s20.postimg.org/5so9m8oj1/N4_Stand.jpg)
Some other things on the package: spare feeders, spare vacuum pump, accessory tool box, etc.
(http://s20.postimg.org/k0dyaw17x/N4_Misc.jpg)
Will trim and re-encode some video soon after this and put it on youtube.
-ichan
-
Some other things on the package: spare feeders, spare vacuum pump, accessory tool box, etc.
-ichan
Could you post a picture of the label on the pump? Or the information from it? I'm curious what model they are using.
Thanks,
Jason
-
Could you post a picture of the label on the pump? Or the information from it? I'm curious what model they are using.
Will do it tomorrow in the workshop, i am at home now.
Had you found how to command the feeder block?
-ichan
-
Could you post a picture of the label on the pump? Or the information from it? I'm curious what model they are using.
Will do it tomorrow in the workshop, i am at home now.
Had you found how to command the feeder block?
-ichan
No. I know it's CAN but that's all I know. I don't have an N4 to test with, just a single feeder I bought from them. Any information about it that you can discover would be greatly appreciated!
-
(http://s20.postimg.org/7vyotwobx/N4_Ucrated.jpg)
That looks like a nice compact machine!
-
(http://s20.postimg.org/7vyotwobx/N4_Ucrated.jpg)
That looks like a nice compact machine!
Small enough to put it in the mailbag, and get opened with the "not" compact letter opening knife?
-
Sure, i will share everything! Just ask which part i should take the pictures off, then i will do.
Internals, control electronics etc.
Windows COA ? :-DD :-DD :-DD
-
Assembled stand. Some parts a bit bent but can be straightened easily just by hand - missing the M5 bolts but i have a bunch of it. All holes are tapped and they do not forget to put the rubber sheet ;D.
Is the inside of the stand use to store anything ?
If not, then it seems to me that it's a waste of space - an open frame or solid table would provide storage space underneath.
-
The inside of the stand is hollow, no opening to store anything.
We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape. The best fix we could come up with was to set it so it didn't peel far enough and then use a little weight on the end of the tape. We also had a problem with a nozzle not being as straight as we would like. When it rotates the part the placement would be rather poor with one specific nozzle, changing that part(SOT23-5) to a different nozzle made it much better. If not for the resonator feed issue the machine would have been pretty much hands off.
A pic of the inside of the machine, our peel box "fix" and the panel we made. I am sure Ichan will get better pics of the inside.
-
Did the wiring ship like that, or have you been in and messed it up?
-
Some interesting stuff in that internals shot!
Here is the pump: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/12V-Micro-Diaphragm-pump-KVP8-Series/500411_32497394487.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/12V-Micro-Diaphragm-pump-KVP8-Series/500411_32497394487.html)
I'm surprised to see they use four of them. One per nozzle, I assume. That's an expensive little diaphragm pump, too. I wonder how it compares to other similar units.
External stepper drivers, which makes sense. Also makes me think the drivers for the C axes are onboard the head. I'd be very curious what the wire bundle going from the control board to the head looks like.
And boy, that wiring is sure a mess. Looks like they might have soldered that ribbon cable directly to the motherboard?
Thanks for posting this, and please keep em coming! It's fascinating to see the guts of this machine.
Jason
-
Did the wiring ship like that, or have you been in and messed it up?
That is how it shipped. It is a bit of a mess but looks worse in the pic then in person.
-
Congrats The Steve!
Nice work, and very reassuring news. It seems that the 'path' delivered by Neoden's SW could certainly be improved. Many people appear to be reporting on it, but I can't because I've not actually seen, or tried using, it.
Nonetheless, once navigated, getting a usable product out of it on the other end, all appears possible, and now that you know how, practical.
I assume you'll report that Tape Puller issue to the Neoden guys.
Finally, I reached out to Tonny from Neoden on Skype, and also to Hiama [sales]. I haven't heard anything back from Tonny, and this is despite Hiami's reassurance he said he would contact me 'as soon as he got out of his meeting' [that was last Monday - so 5 days so far].
Based on this kind of response, I'm not hold my breath any longer for those SW updates and releases that he promised in a 'few days' either.
Don't get me wrong - I REALLY want this machine to deliver a workable solution. And I particularly want their rail/conveyor system feature.
We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape.
-
Here are the video i that i take yesterday.
TheSteve said that the reason for a Neoden 4 is because it can pass through a standard door, here in my narrow space workshop it goes to the 3rd floor ;D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNhmOTH0JP0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNhmOTH0JP0)
While uncrating the machine we found Some of the feeder box pulled off, seems the utility box can move and hit the feeder on their shipment position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii0Gyx5yA74 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii0Gyx5yA74)
Seems i have to buy some rubber feet for the stand..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_itKD1LV9EI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_itKD1LV9EI)
Will take more pictures and video today.
-ichan
-
no safety glasses!!!
-
@Ichan I can already tell this is going to be one well documented Neoden 4 test :-+
Thank you so much for documenting this properly for all us guys who are on the fence and not knowing which way to go. :clap:
Can't wait till production starts :popcorn:
-
Was there anything unusual about the distance between the component pockets on the tape TheSteve?
Kinda sounds like that distance is on the edge, and between the feeder step resolution.
Are you able to swap it with another tape puller?
The inside of the stand is hollow, no opening to store anything.
We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape. The best fix we could come up with was to set it so it didn't peel far enough and then use a little weight on the end of the tape. We also had a problem with a nozzle not being as straight as we would like. When it rotates the part the placement would be rather poor with one specific nozzle, changing that part(SOT23-5) to a different nozzle made it much better. If not for the resonator feed issue the machine would have been pretty much hands off.
A pic of the inside of the machine, our peel box "fix" and the panel we made. I am sure Ichan will get better pics of the inside.
-
Isn't that standardized? My machine has four (unitless) feed settings: 2, 4, 8, 12, no in-betweens.
Regards, Axel
-
Dear all,
Good day!
I'm Cathy, International Service Support Coordinator of NeoDen Tech., I'd like to thank you all for your kind attention and sincere suggestion regarding our NeoDen 4 Pick and Place machine.
We understand all the concerns of the machine users and our Team is continuously on the job, at this point, we would like to inform all our esteemed and prospective customers that , we are hereby putting a data related to our software development stages from the date of release of the first batch of machines from our factory ,Hope from the attached snapshot, one can understand that the way which we are addressing the issues.
We are committed to update each and every machine on the field with the latest update free of cost. We request our existing users of NeoDen 4 machines to be in touch with us for the new release update to get updated on your machine.
-
no safety glasses!!!
Not cutting anything - why would you need those ?
-
Hi Cathy,
Thank you for the changelog... but note that none of the stuff discussed here has been included in your list. Please see this link for a collection of issues and feature requests that we have been assembling from the user community:
http://collabedit.com/hfe7r (http://collabedit.com/hfe7r)
Feel free to edit it and add notes. Or better yet, please consider making a Bugzilla or similar bug tracker available publicly so that we can see the status of various bugs. This would give confidence to those not yet purchasing a machine that bugs are being taken seriously and being dealt with. And for those (like me) that already have the machine, it would make it easier to recommend the system to colleagues knowing that annoying problems are going to be fixed.
-
Hello !
...
I look at that picture PC. And much disappointed for many reasons such as:
1) This is an old version of HW, which isn't supported by the market.
2) Issue of a very old or very old components and reskrs ended. (Hard to find in the garbage, such components are already recycled)
3) A huge doubt prolonged use of such PC.
4) Not supported industry standards for this PC, only as a hobby.
5) What are the problems with the BIOS? no information.
6) OS Windows XP no longer supported.
7) The cameras look at the components and their old driver for XP, also the problem of long-term work.
8) Regular failure, if you look at the installation inside. Can apply the standards, but don't, sorry.
9) S/B bugs in software for video, enough capacity to deal with this. For this reason, many inaccuracies when installing small-sized components 0402, BGA and the like.
I am sure that such a high cost is just business, and beautiful picture.
Why is this not a professional, and not even HAM choice?
Who buys buys big risks in the PC and ...
I wanted to warn seeing photos PC inside.
I Am disappointed :-(
-
@Jefferson, how do you compare it with a machine that use a proprietary SBC?
We turn up down the machine and take some photo.
(http://s20.postimg.org/rsn5mnbjh/N4_Internals1.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/64y7c7b59/N4_Internals2.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/wsklulh65/N4_Internals3.jpg)
-ichan
-
This is actually a fairly recent mobo, probably with Atom or Celeron processor. The chip near the ribbon cable seems to be an ITE IT8781F (4 UARTs, LPT, plenty of GPIO). I presume that the ribbon cable connects to a bunch of sensors, like limit switches and the like. I can't imagine that they use the parallel port to generate stepper pulses (Can't be ruled out though, Windows XP is still the system of choice for Mach3-style pulse generation.)
Addendum: The green PCB is mounted differently in ichan's machine and also seems to be a different version (says "83" vs "80", near the blue connector).
Regards, Axel
-
ichan: Where is your factory located? It looks like you have quite a big operation running there!
-
Here are the nozzles and vacuum pump.
(http://s20.postimg.org/6pd8ew4dp/N4_Nozzle1.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/j2q2lsu25/N4_Nozzle2.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/6a1ylvigd/N4_Vac_Pump.jpg)
ichan: Where is your factory located? It looks like you have quite a big operation running there!
I am in Jakarta - Indonesia, not a big one just a private business serving the local electronic community in here :D.
-ichan
-
Ichan when do you expect to have the machine up and running the first board?
By the speed your moving I would guess today.
Thank you for all the pictures! This will be the #1 Neoden 4 thread out there.
-
Ichan when do you expect to have the machine up and running the first board?
We plan to do the production on the next monday. Up to now the machine has not powered on yet, will do it tomorrow doing some test and setting up for production - hopefully everything goes well tomorrow.
Below is the final arrangement of the machine.
(http://s20.postimg.org/p8w46add9/N4_Arrangement1.jpg)
The finished board will go to the rear bench where the manual placement will be done and do some visual inspection + correction before the reflow.
(http://s20.postimg.org/7ubvy0g8d/N4_Arrangement2.jpg)
Planned video camera view later, to capture both the machine and the display.
(http://s20.postimg.org/isn5g74tp/N4_Arrangement3.jpg)
Will do the Youtube things now...
-ichan.
-
no safety glasses!!!
Not cutting anything - why would you need those ?
Hammers and crowbars. Only in places where OSH is crazyness.
-
Thank you for all the photos!
Nozzles looks like Samsung CP45 style.
I'd love to see a couple of closeups on the head it self.
-
Thank you for all the photos!
Nozzles looks like Samsung CP45 style.
I'd love to see a couple of closeups on the head it self.
Agreed! I'd also like to see some pictures of the cameras, if you can see them without taking things apart. Very curious to know what models they are using.
Jason
-
Here are the video i that i take yesterday.
TheSteve said that the reason for a Neoden 4 is because it can pass through a standard door, here in my narrow space workshop it goes to the 3rd floor ;D.
While uncrating the machine we found Some of the feeder box pulled off, seems the utility box can move and hit the feeder on their shipment position.
Seems i have to buy some rubber feet for the stand..
Will take more pictures and video today.
-ichan
Maybe your Neoden 4 was crated differently then ours but you only need to remove the screws from the bottom edges and the entire top of the crate simply lifts off and is even reusable. At that point the machine simply lists off its shipping mounts. See my pics in the first page of this thread.
-
Maybe your Neoden 4 was crated differently then ours but you only need to remove the screws from the bottom edges and the entire top of the crate simply lifts off and is even reusable. At that point the machine simply lists off its shipping mounts. See my pics in the first page of this thread.
Yeah, we realize that after the top had been opened :)
Here some video taken yesterday, when we took pictures of its internal and setting up the hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYL_JiidbVY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYL_JiidbVY)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTYOJ0t9vGw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTYOJ0t9vGw)
-ichan
-
Sorry can't play with the machine today, have to do something else more important related to the project. Only able to take some pictures of the head before i leave the workshop.
(http://s20.postimg.org/6jhwurorx/N4_Head1.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/u6ngwmjhp/N4_Head2.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/40w7u331p/N4_Head3.jpg)
(http://s20.postimg.org/ukosw83l9/N4_Head4.jpg)
The camera can not be seen, it is inside the H shaped block on the front - i do not want to open it for now, afraid to loose the offset setting.
-ichan
-
Received a package from Neoden yesterday. We installed the new "blow" pump.
...
@TheSteve, which one is the "blow pump"?
-ichan
-
Thank you for the photos Ichan!
That looks like a nice compact design of the head though I'm sure some might say the cable management could have been better.
I can only spot two Z-axis motors. Are the other two just not visible or are they using just two motors for the four nozzles? Looking at the videos of the machine in operation it does appear as if each nozzle can move on its own so I'm guessing there's another pair of motors crammed in there somewhere.
They clearly have the drivers for the head mounted motors on the head itself. I wonder of they are pushing step/direction signals for each driver thru the control cable (probably not as there doesn't seem to be enough wires for that in the cable) or if there's some brains in the head as well, perhaps handling the vacum sensing pickup retry etc all on its own.
-
I can only spot two Z-axis motors. Are the other two just not visible or are they using just two motors for the four nozzles? Looking at the videos of the machine in operation it does appear as if each nozzle can move on its own so I'm guessing there's another pair of motors crammed in there somewhere.
There are only two Z axis motors. Each motor drives two Z axes using a cam to push the axis down and a spring return. This is the same setup they used on their previous machines (TM-2xx series) and on the N4 they've just doubled it up with two dual heads facing each other. You can see my version of the same design here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openpnp/openpnp-openbuilds/develop/Images/head_closeup.jpg
Jason
-
Ah, that's how they're doing it.
I don't know if it's über clever or not so good but depending on the length of the arm pushing down on the motors and the desired Z-axis travel the rotational motion of the arm translates into a sinusoidal move of the Z-axis which makes the axis moves fast at the top and the automatically slow down as it gets closer to the PCB.
This obviously means that the resolution changes so the first 3mm of movement doesn't require as many steps as the last 3mm - the software would need to know this, of course.
Then again, if the lenght of the arm is much longer than the travel length of the Z-axis it'll be fairly linear over the full travel.
I'm redoing the head on my machine, getting rid of a ballscrew driven THK slide in favour of a belt driven design like on the SmallSMT Machines where the two heads are connected to either side of a belt driven by a single motor.
Sorry for drifting a bit OT.
-
H.O
Would be great to see some close up images of the head on your machine. Have you designed it yourself?
I know it's not a N4, but the topic right now is better understanding the design of the N4 head - and a simple photo comparison with other designs would certainly assist me, and hopefully others too.
Thnx
BTW - I assume you guys already know about this site
They sell complete PnP head assemblies with NEMA hollow shaft motors, etc
http://www.robotdigg.com/category/27/SMT,+AI+n+Laser (http://www.robotdigg.com/category/27/SMT,+AI+n+Laser)
-
The insides are a sloppy mess. No labels on the harnesses. It looks like many of the prototypes I have made over the years.
-
BTW - I assume you guys already know about this site
They sell complete PnP head assemblies with NEMA hollow shaft motors, etc
http://www.robotdigg.com/category/27/SMT,+AI+n+Laser (http://www.robotdigg.com/category/27/SMT,+AI+n+Laser)
And most if not all if those parts can also be found on aliexpress and taobao for about 25% of the price quoted on robo dig. This was being discussed at #openpnp on free node irc the other day
http://world.taobao.com/item/524261348567.htm#detail (http://world.taobao.com/item/524261348567.htm#detail) <--- for example.
-
The insides are a sloppy mess. No labels on the harnesses. It looks like many of the prototypes I have made over the years.
What strikes me is how hard it is to get at the gubbins. I saw the photo of the wiring etc on my phone and initially though they were inside the base pedestal and just a matter of opening a side panel/door, until I watched the video. I would not want to trouble shoot it, take all the feeders etc off, unbolt from the base and then a two man job to take the unit off and turn it over on its back.
-
Guys, I seriously don't think manufacturers like NeoDen, Charmhigh, etc are designing their product on the basis of how much tinkering you can do with them.
It is my best guess, and sincere hope, that they are just designed to work.
As this is the N4 forum, I believe it is true to say that almost the entire thread history does not point to build quality, or issues about the HW failing to function.
It appears that the 'almost whole' amount of issues relate to software, and maybe some firmware, and then issues of communication.
I, for one, must admit that if i were to purchase a N4, the last thing I would be expecting to do is pull it apart and tinker. I just want it to load my components, and replace the machine I have now (me).
-
You need can leave all of the feeders on the machine to access the bottom. Unbolting from the stand is only 4 bolts, so it is pretty quick. It does take two people to lay the machine back. It isn't something I'd want to do too often.
-
Received a package from Neoden yesterday. We installed the new "blow" pump.
...
@TheSteve, which one is the "blow pump"?
-ichan
I have attached a copy of your pic with the blow pump circled. In my pic it was removed as we had to replace it. They ship 220 VAC models on all machines so those running the machine on 120 VAC have a lower blow pressure. The pump is a standard aquarium style diaphragm pump.
-
So, in time, when the software is dialed a bit a users start doing 8hr days - we will see if it holds up.
Sent from my horrible mobile....
-
Hi Cathy,
Please find below the 'list' Elmood referred to in response to your post last week.
As he pointed out, only the first 2 items are mentioned in YOUR list - it seems none of the others are noted anywhere.
Given Neoden's forecast of approx just 1 item/task per month, it becomes a serious concern that it may take a very long time to address these issues. Note that this list is also NOT comprehensive but, without reasonable feedback and response times, its value is open to question.
Cathy, can you please provide us with the confidence we're all seeking; that Neoden is serious about delivering a solid, bug-free product and responds in a timely manner to its Users' concerns?
Thanks - Peter
1. Vibration feeders can't be started in a job
If you forget to turn on the vibration motor in the manual screen the job will run and then fail to load tube parts. It should be a job option: "use vibration feeder"
2. Pick test turns pump on and can't turn it off
It should either put the part back in the feeder or throw it away in the trash box properly. The "Pick test" button should be a toggle button instead of a latching type.
3. Impossible to force a ‘single part only’ for machine vision and placement
If there are multiple parts in the chip list that use different nozzles the machine will load each nozzle before imaging / placing. In the case of large parts it might be desirable to only pick up one part and then place it to minimize the chance of it falling off or imaging incorrectly. This is not possible unless the chiplist is organized carefully to prevent multiple nozzles from being used sequentially. There should be a "block" command to insert into the chiplist to place all parts currently on the head and then start over with empty nozzles.
4. Imaging does not work correctly using Large Component vision setting
There is no documentation as to how big a "Large Component" is. (and Neoden didn't tell me either) It takes multiple images and stitches them together somehow, but if there are other nozzles in use (see above) it gets the incorrect centre / rotation for the part.
5. Parts outside placement area are not detected until part-way through a job
If you start a job and a chip must be placed outside the mechanical limits of the machine, this is not flagged until the part is placed. It should be simple to scan the chiplist at start of a job and warn of parts that might be outside the area. This is mostly a job setup problem where the board was not advanced into the machine enough before the PCB position was set.
6. Recommended nozzle sizes from Neoden seem wrong
For QFP and larger ICs the larger nozzles have trouble getting enough suction. Better results were found with the next smaller nozzle size than what is recommended. The small (XN07) nozzles work well for 0805, 0603, SOT23, etc. tiny parts. There is an even smaller nozzle option (XN03) that is not included in the standard package.
7. Feeder ID settings are frustrating
It appears (not confirmed) that there is probably an I2c bus controlling the "feed box" components of the feeders. They must be uniquely assigned... extra feeders purchased come with ID 50 so they can be reassigned... but you can only plug in one at time. It would be better if the hardware port determined the ID, since the "peel box" is addressed this way. Seems like a bad hack that should have been a bit better thought out. Not a huge deal if you plan to leave your system set up in a default configuration.
8. Button “to curr p”
The button "to curr p" (cannot be completely read on the button text) on the file edit screen is used to recalculate all of the part locations and rotation based on the PCB mark settings. When doing this, the rotation of each part is calculated incorrectly, it seems to keep adding additional rotation each time the "to curr p" button is pressed.
Dear all,
Good day!
I'm Cathy, International Service Support Coordinator of NeoDen Tech., I'd like to thank you all for your kind attention and sincere suggestion regarding our NeoDen 4 Pick and Place machine.
We understand all the concerns of the machine users and our Team is continuously on the job, at this point, we would like to inform all our esteemed and prospective customers that , we are hereby putting a data related to our software development stages from the date of release of the first batch of machines from our factory ,Hope from the attached snapshot, one can understand that the way which we are addressing the issues.
We are committed to update each and every machine on the field with the latest update free of cost. We request our existing users of NeoDen 4 machines to be in touch with us for the new release update to get updated on your machine.
-
I have attached a copy of your pic with the blow pump circled. In my pic it was removed as we had to replace it. They ship 220 VAC models on all machines so those running the machine on 120 VAC have a lower blow pressure. The pump is a standard aquarium style diaphragm pump.
Thanks, i missed that one. If it "blow up" on long run then i just have to go to the pet store then ;D.
I can tolerate the rather messy wiring, seems the connections are all ok - just not tidy enough.
To this far without powering it on yet, i can say that i am happy with the machine - it is a pretty well built thing for the price.
Sunday noon in here now , i am thinking to ask a permit from the kids to go to the workshop... ;D
-ichan
-
I am happy to report that we built 5 boards successfully with the Neoden 4 the other day. They still need some PTH assembly so I'm waiting to see how the entire PCBs turn out before running a lot more through. We spent some weeks getting our oven worked out... don't buy the Puhui oven, it's terrible! I found an Essemtec RO06 Plus on eBay for a decent price from a local seller... this felt like overkill but I'm now convinced that it's the minimum necessary for repeatable results especially if you're doing lead-free. We now have a proper vent installed in the roof of our building... not a smell is detected during the entire process now! (as opposed to many days of horrible burning smells lingering after using the Puhui... it's still waiting for some kind of sacrifice... too bad bondfires are not permitted within city limits. :)
The issues we had this time which are not huge but still requires some careful tweaking:
- Mark points are hard to use... I need to try tweaking more because some of my older boards don't have proper fiducials. I'm using vias which work well except that sometimes it appears to find the correct hole and then jumps to an adjacent hole on the last correction move. (it takes about 3 pictures per hole and adjusts the head each time) One time I didn't notice the wrong point got detected and the machine started placing resistors on the rail instead of the board. :P I wish there was a way to see the area that is being considered because the adjacent hole isn't even visible on the screen so I'm not sure how it decides to jump over there all of a sudden since the correct hole was already photographed twice.
- Beware of the height of taller ICs. I think I need to add another entry in the footprint list. I have a ULN2803A which is pretty tall and I think the nozzle presses down too hard and causes the chip to slide sideways sometimes. The spring-loaded nozzles are great and I never felt like it's going to break anything when the settings are wrong.
- Don't shine light inside the machine! I have a powerful LED flashlight that I was using to check the placement since it's dark inside. I accidentally pointed it at the upfacing camera while it was imaging and it put the IC down in the wrong place. :)
- Once a transistor got picked up by its side. There seems to be no way for the machine to detect this.
I've been doing ICs at 20% speed and this is much more gentle and avoids the "train wreck" scenario when it doesn't think it has suction and attempts to get a new part while there is already one on the nozzle. This happened on the tube feeder and was quite hilarious! The only trouble with 20% mode is that the acceleration is so slow that the motors clearly pass through some very resonant mode which makes a disturbing rattling sound... these kinds of undamped vibrations could cause stepper errors, but so far I didn't actually see any problem with that. So I guess everything comes with a trade-off... the resonance is not apparent at higher speeds.
At full speed the machine shakes quite a lot, so much so that I'm sure the 20" LCD sitting on top is going to fall onto the floor one of these days. I think the base is the problem and could use a bit more mass / bracing. Flat sheet metal panels are generally not very stiff and I believe that the base experiences quite a lot of shear and torsion forces as the head moves around up top.
-
About the base, just a old tip used before with high torsion/momentum equipments and wobbling stands: pour concrete inside the base, even only 40-50% up from base will make the difference. 80-100% will make it stiff like a rock.
-
@elmood
Put a foil bag inside the stand and fill up with sand.
The mass will be increased and shaking avoid.
-
..... 80-100% will make it stiff like a rock.
Hi
..... first make sure the stand is *exactly* where you want it to be :)
Second, check the floor loading ratings. A single floor factory on a concrete slab better for this sort of thing than a 10th floor office.
Third ... think about the contact area between the stand and the floor. Having a cubic meter of concrete sitting on four little legs .. errr ... If you ever need to get a fork lift under it, that big flat contact area you just went with, not quite so good.
Yes this is the voice of empirical knowledge speaking. That is 4,000 lb of concrete sitting there. No, it's not going to wiggle around any at all.
Bob
-
Buy an old safe, and mount on the top of it. Cheap as used, and moveable with most safe movers if needed, though you can make the dollies to move it and the big pry bar that you use to get the first one under it in the first place. Gives a heavy block with a steel surface you can mount on, and the inside of the safe is a good place to store things like backup drives and such. Just open the inner cover and remove the small lock so you do not need a key to unlock it.
Won't tell you just how much the movers charge to move, even though we just moved it from one office to another, as a data safe. 300kg is not easy to move unless you have the dollies and bar, but you only need 3 people after that to get it anywhere.
-
All good suggestions but seem to all focus on "make it heavier" instead of "make it more rigid". I'm convinced that some strategically placed bracing can make an improvement without creating a "widow maker" waiting for next time we move.
Will report back. :)
-
More rigid then you will find it walking across the floor on the legs. You either have to bolt it down, or add more mass so it will hold there by friction alone.
-
H.O
Would be great to see some close up images of the head on your machine. Have you designed it yourself?
I know it's not a N4, but the topic right now is better understanding the design of the N4 head - and a simple photo comparison with other designs would certainly assist me, and hopefully others too.
Thnx
I don't want to derail this thread any further so I've posted some details in another thread (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/pick-and-place-software/) (my own) where you can see some photos of the current (to be replaced) "head" and what my plans are for its replacement.
EDIT: Included link to said thread....
-
I got about two hours free time slot today when the kids and their mother go for shopping :D, then i go to the workshop and play with the machine for a while. Video below is the very first powering on of the machine, i try navigating the machine (just by mouse click) and play with "manual test" section. Will need to ask Neoden for the password tomorrow as i can not access the nozzle calibration setting.
This is a boring 9 minutes video, try to follow the mouse click while watching it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdbSdykqqM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdbSdykqqM)
The second video is a manual programming test for one part only, it is include panel edge, panel position and angle, and mark points (use drilled holes instead of fiducials) setting. The first run attemp is failed (at 7:40), seems it can not recognize the panel if it is already in position - second attemp with the panel moved back first is success.
Next test will be the speed test, trying to get the fastest CPH this machine can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gWh0N-4Qo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gWh0N-4Qo)
The workflow is somehow unusual but i got no problem so far, maybe because i already watch all the video and read many about this machine. There are some little issue like resizing the columns but again i just can tolerate it.
I feel the software is light and responsive, the image recognition is fast - good programming behind is my honest thought.
-ichan
-
All good suggestions but seem to all focus on "make it heavier" instead of "make it more rigid". I'm convinced that some strategically placed bracing can make an improvement without creating a "widow maker" waiting for next time we move.
Will report back. :)
Hi
The best approach without a big block of something is to bolt a sturdy work surface to a wall or two. When you move, out come the bolts and the work surface gets moved without a lot of crazy effort.
Bob
-
Hello !
...
I look at that picture PC. And much disappointed for many reasons such as:
1) This is an old version of HW, which isn't supported by the market.
2) Issue of a very old or very old components and reskrs ended. (Hard to find in the garbage, such components are already recycled)
3) A huge doubt prolonged use of such PC.
4) Not supported industry standards for this PC, only as a hobby.
5) What are the problems with the BIOS? no information.
6) OS Windows XP no longer supported.
7) The cameras look at the components and their old driver for XP, also the problem of long-term work.
8) Regular failure, if you look at the installation inside. Can apply the standards, but don't, sorry.
9) S/B bugs in software for video, enough capacity to deal with this. For this reason, many inaccuracies when installing small-sized components 0402, BGA and the like.
I am sure that such a high cost is just business, and beautiful picture.
Why is this not a professional, and not even HAM choice?
Who buys buys big risks in the PC and ...
I wanted to warn seeing photos PC inside.
I Am disappointed :-(
Based on the bios boot screen from Ichan's video, this is the SBC in the machine:
http://iotsolutionsalliance.intel.com/solutions-directory/itx-d525-2chb-mini-itx-embedded-board-intel%C2%AE-atom%E2%84%A2-d525-processor-intel%C2%AE-ich8hb (http://iotsolutionsalliance.intel.com/solutions-directory/itx-d525-2chb-mini-itx-embedded-board-intel%C2%AE-atom%E2%84%A2-d525-processor-intel%C2%AE-ich8hb)
http://www.zeroone.net.cn/?c=products&a=show&id=45 (http://www.zeroone.net.cn/?c=products&a=show&id=45)
The atom D525 was launched in 2010, but is still in use in heaps of current generation products (my Lenovo EMC NAS has one in it). The intel lists that particular board as being added in Jun 2015. It's a perfectly fine & modern board to use in a product like this. A replacement ITX board is much easier to source than some custom SBC.
-
Yes, I agree Metalphreak - [David].
For what it's worth, that Mini ITX looks fine by me.
We use Mini ITX MoBo in a couple of our designs.
There are several models are available, from a number of manufacturers, which are specified as being long-life, with commercial support, for that reason.
-
I'm baffled by the workflow to establish the position of the fiducials. As I see it fiducials let the software map the positions in the part list (which are in PCB coordinates) to the machine coordinates. At my machine the fids are not expected to be in the part list as it seems to be here. Instead, after moving the camera over the fid you simply tell the machine in a dedicated dialog that the fid has (e.g.) coordinates x=5, y=5 of the PCB. Given that the camera position is known, that's all the software needs.
Regards, Axel
-
I'm baffled by the workflow to establish the position of the fiducials. As I see it fiducials let the software map the positions in the part list (which are in PCB coordinates) to the machine coordinates. At my machine the fids are not expected to be in the part list as it seems to be here. Instead, after moving the camera over the fid you simply tell the machine in a dedicated dialog that the fid has (e.g.) coordinates x=5, y=5 of the PCB. Given that the camera position is known, that's all the software needs.
Regards, Axel
Ive never seen fiducials in a part list either. thats odd
-
I'm baffled by the workflow to establish the position of the fiducials. As I see it fiducials let the software map the positions in the part list (which are in PCB coordinates) to the machine coordinates. At my machine the fids are not expected to be in the part list as it seems to be here. Instead, after moving the camera over the fid you simply tell the machine in a dedicated dialog that the fid has (e.g.) coordinates x=5, y=5 of the PCB. Given that the camera position is known, that's all the software needs.
Regards, Axel
Why would you want to have to enter this manually?
Having fids in the P&P location list makes a great deal of sense, and I'm surprised it isn't standard practice - you just create a part with the fid pad, resist clearance and pick/place point, and place it on the board. The offsets will then be baked into the p&p file, avoiding any need for manual entry.
It is stupid that (AIUI) the fids have to be the first items in the list - you should be able to either select fid parts manually, or tell it that parts called "fid" are always fids.
-
I don't have to do it manually; the file that the machine expects has actually two sections:
1. the actual part list in standard CSV format
2. configuration which can contain fids etc.
If I create a part list manually (which I did for testing during the first days), I simply leave out the 2nd section and set the fid coords manually. However, with a real PCB there's an ULP for Eagle that not only exports the part list but also the configuration part with the fids. As I see it that's the best of both worlds. Having the fids at some definite position of the part list or giving them a special name are both hacks.
Regards, Axel
-
Why would you want to have to enter this manually?
Having fids in the P&P location list makes a great deal of sense, and I'm surprised it isn't standard practice - you just create a part with the fid pad, resist clearance and pick/place point, and place it on the board. The offsets will then be baked into the p&p file, avoiding any need for manual entry.
It is stupid that (AIUI) the fids have to be the first items in the list - you should be able to either select fid parts manually, or tell it that parts called "fid" are always fids.
Another good option is to place a fiducial at the origin.
-
Why would you want to have to enter this manually?
Having fids in the P&P location list makes a great deal of sense, and I'm surprised it isn't standard practice - you just create a part with the fid pad, resist clearance and pick/place point, and place it on the board. The offsets will then be baked into the p&p file, avoiding any need for manual entry.
It is stupid that (AIUI) the fids have to be the first items in the list - you should be able to either select fid parts manually, or tell it that parts called "fid" are always fids.
Another good option is to place a fiducial at the origin.
I always ( just because i had no other better way to do it ), make the bottom left corner of the panel the origin. I normally have fidudicals on the pcb frame, ( a bit that is thrown away ), I always have three fididucals ( bttom left and right, and top right ). the reason for having no top left is so that you dont' orientate the board the wrong way accidently.
Theres no definative right way, but there are probably some thigns that make it harder!
also, take some time to make decent fiducials that are easy for the camera to read reliably.. I use a 1mm dot of copper, with a gap and then a 5mm circle around it. And make sure there is NO solder mask on it.
Hows those videos going Micheal?
-
Below a small test placing 16x 1206 smd resistor from 4 feeders using 4 nozzles, with and without vision - speed is 100% both for run speed and feeder speed.
(Sorry the background music is beyond my control :( )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cImlV-qP-M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cImlV-qP-M)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFN9s8MDXY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFN9s8MDXY)
14 seconds without vision and 18 second with vision, turned out as 4100 and 3200 CPH. Non vision speed is below my expectation but seems i still can try to speed it up above 100% speed setting, surprised by the speed with vision.
The placement result is almost the same, below is the result with vision - the pcb use transparent adhesive sheet provided by Neoden.
(http://s20.postimg.org/g1ab8trfx/N4_Result.jpg)
Funny i still do not fully understand how is the coordinates system works, seems it is different between manual programming and import from file.
-ichan
-
I found that the best way to do the fiducials is by creating a Neoden CSV file right away. I have a program that does this and puts these positions in the file right away. Their file format is pretty simple and a bit of testing can reveal pretty much what all the values mean.
Also, beware of using only 3 fiducials. I found that it made the positioning fairly inaccurate. It seems that the machine transforms all the coordinates to fit between the found points. Using four seemed to be the only way to get actually very good accuracy. And they should be spaced fairly far apart across the board.
Neoden responded directly to my question and I had to go back and read several replies to be clear. But it seems that whatever the size of the mark point there should be no other holes within a distance of 3x the mark diameter from that hole. There is a detection size range setting (min and max) which apparently doesn't affect the distance between holes... or that's how it sounded when I asked about it.
-
I found that the best way to do the fiducials is by creating a Neoden CSV file right away. I have a program that does this and puts these positions in the file right away. Their file format is pretty simple and a bit of testing can reveal pretty much what all the values mean.
Also, beware of using only 3 fiducials. I found that it made the positioning fairly inaccurate. It seems that the machine transforms all the coordinates to fit between the found points. Using four seemed to be the only way to get actually very good accuracy. And they should be spaced fairly far apart across the board.
Neoden responded directly to my question and I had to go back and read several replies to be clear. But it seems that whatever the size of the mark point there should be no other holes within a distance of 3x the mark diameter from that hole. There is a detection size range setting (min and max) which apparently doesn't affect the distance between holes... or that's how it sounded when I asked about it.
There really ought to be a way to manually select a mask region to avoid mis-recongnising
-
I asked about that, but the typical response to pretty much all my bug reports or feature requests is..........
-
@Ichan Looking good so far :)
This should be a interesting week for all of us as you get the machine up and running at full speed :-+
Keep up the great work with the video reviews.
-
Below a small test placing 16x 1206 smd resistor from 4 feeders using 4 nozzles, with and without vision - speed is 100% both for run speed and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFN9s8MDXY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFN9s8MDXY)
14 seconds without vision and 18 second with vision, turned out as 4100 and 3200 CPH. Non vision speed is below my expectation but seems i still can try to speed it up above 100% speed setting, surprised by the speed with vision.
Out of curiosity, the board came in from the left and then got spat out to the left when it was finished. Is this a configuration thing.. I woudl have thought for most applicaitons that having it feed out to the right, would be good.. ( i'd park my oven next to it on the right ) and have my stenciling on the left, in some kind of line..
-
Another great update - thanks Ichan.
Although I'd like to achieve a super quick turn around, accuracy is my greatest interest with the N4.
If I have to redo a bunch of boards which I produced really quickly, I'll instantly be behind the eight ball.
I know you don't intend running much fine pitch stuff, but if there was any way you could run a fine pitch 0.4mm - 0.5mm test in your 'standard' review quality, you'd have me forever.
Happy to pay you for whatever out of pocket expenses might be involved and your time.
-
Another great update - thanks Ichan.
Although I'd like to achieve a super quick turn around, accuracy is my greatest interest with the N4.
If I have to redo a bunch of boards which I produced really quickly, I'll instantly be behind the eight ball.
I know you don't intend running much fine pitch stuff, but if there was any way you could run a fine pitch 0.4mm - 0.5mm test in your 'standard' review quality, you'd have me forever.
Happy to pay you for whatever out of pocket expenses might be involved and your time.
Hi
+1
For some of us, the 0603 is a "giant" part and 0.5mm pitch is about as big as the main IC's ever get.
Bob
-
Yes same here @ichan , I am willing to send you some IC chips with .5mm pitch pins. One is a BGA with .5mm pitch balls that I would love to know if the machine can place properly.
I know your busy but when the time comes I'll send the parts over if your up for it.
-
For some of us, the 0603 is a "giant" part and 0.5mm pitch is about as big as the main IC's ever get.
Bob
I have settled into an 0402 - .4mm average to have a chance at the necessary density. I would be bummed if I couldn't make 0201 and <.4mm work in the future. Do you think that is beyond the N4?
-
I highly doubt you'll successfully run the machine in production at 100% speed. The parts always look much better when using double sided tape then they will with paste. I'd aim for a top speed of 80%, unless Neoden adds independent control over the Z speed.
btw, we bolted our machine to the wall with a solid shelf bracket.
I wouldn't expect the machine to be super successful with anything below 0.65mm pitch but you never know.
-
I wouldn't expect the machine to be super successful with anything below 0.65mm pitch but you never know.
Ouch.
-
I wouldn't expect the machine to be super successful with anything below 0.65mm pitch but you never know.
Ouch.
Maybe it will be ok, the smallest we have placed is 0.65mm. The placement accuracy seems pretty good overall but the parts tend to move when actually placed by the Z axis depending on amount of compression on the nozzle etc. We also saw the problem at times with our Juki, but it had an option to slow the Z axis independent of the X/Y.
Other then bug fixes I think the best feature Neoden could add would be control over the Z axis speed.
Also remember it is using stepper motors, not some nice linear encoders, so I don't ever see it matching a high end machine.
-
For some of us, the 0603 is a "giant" part and 0.5mm pitch is about as big as the main IC's ever get.
Bob
I have settled into an 0402 - .4mm average to have a chance at the necessary density. I would be bummed if I couldn't make 0201 and <.4mm work in the future. Do you think that is beyond the N4?
Hi
I'm perfectly happy to accept a speed reduction to get one of these machines to do the job. If it runs at 1/2 the speed that others are after, but places 100%, that is an acceptable tradeoff. Letting the 0402's align with surface tension .. that's fine. Getting the IC's down right the first time, that pretty much has to happen. They don't do much self alignment.
Indeed this is a major hijack away from the main thread. My needs are "weird" compared to what most people are after. Since I've only gone into part of it, they are even more strange. My target is prototype / low volume / engineering run stuff. That's why speed is not quite the issue for me. The setup time and all that will be the biggest part of any job. Running ten boards in ten minutes plus an hour setup is not that much better than ten boards in twenty minutes plus an hour setup. If the extra ten minutes is the difference between 100% accuracy and an hour of rework, that is a fine thing. Yes, my world is different.
Bob
-
I had this exact discussion with Hiami from NeoDen this morning.
She pointed me to a board that they run for themselves - eg, part of one of their machines.
Looks good to me. I think it's worth the risk. If I thought I could repeatedly get this accuracy, I'd be in heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0AqR2cgTrI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0AqR2cgTrI)
-
If the N4 had more feeders i'd be in like flin. having less than 80 feeders is just problematic for me. Just like the person up above, my requirement is not for runnign a small factory, its for supproting a team of design engineers who are constantly building stuff, ( 3 or 4 of something ) . And if we coudl build 10 or 20 of somethign it would transform how we could do a few other thigns. I wonder how well two of these would behave end on end.
-
Here is a new Neoden 4 video of it placing LED's on a 1.2m panel.
The machine is shaking like crazy :wtf: I wonder if its on the Neoden 4 Stand they sell?
https://youtu.be/vwKmE7UrbKY
-
Out of curiosity, the board came in from the left and then got spat out to the left when it was finished. Is this a configuration thing.. I woudl have thought for most applicaitons that having it feed out to the right, would be good.. ( i'd park my oven next to it on the right ) and have my stenciling on the left, in some kind of line..
There is an option to eject the board to the front (left) or back (right).
...
The placement accuracy seems pretty good overall but the parts tend to move when actually placed by the Z axis depending on amount of compression on the nozzle etc.
My experience with the older machine to prevent parts moved away when placed is not to let the nozzle compressed at all by setting the "placement height" carefully, parts should fixed to the pcb only by the solder paste surface tension.
If the N4 had more feeders i'd be in like flin. having less than 80 feeders is just problematic for me.
Two N4 in series will fulfill your requirement :D, other option with 80+ feeders won't be below $100K i think.
Will try panelized board today and add the two fine pitch ic, after that will start loading the machine with all the components for production - hope can start a full run tomorrow.
-ichan
-
Mr Packethead,
Our situation and requirement is sounding remarkably similar to yours - shame we're not both in the same city.
Our typical build has something in the range of 60-90 component types, and although we aren't constantly creating new designs, our project is suited to JIT build and delivery.
I was holding out for something 'better' from NeoDen, but I think any hope of that is further into the future than I can afford to wait. Our solution will therefore be to buy 1 machine now, and satisfy ourselves of it's capabilities, then add another joined by conveyor. This will allow us to keep the machine loaded with sufficient components [when you include an array of IC Trays [customised for each board] constantly loaded in the machine/s.
I assume you were intending running your machine in NZ, not Melb?
BTW - there is an early video on YouTube of a small fab using 2 N4s interfaced by a conveyor.
-
Our typical build has something in the range of 60-90 component types, and although we aren't constantly creating new designs, our project is suited to JIT build and delivery.
Our parts between boards are ofte[qun the same with only a few differences. When I looked at things, I may well be able to keep 50+ reels of parts on a machine and very rarely need to change them.
I was holding out for something 'better' from NeoDen, but I think any hope of that is further into the future than I can afford to wait. Our solution will therefore be to buy 1 machine now, and satisfy ourselves of it's capabilities, then add another joined by conveyor. This will allow us to keep the machine loaded with sufficient components [when you include an array of IC Trays [customised for each board] constantly loaded in the machine/s.
For a similar amount of cash, and speed, the SmallSMT machines ( the servo motor version ) with 90 feeders does look good. What concerns me with SmallSMT is that its a one man operation out of Germany, with Chinese machines.. I Saw there software and it looks better than the Neoden. Oh what to do.
I assume you were intending running your machine in NZ, not Melb?
id move to Melbourne, the wife is not so keen.
-
Here is a new Neoden 4 video of it placing LED's on a 1.2m panel.
The machine is shaking like crazy :wtf: I wonder if its on the Neoden 4 Stand they sell?
They have a crappy laminate floor, no stand will save the day, unless it's a 150kg piece of concrete.
-
I wonder how easy it would be to modify the N4 so it has an easily exchangeable feeder bank, to allow for a bigger range of parts in one design.
-
Definitely possible I believe.
I suggested this to them a couple of months ago.
While we're at it we may as well place the tape feeder and tape cover puller on a single sheet of s/steel.
Would love to be able to retro fit a cheap Main Stream feeder to this.
-
Unsatisfactory result today, the placement shifted to the left (Y- direction on the machine), and the bad board detection feature seems not working.
(http://s20.postimg.org/81o1e5zql/Shifted.jpg)
On the video below, i meant the tray to be started at row 4 (the tray is too near to the front) but the machine looking at row 3. I cut the rest of the video as it is a boring repeated attemps of rearranging the chip on the tray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns6_BbLzvU4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns6_BbLzvU4)
Will try again tomorrow, will add a dummy part as "first chip" for a more accurate reference and will do calibrating the nozzles first.
-ichan
-
Ichan: Check your mark point settings very carefully... I spent a long time trying to figure out why parts were placing slightly off and it all had to do with this. Try the Vision Align feature in the placement screen to see where the parts will go. Use Step to get the board loaded and the mark points detected and then turn on Vision Align and you can move back and forth in the chiplist and see where the machine THINKS it will put the part. This is the best way to check the alignment before actually wasting parts.
-
Thanks Elmood, i will try it tomorrow.
How to set the mark points in import file mode? The align function is disabled, i fill the coordinates from the CAD manually on it.
-ichan
-
Here is a new Neoden 4 video of it placing LED's on a 1.2m panel.
With really poor choice of feeder position!
-
Icahn,
I really think that 'any' attempt to get a production quality result without fiducial markings, will always deliver a hit and miss outcome. They are designed specifically to provide the machine with a reliable coordinate system to match a board with the machine.
I commented on this point in an earlier post.
We've seen plenty of videos where the machine successfully repeats its placement accurately on panelized boards (with fids). The fact that the first board is mostly correct is a promising start.
Do you have any boards or panels with fids?
-
I've been meaning to ask this question for some time.
Is the software version information available in the interface?
If so, what versions are you two guys running? Is it the same?
This may explain why Ichan sees different options to Elmood.
Thanks Elmood, i will try it tomorrow.
How to set the mark points in import file mode? The align function is disabled, i fill the coordinates from the CAD manually on it.
-ichan
-
Question for anyone with the rail option - will it cope with nonstandard thicknesses?
Presumably you can disable the rail feed and use a static fixture?
-
Ichan,
I remember Elmood reported a similar issue on 2 Mar in reply# 429, about the head going to wrong position on IC Tray. Didn't quite make it clear if that was User or Machine error in the end.
Elmood - perhaps you can comment?
-
Question for anyone with the rail option - will it cope with nonstandard thicknesses?
Presumably you can disable the rail feed and use a static fixture?
It looks to have springs that push up on the conveyor belt and apply pressure to the PCB board so from what I have seen it should work with just about any size PCB thickness.
You can see this in some of Ichan's latest videos where they are tightening up the steppers that run the rail system.
-
I believe I have 4.0.2.6 version of the software. I noticed in one of the recent Neoden videos that they have a shiny logo on the main screen which I don't have. I'm hoping that means that a new one is coming soon.
Not sure how I would get it though... I'm hoping that they will contact each customer since I doubt it will be available for download.
-
Which raises the question:
Do NeoDen provide lifetime free software upgrades, as the features roll out?
I assume they supply lifetime updates for fixes and other mods - pls confirm if you're aware, both of these circumstances.
I believe I have 4.0.2.6 version of the software. I noticed in one of the recent Neoden videos that they have a shiny logo on the main screen which I don't have. I'm hoping that means that a new one is coming soon.
Not sure how I would get it though... I'm hoping that they will contact each customer since I doubt it will be available for download.
-
Which raises the question:
Do NeoDen provide lifetime free software upgrades, as the features roll out?
I assume they supply lifetime updates for fixes and other mods - pls confirm if you're aware, both of these circumstances.
Another rather important question is: How long is "lifetime" for a product like this? How long before they stop manufacturing a particular product and at the same time stop issuing updates and fixes for it?
The professional big-irons have support contracts lasting for a very long time like the machine rx8pilot got. But how long will companies keep on fixing the firm- & softwares and keep spares for $10K machines - or even worse $3K ones? Maybe for the latter price range it's not really important since it's basically pocket change for a company....
-
My machine shows version 4.0.2 B7 - i wonder which one is newer.
The Vision Align as Thommo said is never enabled, i am waiting for the answer from Tony now.
-ichan
-
I'm guessing your version is 'beta7', which would normally be later than 'version 6' Ichan.
Do you have any boards with fiducials on them Ichan?
I'm absolutely positive you'll solve the align/drift issue once you run a batch of boards with a border on the panel. You can place the fids on those borders.
I know you feel limited in PCB height, but you can limit the borders to left and right only if need be.
-
@matseng: At least for my machine not really an issue. You can buy an almost identical head, feeders and stuff on sites like robotdigg. The only real issue is the software. If they stop working on it I'll either have to live with it or make my own.
Regards, Axel
-
Hi Ichan,
When I commented this morning I [mis]understood, and thought you meant the components gradually shifted/drifted to the left as they got further away from your 0.0 reference.
Looking at your pic now on a large screen, I see that ALL of the components appear to be displaced by the SAME amount over to the left of where you expected them to be.
How did you load the PnP reference data into the N4?
Was is a manual input, or were the co-ordinates imported from a PnP file?
Seems simple to conclude that what you considered to be 0.0, is in fact not.
This could also be the result of using a 'reference' footprint to set up the panel on the machine where the 'anchor point' is not in the middle of the component, and yet the machine assumes it IS in the middle. Sounds like something fairly simple whatever it is.
Unsatisfactory result today, the placement shifted to the left (Y- direction on the machine), and the bad board detection feature seems not working.
(http://s20.postimg.org/81o1e5zql/Shifted.jpg)
Will try again tomorrow, will add a dummy part as "first chip" for a more accurate reference and will do calibrating the nozzles first.
-ichan
-
The shifted amount is not the same, the least shifted is the left top board while the worst is the right bottom board.
Tried using some different reference (first chip and mark points) still got some shifted placement, verified using step - vision method (works now, it need all the mark points recognized first)
Now i wonder if the pcb is not accurate in dimension, or the step / mm setting of the machine is not true.
I do not want to try with another pcb for now, this one is what i have to do asap.
-ichan
-
Elmood, how is the Button “to curr p” works?
I always got error pressing this button.
-ichan.
-
The shifted amount is not the same, the least shifted is the left top board while the worst is the right bottom board.
Tried using some different reference (first chip and mark points) still got some shifted placement, verified using step - vision method (works now, it need all the mark points recognized first)
Now i wonder if the pcb is not accurate in dimension, or the step / mm setting of the machine is not true.
I do not want to try with another pcb for now, this one is what i have to do asap.
-ichan
Do you suppose it's possible that at some point it is skipping a few steps. Maybe the decel/accel is too aggressive. Does it have rotary encoders on the X/Y steppers?
-
Ichan,
Elmood had this to say in his 'reply item #639' in this forum.
I had a look for it elsewhere, because I thought it had been mentioned before this, but couldn't locate it.
Button “to curr p”
The button "to curr p" (cannot be completely read on the button text) on the file edit screen is used to recalculate all of the part locations and rotation based on the PCB mark settings. When doing this, the rotation of each part is calculated incorrectly, it seems to keep adding additional rotation each time the "to curr p" button is pressed.
Elmood, how is the Button “to curr p” works?
I always got error pressing this button.
-ichan.
-
Thommo yes i read that, the term "based on the pcb mark setting" is not clear to me and i always got error message clicking it.
Do you suppose it's possible that at some point it is skipping a few steps. Maybe the decel/accel is too aggressive. Does it have rotary encoders on the X/Y steppers?
I think it is not loosing steps, because loosing steps usually have some strange sounds when it happen.
I quickly check the step/mm of the machine by printing a square of 200x200 mm on a paper then verify the dimension of that printed paper on the machine. The error i got is not more than 0.2mm for 200mm length - seems the setting is true.
The pcb should be in the right dimension too because it is ok on my other machine.
Headache i had now... :(
-ichan
-
@Ichan Did Neoden send you the practice PCB + PNP file so you can populate that demo board?
I'm wondering if they had the PNP file available if you could load it and see if the machine places it perfectly or if its off on that also?
If it does run it perfectly then look at the PNP file and see if there is anything you can learn from it.
Just talking out loud here.
-
Which raises the question:
Do NeoDen provide lifetime free software upgrades, as the features roll out?
I assume they supply lifetime updates for fixes and other mods - pls confirm if you're aware, both of these circumstances.
Another rather important question is: How long is "lifetime" for a product like this? How long before they stop manufacturing a particular product and at the same time stop issuing updates and fixes for it?
Probably until the next machine comes out, or their software guy leaves.
-
Probably until the next machine comes out, or their software guy leaves.
What software guy >:D
-
@Ichan Did Neoden send you the practice PCB + PNP file so you can populate that demo board?
Yes they provide the sample pcb and working files, but then i have to prepare the components for that board which i may not have it all handy. Besides, i have to solve the problem with this board.
I will step back a little trying a single board tomorrow, seems this software had problem with angled position. Any non zero angle will need matrix transformation calculation, it may suffer an accumulated rounding error - just a thought.
-ichan
-
Ichan can you send me your csv file. I will be might able to spot what's wrong with it. I've gone through the same type of problems you are having... but I have now mastered the software with single or panelized boards.
Are you using a conveyor?
-
I think it was mentioned before but TankSparks is the owner of the machine I have used, he has a very good understanding of the software. I think we've seen pretty much every bug there is other then perhaps conveyor related stuff as we don't have that option. If you recall we also had the parts drifting off location as it placed them. There are subtle operation selections/order of operation selections that can cause the problem.
-
What would it take to get @TankSparks to make a video or write up for how to properly setup the NeoDen 4 software so you get reliable placement?
Seems like that would help others out greatly when it comes to getting started.
-
The community support for the N4 is very impressive. It's a shame that NeoDen are not following this more closely and stepping in.
I have been speaking with them a bit lately and they keep reiterating that their Chinese users aren't reporting these sorts of issues. So, this points to language, and probably better direct phone access.
There seems to also be a few from outside China that also have managed to 'crack the code' (not literally), and got their machines working reliably now.
Whatever happens, on behalf of all users - current and potential, please publish a step-by-step procedure for this fix when it occurs guys (hopefully today).
Good luck Ichan, TankSparks and TheSteve
and THANKS from everyone!
I think it was mentioned before but TankSparks is the owner of the machine I have used, he has a very good understanding of the software. I think we've seen pretty much every bug there is other then perhaps conveyor related stuff as we don't have that option. If you recall we also had the parts drifting off location as it placed them. There are subtle operation selections/order of operation selections that can cause the problem.
-
IC Tray
Guys, I spoke with Hiami from NeoDen yesterday to clarify a point about configuration of their IC Tray.
In particular, I wanted to know how many different sized components the machine could handle when using the trays - or more specifically, how many different tray cubicle sizes it could handle.
Not surprisingly, she confirmed that all cubicles in a single row were required to be the same size - that's a given.
What I did learn is that the machine can handle up to 10 different rows. Each can be a different length, and located in any position that the head can reasonably get to.
My intention is to use this feature and customise trays for specific board builds. As usual, there are many items that only have 1 instance in many BOMs. So this will instantly increase the machine capacity to a further 10 components. Eg 48 X 8mm feeders + 10 tray options = 58 different components.
-
I was hoping it could handle more than 10 rows so you could get way more parts in these custom trays if you needed.
I wonder if what the custom tray limit is on the TVM802A machine that @Axel has? I think he say you can do as many custom trays as you have space for.
Seems like it's just a Neoden 4 software limitation cause I see no reason it couldn't do more than 10 different rows.
-
I think the 10 row limit is a consideration built around their 'rail/conveyor' version of the machine - which is the feature that makes it attractive to us.
I imagine you'd be hard pushed to get many more than 10 rows of larger components/ICs in between the rail and feeders, but I agree that you could potentially get say 2x 10 [half length] rows in this space - if the SW allowed it, even it the max component count was say 15 pcs, we'd be happy to reload the trays every 16th board.
BTW - Ichan's reply #682 contains a video of a set up featuring a 10x row Waffle Tray
I was hoping it could handle more than 10 rows so you could get way more parts in these custom trays if you needed.
I wonder if what the custom tray limit is on the TVM802A machine that @Axel has? I think he say you can do as many custom trays as you have space for.
Seems like it's just a Neoden 4 software limitation cause I see no reason it couldn't do more than 10 different rows.
-
@rwb: I can define up to 10 trays, single or multi row, 1x10, 2x5, 3x4, no problem as long as I stay within the limits of the work plane and the rods of the PCB holder.
If it's practical is another question. Single row trays might be less prone to user error when you load them up manually. If you have multiple trays you will definitely want to label them clearly or even better have them in different colors (no problem with 3D printing...)
Regards, Axel
-
TankSpark, i attached the working file in here so the other can check it too, and here the reference points i use for that working file. Thanks in advanced.
(http://s20.postimg.org/dxpi9pc19/Board_Ref.jpg)
Close up photo of the right bottom board where the worst shift happen.
(http://s20.postimg.org/uk72is4z1/Most_Shifted.jpg)
I re-read the thread back and found your post in here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/neoden-4-pick-and-place/msg857078/#msg857078 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/neoden-4-pick-and-place/msg857078/#msg857078)
You said that the X value for left top and left bottom need to be the same, whew... that is what i thought, it can not handle angled position!
-ichan
-
About the tray, 10 is the software limitation.
The software has 58 slot for feeders, 48 of it had been assigned to reel feeder, 10 more for extra feeder including trays.
Anyway, i found the machine always get the wrong edge of my board as picture below:
(http://s20.postimg.org/y6cvvfbcd/Board_Edge.jpg)
My board have a copper pour edge about 0.5mm before the board edge, the machine detect the copper pour edge not the board edge.
-ichan
-
@Ichan
Neoden doesn't ask you for the size of the boards in the panel but it does want to know the location of first component in your file. With that info it will make the necessary calculations. I create a dummy component with x,y value of 0,0 and skip=yes so it won't try to place it. I put this component first in the list. It will make the following steps easier.
For the 1st chip, bottom left use the align button to enter value, so if I'm using my dummy component it will be the bottom left corner of the bottom left board.
Here's the twist....
For the 1st chip, top left board and 1st chip top right board mathematically enter values as if your board was perfectly square. Type those x,y values in do not use the align button. Its a bit of pain and requires a calculator, but I found no other way. The neoden video examples do not use fiducials, or have an example with manual data(absolute values) . I see you also use the bottom left corner as your 0,0 reference as I do.
Don't worry if board is not perfectly squared in machine, its impossible. I verified that this method will work even if your board is at a angle
Click Create panel list button, don't forget this, if you change any values you must click this button afterwards
type in the values of your mark points bottom left, then top right. Two marks points for the whole panel, these values will be relative to the 0,0 reference which in your case is the bottom left corner of your board.
I also noticed you have vacuum test set to no for each part, which would be a good idea to have it checked or you may end up with missing parts on your board.
Mount file
Click Step It will step through the two mark points you entered, then machine will stop
Now align button will no longer be grayed out. You can now use align button for each part to verify where it will place parts. You can also select different boards in your panel
Tips
Make sure your x,y data is the center of the part, I got caught on that one.
Do not use 3 mark points unless I made an error 3 mark points caused parts to be way off. Use 2 mark points bottom left and top right. I have not tested with 4 mark points.
You can do a dry run if you change test no to test yes, it will run the job but doesn't turn on suction. Unable to put it in that mode with their gui software, so you will need to edit file manually, haven't really had any need to use it but its good to know.
-
2pcs Mark point (FED) they must be made on IPC standards and not as a hole like you. This error is possible in the accuracy of the installation.
-
Hi Ichan
I don't think the fact that the N4 sees the wrong 'edge' of your board will have anything to do with what problem you are describing.
TankSparks can you pls confirm this?
Board edge detection should only be an aid to tell the rail/conveyor system when to stop advancing the board into the machine. From there the N4 should begin its 'search' for the pre-determined marks (fiducial).
So 0.5, or even 1.0mm ought not be an issue if valid mark points are used.
Once the fiducials are identified, the machine to board/panel relationship, including rotation, should be known and automatically calculated.
It will then use the 0.0 (or first component) reference to identify the relative positions of all the footprints on the first board.
The reason for identifying the same 0.0 or first component on the top left and top right boards should be to determine the offsets between one board and the next/others.
What TankSparks said about only requiring 2 marks or fiducials does confuse me a little however. Without 3 marks to form a right angle, I'm not sure how it determines the panel rotation unless you are equiped to actually enter the coordinates of each of the 2 marks.
I recall something in a video, which requires identifying a vertical line, but think this is for single boards only, without fiducials.
TankSparks, thanks for the detailed explanation.
Can you please confirm my understanding from your practical experience?
Will be interesting to see how it work out now.
I still think you'll continue to have inconsistencies without proper markings however, but I hope for your sake that not the case Ichan.
Anyway, i found the machine always get the wrong edge of my board as picture below:
(http://s20.postimg.org/y6cvvfbcd/Board_Edge.jpg)
My board have a copper pour edge about 0.5mm before the board edge, the machine detect the copper pour edge not the board edge.
-ichan
-
I'm with Jefferson and thommo here. The problem might very well originate from using holes/vias as fiducials (or "marks"). If the software expects the fid to be 1mm in diameter (a common size) a larger or smaller hole might throw it off. Likewise, if the software looks for disks rather than circles what's under the hole/via might confuse it. One way to test this would be to close the holes with some tape on the bottom of the pcb.
Regards, Axel
-
Holes are not good fiducials. On top of that, there should be more than 2 for a panel that size. Chips land on pads. The pads are made by the same process and the same time as a FID. Drills, are a separate process where the alignment may not be great AND drills wander unpredictably for every hole.
I got inconsistent results using holes for fids. It has been perfect since I started putting real fids on every board. Granted, I don't have an N4 - but it's worth noting. I also had some trouble with HASL boards if the pads are domed. The irregular doming, would make the pad appear distorted to the top camera and the fiducial would be shifted. The flat pads on an ENIG board are more consistent.
-
I do really understand how a standard fiducial will be much more preferable, but the fact is this board has none of them - i have to find the solution for this board, even the machine now already fully loaded with all the components for this board.
Has no time with the machine today, plan for tomorrow:
- check and if required realign the rails
- verify the board size on the machine coordinate
- try single board
- try TankSpark recommendation
- slow down the speed
- try manual mark point recognition
The last one is Neoden recommendation i got by email.
-ichan
-
- try manual mark point recognition
I did that on about 50 PCB's that did not have fids. Got me through the batch with perfect placement, and I learned my lesson.
-
If you don't have fiducials it is not a big problem for a small batch. You can use any pad. For example take one of the any 0603 resistors pad. You have exact coordinates for them from your CAD. Then do manual alignment. If you are lucky the s/w can use square mark to do automatic alignment.
-
Ichan - from what I understand 'rail alignment' can have no effect on your outcome.
It doesn't matter if they are parallel to the travel axis or not. The N4 will determine the position and angle in the software.
You only need to be able to identify the 'mark' or fiducial accurately, and then input the number of rows and columns in the panel, and then the 2 offsets which represent the 'step and repeat' dimensions of your boards in the panel, relative to the 'first component'.
eg - if your boards are 50 x 100, and you have no panel borders in between each board [they butt up to each other on both the x & y axis, then the 'step and repeat' offsets are 50mm and 100mm respectively.
I do really understand how a standard fiducial will be much more preferable, but the fact is this board has none of them - i have to find the solution for this board, even the machine now already fully loaded with all the components for this board.
Has no time with the machine today, plan for tomorrow:
- check and if required realign the rails
- verify the board size on the machine coordinate
- try single board
- try TankSpark recommendation
- slow down the speed
- try manual mark point recognition
The last one is Neoden recommendation i got by email.
-ichan
-
ichan: The edge of board detection shouldn't matter too much. It's really mostly used to know roughly where to find the mark points.
As for alignment problems, I fought with this for ages before finally trying some more controlled tests to see what was going on. I was convinced that there was a bug or some problem with my data.
It turns out that using only 2 mark points is not enough. I moved to 4 spaced evenly as far to the corners of the board as possible and this made it work better. But two of my points were mounting holes of about 3mm diameter. Although they LOOK centred in the image during detection the machine doesn't actually show where it's zeroing in on. It turned out that probably lighting, etc. was making these points not really reliable. I'm now using small vias and this works MUCH better. But be careful to choose holes that don't have other ones very near them... one of our holes often detects the adjacent one and this causes all kinds of problems. (like putting parts on the rails)
Neoden said basically not to have any other holes within 3x the diameter of the mark point. I'm not convinced that this is correct and think it might need to be even further. But if you use the standard 1mm pad in a 3mm square cutout from your solder mask with some space around it I'm hoping that this will be acceptable most of the time. We found that by temporarily covering the adjacent hole with something helped detection... we just removed it before running the actual job.
-
This is a fiducial layout i use on the rails of any panels i make. ( See attached )
It is a 1mm dot of copper, and then a 6mm diameter copper track around it. THe purple area is solder mask, ( inverted ), so there is never any solder mask anywhere near it.
This works very well across a range of machines.
-
@Elmwood So how is the machine running for you now that you have figured out how to use it? How many boards have you made with it so far?
And I will share this for the guys interested in manual stencil paste machines: https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/ (https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/)
-
I think i found where is the problem ;).
First as planned i check the alignment of the fixed rail, X changes along 336mm Y travel is only 0.07mm - that is almost perfectly aligned!
Then I verify the board coordinates on the machine, below is the points measured.
(http://s20.postimg.org/ejxb85hkd/Ref.jpg)
And here is the result.
(http://s20.postimg.org/4xz5e410t/Ref_Check.jpg)
See the difference in red, it is about a confirmation of the worst shifted amount of the right bottom board like on the close up photo before.
While doing this test i found that the automatic fiducial (mark point) recognition on the 1 mm drilled pad is almost exactly the same with the best my eyes can do.
Next i will try to re-align all the components manually (yes for all 88 parts), and try to use panelized mark points.
-ichan
-
Just remember that on my LS60V the fiducial defined for each board (= panelized).
-ichan
-
Did you create the panel yourself or was it done by the board fab house? If they created the panel, they might've added a small gap between each copy of the board, to allow for the V-score groove?
-
Just a p&p noob question, if the fiducial is multi axis symetrical like the two rings example then the machine can not determine the board orientation (say 10x5cm pcb is placed as a 5x10cm pcb)
With an asymetric fiducial the machine can automatically correct the orientation or is this when multiple fiducials are used to make this decision, or what is the logic behind this?
-
Just a p&p noob question, if the fiducial is multi axis symetrical like the two rings example then the machine can not determine the board orientation (say 10x5cm pcb is placed as a 5x10cm pcb)
With an asymetric fiducial the machine can automatically correct the orientation or is this when multiple fiducials are used to make this decision, or what is the logic behind this?
Machine can't determine orientation of the board by two fiducials. It is told a general area to look for those and only use them for precise positioning. It does not scan entire area looking for them.
Doing automatic board orientation also serves no purpose, imho.
-
One reason for using 3 fids is so it can detect a wrongly oriented board
-
Pcb orientation isn't important. Two fiducials enough to ensure high accuracy. It's provided to Samsung, DEK, Topaz, ... and other industrial professionals placer without problems. Provide enough precision to supply board assembly line and the movement of the nozzle unit.
-
Pcb orientation isn't important.
Tell that to anyone who has accidentally loadad a PCB upside down.
The panel spec from every subcontractor I've dealt with shows 3 fids, and explicit instructions to NOT put a fid in the 4th location, as an orientation check.
-
Violation enough. Few observes IPC standards among fans. If you are familiar with the IPC standards, 2 pcs fed asymmetrically placed necessarily, the feed and the head are oriented correctly.
-
@Ichan
did you try my method?
I looked at your file, its not going to work
Look at the sample file from neoden attached
Notice where I circled.... how 272.0 = 272.0 if these values are not equal it will not work.
use align on bottom left only
then enter the values manually for x,y where I crossed off the align button by adding board height and board width
Your board does not have to be perfectly aligned.
-
Pcb orientation isn't important.
Tell that to anyone who has accidentally loadad a PCB upside down.
The panel spec from every subcontractor I've dealt with shows 3 fids, and explicit instructions to NOT put a fid in the 4th location, as an orientation check.
This is wide spread industry practice to do this..
-
@Elmwood So how is the machine running for you now that you have figured out how to use it? How many boards have you made with it so far?
And I will share this for the guys interested in manual stencil paste machines: https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/ (https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/)
Thats a fun kind of way to make a stencil printer, with easily avaialble bits.. Its nearly awesome, but there are a few little issues;
- it might be tricky to do double sided boards, as the pcb is sitting on a flat platfrom. its needs some standoffs
- The way of adjusting the pcb with those "paddles" while possible would be unbeilably fustrating and slow.. Particually when you are getting to fine pitch... A little bit more work required.
-
@Elmwood So how is the machine running for you now that you have figured out how to use it? How many boards have you made with it so far?
And I will share this for the guys interested in manual stencil paste machines: https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/ (https://www.tindie.com/products/CYBRES/cybres-sp2421-stencil-printer/)
Thats a fun kind of way to make a stencil printer, with easily avaialble bits.. Its nearly awesome, but there are a few little issues;
- it might be tricky to do double sided boards, as the pcb is sitting on a flat platfrom. its needs some standoffs
- The way of adjusting the pcb with those "paddles" while possible would be unbeilably fustrating and slow.. Particually when you are getting to fine pitch... A little bit more work required.
The pin-locating system used on Eurocircuits' stencil printer avoids the need for any adjustments, though you really need more of an up/down motion to engage than a swing-up mechanism. A simple lift-off frame with locating pins may be all that's needed
-
did you try my method?
Yes, but the problem is still - verified by vision align.
I just tried single panel, the result is pretty good, not perfect yet but enough - will show the video and photo later.
I tried the panelized mode of mark points, but do not work. Anyone tried this?
From coordinate verification i found that may board units of length is about 0.002mm/mm larger than the machine, it is 0.2mm/10 cm - not good.
Panelized mark points will keep this error per-board not accumulated across the panel, eg the placement error for each board will be about the same as single board.
-ichan
-
Hi Ichan,
I guess you must be getting fairly frustrated by now.
I think you're trying to do something that can't be done - at least not as it's currently set up.
My suggestion is that you get from NeoDen the same copy of the software application that TankSparks is using. Once you've tried it with the same software as TankSparks, if you get a great success you'll know it was in your particular Software version. If you get the same unsatisfactory result with the TankSparks software version, using the same method, you've been using to date, you'll know to look at the Hardware, or it's in you usage of the software with that PCB / Panel.
If you check TheSteve's post 'reply # 601 6th March' you'll see the N4 is definitely capable of the results you're seeking, when the right combination is used.
BTW - how many of those blank PCBs do you have on hand? The sooner you can get your hands on some boards with Fids the better I think.
Peter
did you try my method?
Yes, but the problem is still - verified by vision align.
-
I guess you must be getting fairly frustrated by now.
Not really, quite motivated today ;D.
Below is the video and photo of single board test today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltRCeVNlSs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltRCeVNlSs)
(http://s20.postimg.org/pf26q60j1/Single_Test.jpg)
My problem is more on the fact that 1mm on my pcb is not 1mm on the machine, the pcb is about 0.2mm/10cm larger than the machine, which one is true i do not know yet.
BTW - how many of those blank PCBs do you have on hand? The sooner you can get your hands on some boards with Fids the better I think.
I still have several hundreds of them. On the video above 1mm drilled round pad is reliable enough to be used as fiducial, even on dirty pads caused by the use of transparent adhesive.
I also tried the panelized board with mark points in panelized mode today, will post it soon.
-ichan
-
@ichan It's nice to see some proper placement from your machine now :D
It's also good to see it properly placing the VFQFPN 16L chip accurately even though you do not have the machine place file perfectly setup yet.
I'm starting to lean towards buying the Neoden 4 now. Just need to see how all your boards end up going.
Hoping you get this all worked out soon. :popcorn:
-
Also since were talking about 2 vs 3 Fudicals on PCB boards I figured I would share these pictures of a Evaluation board that I have here from TI.
TI has a company called Krypton do all their Evaluation board designs and manufacturing. Krypton assembles tons of boards for TI and use state of the art machines to do it.
If you look at all 6 of the EVM boards I have from TI you will see they use 3 Fudical marks on both the front and back of the boards.
-
@rwb: you will have to make up your mind some day and take the plunge ;-) - Good to see that ichan is making progress. I think it has become clear that one cannot expect plug-and-play or turn key with that kind of equipment. You must be willing to experiment and learn as you go.
Regards, Axel
-
My problem is more on the fact that 1mm on my pcb is not 1mm on the machine, the pcb is about 0.2mm/10cm larger than the machine, which one is true i do not know yet.
Sounds easy to fix, just make the correction in the export script when you extract the data from the CAD.
-
Also since were talking about 2 vs 3 Fudicals on PCB boards I figured I would share these pictures of a Evaluation board that I have here from TI.
TI has a company called Krypton do all their Evaluation board designs and manufacturing. Krypton assembles tons of boards for TI and use state of the art machines to do it.
If you look at all 6 of the EVM boards I have from TI you will see they use 3 Fudical marks on both the front and back of the boards.
Hi rwb! Old IPC-7351 described three points on two straight lines. And these lines are perpendicular. This is on TI pcb. However, other standard allows for diaganal two points, but with a shift or be asymmetrical PCB midline.
These pcb of not the best example, as must also ring as in the att. photo.
-
Also since were talking about 2 vs 3 Fudicals on PCB boards I figured I would share these pictures of a Evaluation board that I have here from TI.
TI has a company called Krypton do all their Evaluation board designs and manufacturing. Krypton assembles tons of boards for TI and use state of the art machines to do it.
If you look at all 6 of the EVM boards I have from TI you will see they use 3 Fudical marks on both the front and back of the boards.
I think having 3 is a great idea - the boards we use generally have one in each corner, not symmetrical though so a backwards board will not detect properly. However we have not been able to get the Neoden 4 to work properly with 3, it always places parts with an error. If we use two in opposite corners it works quite well. It is totally possible we are doing something wrong but what that is eludes us and since 2 is technically enough that is what we use now.
-
Fiducial 3 pcs in the standard way, everybody does it's simmetrical. See att.
Why not simmertical?
-
Icahn,
I have made a bad assumption in my comments, and would like you to clear it up for me if you don't mind.
I always considered that in the set up menu, of the 3 options;
Single
Panelized
Manual
you were working with the 'Single' option. Is this correct?
For those without knowledge of NeoDen's GUI, 'Single' means you have decided to use a single set of fiducials or mark points for a set of boards on a panel - typically placed on a panel's external borders, as opposed to using fiducials which may be specific to each board and measuring each board individually.
In my view it would be better labelled as
Panelized -
Individual - measure each board in the panel separately
Manual - no fids or marks
If you take a close look at the still photo in your last post and zoom in on j5 and compare it with j6 , there is considerable difference in the hole positions compared with the pads. This is what you have to deal with when you don't have proper marks or fids unfortunately. There certainly appears to be 0.2mm in there, and that's over a couple of centimetres, not 10.
-
Fiducial 3 pcs in the standard way, everybody does it's simmetrical. See att.
Why not simmertical?
I think there may be some confusion here Jefferson.
If your illustration had a 4th fid, it would be symmetrical. What this drawing shows is asymmetric.
But it does form a right angle, which is a good thing.
-
Ichan,
You are correct in that it appears to read those through holes as mark points.
In your video, did you notice the final adjustment move/correction the vision system made on your 1st mark point?
It appears to identify the centre correctly at first, and then makes a final move which, appears to me to be off-centre. Do you see this too, or is it just me?
-
With 2 FIDs it can still be asymmetrical, I put mark point 10mm from the edge and on the other side its 15mm from the edge, if board goes in wrong it will not find FID and give error.
Also note that Neoden sample files only use 2 FIDs. I do have FIDs in all 4 corners but just using 2 of them on the Neoden.
-
TankSparks - do you guys do your own panel layouts for board manufacture? eg - supply a fully panelized board layout to you PCB supplier?
If so, what application do you use?
With 2 FIDs it can still be asymmetrical, I put mark point 10mm from the edge and on the other side its 15mm from the edge, if board goes in wrong it will not find FID and give error.
Also note that Neoden sample files only use 2 FIDs. I do have FIDs in all 4 corners but just using 2 of them on the Neoden.
-
Thommo , here is a piece of software that will allow to you create panels from a single file. I received a email about this software a few months ago.
http://www.pentalogix.com/single-design-panelizer.php (http://www.pentalogix.com/single-design-panelizer.php)
Not sure if its what your looking for but I figured I would post it in case it's useful. ;)
https://youtu.be/0ValVipYIvw (https://youtu.be/0ValVipYIvw)
-
Here is my test on panelized board yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QkxG69JLCY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QkxG69JLCY)
For panelized mode marking points (fiducial), just define it on the first board (left bottom on the machine), before this i define it on all board which just did not work.
Using this mode will localize the placement error within board boundary, not accumulated across panel.
The video above untrimmed, still some more to tweak
- at 1:38 it fail to find the mark point, i do not know why - helped it manually.
- at 2:07 some retry picking part on feeder 4, i found later that the nozzle not aligned good to the center of the pocket.
- at 2:30 feeder 16 on the back doesn't peel (like what TheSteve said), seems the feeder box and peel box not perfectly inline.
Below is the photo of the result, not like before the placement error is much better and about the same on each board.
(http://s20.postimg.org/js5tsoy0d/Panelized_Test.jpg)
Next i will try to:
- adjust the data coordinates to solve the dimmension error.
- add a dummy first chip with a more accurate refference (now the first chip is R10)
- use via as fiducial, i think smaller diameter is better.
About a week delay from the plan for now...
-ichan
-
I think at this point I would have decided to have the machine only do the 1206 and SOTs, they will orientate properly during soldering anyway. Then do the fine pitch stuff manually - just to get the boards out of the door.
Regards, Axel
-
TankSparks - do you guys do your own panel layouts for board manufacture? eg - supply a fully panelized board layout to you PCB supplier?
If so, what application do you use?
I make my own panels, I use Diptrace, it does have a panelize feature.
-
Theres an important lesson here. Dont' buy a new PNP machine so you can complete a project, there is a learning curve!
-
also I agree. A few points that bothered me:
1) The high price, poor description of N4; You can buy JUKI XJ-100 for this price, which is much better!
2) Looking for their little part of 'professional, if we look IPC-9850. Many don't correspond.
3) Stated high parameters of the new product, which isn't achieved quickly. Support sales good, bad engineering.
-
1) The high price, poor description of N4; You can buy JUKI XJ-100 for this price, which is much better!
Where can you buy a Juki XJ-1000 for sub USD10,000 ?
-
yes friend bought JUKI XJ-100 not JUKI XJ-1000, paid a little more, but in good condition and with support. We need to hunt for a good pro machines only.
-
yes friend bought JUKI XJ-100 not JUKI XJ-1000, paid a little more, but in good condition and with support. We need to hunt for a good pro machines only.
Sorry I meant a XJ-100. But now you say its more expenive, and sounds like it was 2nd hand. Thats just not a vialble option for everyone. there is'nt a stack of $10,000 Juki machines with feeders lying around sir.
-
... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.
-
... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.
I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.
-
@Ichan
I pointed out your problem, reread my post #738,
-
... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.
I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.
Production machinery tends to go through specialist brokers a lot more than ebay, as many users will want to buy with support.
And there aren't exactly huge numbers of machines to start with .
-
A bit of an update: I have now produced dozens of panels (thousands of boards) with the machine, and I can say that it has been working great for me now that I understand the "ins and outs" of the machine. I have been placing quite a few 0603 and even some 0402 and the placement accuracy is excellent---good enough that I don't have to worry about it as long as it is set up correctly. It has taken some experimentation and experience to get the feed, pick, and place settings to where things are reliable enough to let the machine run with hardly any intervention. You really have to spend some time and tune in each part to get it to the point of excellent reliability; some parts work well with the default settings, but many require some significant adjustment.
I have been using 3 fiducials on the panels ("single" panel fiducial in the software), and I don't get any placement offset, but maybe I am setting things up in a different order than you are. I always use "manual" mode, even though I import the coordinates (offset in excel) and then mark the fiducials manually in the machine the first time without moving the board. I have not had as good of results using fully imported coordinates of the panel + fiducials. It seems like for some reason the angle/offset of the board does not get updated correctly if the board is not perfectly straight. Backwards, I know. |O I have also done some panelized boards where each panel has its own fiducials, and they are also accurate.
I have had one peel box burn up and quit working. I replaced it with a spare and went on my way, but I haven't contacted them yet about it.
-
Thanks for the update @MTNElectronics :-+
Great to hear the machine has done it's job for thousands of boards now.
Can you share any pictures of the boards your producing? Just curious.
Also I would need to place IC parts with .5mm pitch pin spacing. Are any of your parts using .5mm pin spacing and if does the machine handle placing them right just fine once you have it dialed in?
Also what version of the machine software are you using?
Has Neoden ever contacted you about updates to their software?
-
I pointed out your problem, reread my post #738,
TankSpark, i already test it as on reply #742 - tried to set the X to be the same for left-botom and left-top also same Y for left-top and right-top, the problem is still.
I am pretty optimistic today, seems using fiducials in panelized mode and scaling my data to fix the dimensional difference will make my day, hopefully ;D.
I am now setting it up to use all the components.
A bit of an update: I have now produced dozens of panels (thousands of boards) with the machine, and I can say that it has been working great for me now that I understand the "ins and outs" of the machine. I have been placing quite a few 0603 and even some 0402 and the placement accuracy is excellent---good enough that I don't have to worry about it as long as it is set up correctly. It has taken some experimentation and experience to get the feed, pick, and place settings to where things are reliable enough to let the machine run with hardly any intervention. You really have to spend some time and tune in each part to get it to the point of excellent reliability; some parts work well with the default settings, but many require some significant adjustment.
I have been using 3 fiducials on the panels ("single" panel fiducial in the software), and I don't get any placement offset, but maybe I am setting things up in a different order than you are. I always use "manual" mode, even though I import the coordinates (offset in excel) and then mark the fiducials manually in the machine the first time without moving the board. I have not had as good of results using fully imported coordinates of the panel + fiducials. It seems like for some reason the angle/offset of the board does not get updated correctly if the board is not perfectly straight. Backwards, I know. |O I have also done some panelized boards where each panel has its own fiducials, and they are also accurate.
I have had one peel box burn up and quit working. I replaced it with a spare and went on my way, but I haven't contacted them yet about it.
Begging to see it in action please...
-ichan
-
... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.
I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.
Equipmatching.com and smtnet.com are your best places to look.
-
... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.
I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.
Equipmatching.com and smtnet.com are your best places to look.
SMTnet. "There were no results for xj-100 in any of the components on SMTnet. Suggestions:"
Equipmatching.com "No results found for specified criteria."
If they are the best places, then there is little hope.. :-DD
-
After looking at what is for sale on those 2 website it's pretty clear how revolutionary the NeoDen 4 is and can be if we can all figure out exactly how to get the machine up and running without needing a week to set it up.
The machines being offered for sale are crazy old large dinosaurs. All the equipment and parts look like they come from the 60's :palm: I can see how people say they are build like tanks but it looks like you would need to rebuild the electronics to get them up and running on modern software.
These smaller PNP machines are a step in the right direction for sure. Now they just need to work on the software quality.
-
After looking at what is for sale on those 2 website it's pretty clear how revolutionary the NeoDen 4 is and can be if we can all figure out exactly how to get the machine up and running without needing a week to set it up.
The machines being offered for sale are crazy old large dinosaurs. All the equipment and parts look like they come from the 60's :palm: I can see how people say they are build like tanks but it looks like you would need to rebuild the electronics to get them up and running on modern software.
These smaller PNP machines are a step in the right direction for sure. Now they just need to work on the software quality.
there might be a few bargins from time to time, but this isnt an option really for the market that is emerging..
-
Hi Ichan,
I'm curious to know how you determine the measurements you've made.
You said in a previous post that the machine/board measurements are out by 0.2mm per 100.0mm. Where are you measuring these points from and by what means?
On a different note, I'm certain you're buoyed by MTN's success. I'm sure it'll get there in the end. That said, it is still very odd that you are the only one who seems to see the 'step' increments not relating to real-world measurements. Could it be the SW version, or just a mistake ???
I pointed out your problem, reread my post #738,
TankSpark, i already test it as on reply #742 - tried to set the X to be the same for left-botom and left-top also same Y for left-top and right-top, the problem is still.
I am pretty optimistic today, seems using fiducials in panelized mode and scaling my data to fix the dimensional difference will make my day, hopefully ;D.
I am now setting it up to use all the components.
A bit of an update: I have now produced dozens of panels (thousands of boards) with the machine, and I can say that it has been working great for me now that I understand the "ins and outs" of the machine. I have been placing quite a few 0603 and even some 0402 and the placement accuracy is excellent---good enough that I don't have to worry about it as long as it is set up correctly. It has taken some experimentation and experience to get the feed, pick, and place settings to where things are reliable enough to let the machine run with hardly any intervention. You really have to spend some time and tune in each part to get it to the point of excellent reliability; some parts work well with the default settings, but many require some significant adjustment.
I have been using 3 fiducials on the panels ("single" panel fiducial in the software), and I don't get any placement offset, but maybe I am setting things up in a different order than you are. I always use "manual" mode, even though I import the coordinates (offset in excel) and then mark the fiducials manually in the machine the first time without moving the board. I have not had as good of results using fully imported coordinates of the panel + fiducials. It seems like for some reason the angle/offset of the board does not get updated correctly if the board is not perfectly straight. Backwards, I know. |O I have also done some panelized boards where each panel has its own fiducials, and they are also accurate.
I have had one peel box burn up and quit working. I replaced it with a spare and went on my way, but I haven't contacted them yet about it.
Begging to see it in action please...
-ichan
-
Out of curiosity: Are the PCBs fixed or clamped down while on the conveyor? Or are they only hold by friction and can move more or less freely (longitudinal and/or transversal)?
Regards, Axel
-
Not much time available today, only able to try single board with full components. The result is acceptable but there are some anoying pick failed issue, still need some adjustment. I make some notes of the feeder issue:
- the feeders had some play, the pocket hole is not always on the same position - need several trial to get the right pick position, using small nozzle will help.
- thick components in 8mm feeder is hard to feed, need to remove (or replace) the white plastic base (mentioned before by TheSteve).
- the feeder box and peel box have to be perfectly inline, if not the peeled cover will tend to shift and later failed to peel.
- the rear feeder can not be aligned using camera, have to use the nozzle and your eyes
- pick height default is 0.5 mm, let it be like that just change the placement height as required
- seems it is not possible to use more than one nozzle to pick parts from the same feeder (correct me)
- seems the feeder spit too many components on pick fail retry (no setting for that)
I'm curious to know how you determine the measurements you've made.
You said in a previous post that the machine/board measurements are out by 0.2mm per 100.0mm. Where are you measuring these points from and by what means?
I write coordinates of some points on the pcb from the CAD then put the pcb on the machine, navigate and write the corresponding points coordinates of the machine, then calculate it like below.
(http://s20.postimg.org/d543p6yel/Measure.jpg)
This way will only find the difference, not telling which one is true. I will try this again on my older machine later, should be interesting as that machine use 2um resolution linear encoder feedback (Renishaw RGH41G).
Out of curiosity: Are the PCBs fixed or clamped down while on the conveyor? Or are they only hold by friction and can move more or less freely (longitudinal and/or transversal)?
The pcb pressed by some spring through the belt on the conveyor (you can see it on "machine stup" video), held firm enough on position.
-ichan
-
I saw this on Adafruits blog today and figured I would share here.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/03/21/updated-visionbot-pick-and-place-shipping-in-europe-manufacturingmonday-makermovement/
(https://blog.adafruit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/VisionBot-SMT-Placement-Equipmenet-Laboratory-BIT-TECHNOLOGIES-1030x648.jpg)
If only the Neoden 4 had this software with it.
https://youtu.be/ewQUH6qBHEM
I asked the guy to come join the party over here.
-
96 feeders (unspecifiied) for 6500. Decent start if speed is not your goal (like me)
The software looks reasonable, the hardware strikes me as rather rotten but seems to work. I will buy slow/reliable over fast/unreliable any day.
-
Yea I don't need the super fast speed either.
Another video of it doing panels. The software looks to be much better.
Also you can see the machine speed up when picking parts and slow down when placing parts which is what @mikeselectricstuff likes to see :D
Also he says they are now using Juki nozzles and it has a built in nozzle changer.
Hopefully this guy shows up over here to talk about all this.
https://youtu.be/52fK5Ej-88I
-
Speed ramps are important. I wonder if they will sell the software to a hardware developer. It has the look of a toy.
-
This is what it looks like to program your parts. Lots of different options, almost too many :)
https://youtu.be/anw01OADcbM
-
Guys, we're all obviously worn out with the N4 travel path but, for mine, this machine and the N4 are galaxies apart. Sure it has more feeders, but others like SmallSMT offer this also with a MUCH BETTER HW build.
Good luck if you want to replace a reel in the middle of the stack once it's empty on this machine - it has 1 common axle.
The N4 [even though I haven't ordered one yet] now has an English speaking community who have it running successfully, including MTNElectoronics who says he's loaded thousands of boards now, and TankSparks and TheSteve too.
Hopefully soon, Ichan will join them.
I don't think that reviews of the N4 where normal, if not optium, conditions for producing machine loaded PnP SMT components are not followed - like having good, readable Marks/Fiducials, are true reflections of the machine or how it was intended to be used.
For mine, the rail and conveyor set this machine apart.
If we could just get one of the current, successful users to create a start-to-end video including the GUI and actual machine video, I think we'd all be converts.
Accuracy vs Speed
I don't need speed either, but the N4 is capable of it.
Accuracy is something it is also capable of according to TankSparks, TheSteve and MTNElectronics.
It's still N4 for mine.
The ONLY potential contender for me is the CharmHigh with changeable Yamaha pneumatic feeders [but only if they increased the max qty from 30 to something like double that number].
-
Yea that new Charmhigh machine with the Yamaha pneumatic feeders would probably solve the feeder issues that people are talking about having with the Neoden 4 and Servokit's smaller machine. Seems like feeders are a problem with both machines eventually. That's probably why Charmhigh when the direction they did.
-
Guys, we're all obviously worn out with the N4 travel path but, for mine, this machine and the N4 are galaxies apart. Sure it has more feeders, but others like SmallSMT offer this also with a MUCH BETTER HW build.
This machine is not much more than a hobby.. There's a whole lot to be desired.. The Charm, Yunghsung and SMT machiens all are way better than this for a whole bunch less cash.
-
It sure is interesting to see all these people try to solve the problem of a high quality PNP machine for under 10K.
Nobody has hit the nail on the head yet.
The NeoDen 4 comes close but it sounds like the feeder design needs updating and the software needs repaired. The hardware looks amazing though.
Based on AR_systems feedback on ServoKit's machine it sounds like its not really a reliable solution either.
:-//
I was hoping that Ichan would have his 2000 boards almost done by now. Sounds like he is almost ready to get started though.
-
I'm not sure I like VisualBots software. The screen is cluttered, fruit salad of millions of controls. Needs cleaning up.
-
@rwb, thommo: I don't think that the Charmhigh is an alternative right now unless you want to be a guinea pig. As I see it, the TVMs and the N4 represent the two ends of affordable vision based P&P, price wise and feature wise. Both are actively used, for both communities are beginning to form. Now all we have to do is getting the manufacturers listening to us. Obviously, both machines have their issues but at least you know what they are and can plan accordingly.
Regards, Axel
-
I also see the openpnp system becoming a force to be reckoned with, its come a long way in a short time frame, and you can get a slow but reliable vision based system for $1500 + effort.
I've been investigating this as an option.. there are plenty of "parts" shops in china will sell you just about everything you need. Pickup heads and feeders.. Some good plans are coming together nicely now..
-
Likewise, I would love to see OpenPnP succeed, but I also have commercial requirements that can't be fulfilled with love alone.
Some weeks ago we loosely discussed options to 'pool' some funds and produce a 'deliverable' piece of equipment. Regrettably, OpenPnp wasn't able to jump in and get the work done that would be required, and no one has time to go fishing for the contractors. It seems the only way this would work however is if it was coordinated by OpenPnP.
I agree it's come a long way in recent times [just look at the latest feature to include machine vision] and it certainly has potential to be a great option. But the real question is will NeoDen progress faster than even the very best efforts of an OpenPnP programme. Unfortunately, I think not. NeoDen, although we don't agree with how the prioritize things, do have a commercial manifest driving them, and they do have successful history in delivering hardware to the market.
Trust me when I say 'hang on for about 4-6 weeks' before you make any decisions in this space. I'm fairly certain it'll be worth the wait.
I also see the openpnp system becoming a force to be reckoned with, its come a long way in a short time frame, and you can get a slow but reliable vision based system for $1500 + effort.
I've been investigating this as an option.. there are plenty of "parts" shops in china will sell you just about everything you need. Pickup heads and feeders.. Some good plans are coming together nicely now..
-
Some weeks ago we loosely discussed options to 'pool' some funds and produce a 'deliverable' piece of equipment. Regrettably, OpenPnp wasn't able to jump in and get the work done that would be required, and no one has time to go fishing for the contractors. It seems the only way this would work however is if it was coordinated by OpenPnP.
I'm still game for this. I've been hoping someone would post a little bit of information about the workings of the machine so I can get a better feel for the level of effort in reverse engineering it. Some things that would help a lot:
* Screen captures from Windows device manager showing any connections the machine has to the computer.
* Manufacturer and model of the cameras, and their connection methods. Are they UVC? Do they require a special driver?
* If the machine connects via USB to Serial, a serial dump would be magnificent. There's http://www.eltima.com/products/serial-port-monitor/ (http://www.eltima.com/products/serial-port-monitor/) which makes it pretty easy. Install that, run a job, capture the output.
* Detailed pictures of the main control board. Not the PC board - that doesn't really matter, but the board that interfaces with all the motors.
* Pictures of any other electronics involved in the thing.
* Captures of the CAN data on the feeder bus. I don't have any experience with CAN, so I don't know how complex this would be, but I suspect something like a Bus Pirate would do the job.
* Information about how the peel boxes connect to the machine and what is controlling them. I know the feeders are CAN, but the peel boxes are analog. What controls them?
If I can get some of that information I can make an informed decision on whether this is something I can get done in a reasonable amount of time and then we can move forward, but right now I am in the dark.
Further along on that topic, do I remember correctly that someone in Vancouver, BC has one of these? I'm in Seattle, so if someone in Vancouver wants to let me drive up for the weekend and poke through their machine I'd be up for that. Even better if someone in Seattle has one :)
Jason
-
I hope you don't think you can decipher a comm protocol just by looking at logs of a random job, without knowing what the machine does at the time?
-
I hope you don't think you can decipher a comm protocol just by looking at logs of a random job, without knowing what the machine does at the time?
Depends very much on the protocol. I think the likelihood is very high that it's just using Gcode with possibly some extensions for running the feeders, lighting, etc. If it's Gcode then that's enough for me to say "Yea, I can probably do this." If it's something else there's a pretty reasonable chance I can figure it out anyway. Reverse engineering weird protocols and file formats is something I've got a lot of experience with.
Jason
-
I hope you don't think you can decipher a comm protocol just by looking at logs of a random job, without knowing what the machine does at the time?
Fortunately the Neoden has a GUI screen with all the test command buttons. Commands for feeding, suction, nozzles up/down rotate etc. So it would not be that hard to decipher the protocol.
-
Hi Jason,
Great to see the activity level rise and the discussion happening again.
What I actually meant [and I understand MrPackethead meant also] was creating a machine from 'scratch'. This is no mean task, but certainly has potential if NeoDen ever went off the rails.
What is more exciting is the prospect of buying N4s, and using your OpenPnP code to drive it.
This means those of us sitting on the fence still have some options and would likely move more quickly:
put up with N4 GUI and software in the interim,
look forward to enabling custom commands via OpenPnP application when, and as, they get released, developed, or requested - or write ourselves.
Heck, it's even possible to toggle the option at 'start up' and decide who's Software you wish to run.
Let's know if I can help in any way. FWIW - is it an option to change out the controllers in the N4 if you already have OpenPnP code that works with them? I know it's an additional cost, but it may also be the quickest and, in the end, cheapest way forward. [I say this blissfully unaware of the relative cost of the controllers you have designed for in the OpenPnP project].
Some weeks ago we loosely discussed options to 'pool' some funds and produce a 'deliverable' piece of equipment. Regrettably, OpenPnp wasn't able to jump in and get the work done that would be required, and no one has time to go fishing for the contractors. It seems the only way this would work however is if it was coordinated by OpenPnP.
I'm still game for this. I've been hoping someone would post a little bit of information about the workings of the machine so I can get a better feel for the level of effort in reverse engineering it. Some things that would help a lot:
[/quote]
-
Likewise, I would love to see OpenPnP succeed, but I also have commercial requirements that can't be fulfilled with love alone.
From what i've seen, i'd trust openpNP and some custom built hardware before i trusted this N4 stuff. 40 feeders just dont' cut it for my Low Volume High Mix box. The only other thing i've seen that comes close was the Small SMT, but i'm uncomfortable about that, and how it might be supported.
I see that an open hardware / open software solution even if its a llittle less stable to start with is a much better long term solution..
everyone has to do what they think is the right thing for them, and nobody should be expecting that everyone should follow their choosen path.
I agree it's come a long way in recent times [just look at the latest feature to include machine vision] and it certainly has potential to be a great option. But the real question is will NeoDen progress faster than even the very best efforts of an OpenPnP programme. Unfortunately, I think not
I think it will.
Trust me when I say 'hang on for about 4-6 weeks' before you make any decisions in this space. I'm fairly certain it'll be worth the wait.
Anther mahine released before its ready?
I also see the openpnp system becoming a force to be reckoned with, its come a long way in a short time frame, and you can get a slow but reliable vision based system for $1500 + effort.
I've been investigating this as an option.. there are plenty of "parts" shops in china will sell you just about everything you need. Pickup heads and feeders.. Some good plans are coming together nicely now..
[/quote]
-
Hi Jason,
Great to see the activity level rise and the discussion happening again.
What I actually meant [and I understand MrPackethead meant also] was creating a machine from 'scratch'. This is no mean task, but certainly has potential if NeoDen ever went off the rails.
Theres a couple of documented builds and boms you can follow now and get your self into a working machine for under $2000. Yeah it will be simple, ( cut strips and parts in trays.
-
What attracts me is a path I can spend around $10K on, and build forward with that same platform - hence the interest in mods to the NeoDen product - N4 or otherwise.
What I can't afford now is another project in the workshop which, although I may be able to build upon for the future, is one which I can't commercially work with out of the box. I think I'd be better off with the N4.
48 x 8mm feeders is a limitation and I agree with MrPackethead on that one for sure. I think the idea of assembling the feeders into a single removable Cart [left and right sides] is a good one, but let's see what coming along in the pipeline.
If there was an OpenPnP design the worked for around $10K and available NOW, I think we'd all be saying yes.
If the N4 had an OpenPnP interface right now, I think we'd also be saying yes to that.
That said, TheSteve, TankSparks, MTNElectronics are having continued success after around 1 week of combined work with the N4 and produced 1,000s of boards apparently. This is something I don't expect to be able to say about $2K OpenPnP project in its current state, any time soon, which is a shame really.
My thoughts are to adopt the N4 and use it out of the box for now, see what happens at NeoDen, help adopt the OpenPnP path to the N4, and eventually become sufficiently knowledgeable to either by a bigger machine, or design and build one from scratch using the OpenPnP. Hopefully, before then, someone else publishes a design that does exactly this [with separate commercial, inexpensive feeders - wishful, but the Yamaha pneumatic ones are certainly reasonable and available with up to 24mm tape width].
Hi Jason,
Great to see the activity level rise and the discussion happening again.
What I actually meant [and I understand MrPackethead meant also] was creating a machine from 'scratch'. This is no mean task, but certainly has potential if NeoDen ever went off the rails.
Theres a couple of documented builds and boms you can follow now and get your self into a working machine for under $2000. Yeah it will be simple, ( cut strips and parts in trays.
-
96 feeders (unspecifiied) for 6500. Decent start if speed is not your goal (like me)
The software looks reasonable, the hardware strikes me as rather rotten but seems to work. I will buy slow/reliable over fast/unreliable any day.
UI looks a bit of a mess IMO - initial impression is that it's showing far too much stuff for many tasks at the same time.
P&P is easily divided into distinct tasks - job setup, feeder setup, part setup, running jobs, and for each job the UI shouldn't be cluttered with unnecessary stuff.
-
I hope you don't think you can decipher a comm protocol just by looking at logs of a random job, without knowing what the machine does at the time?
That is entirely possible, it all depends on the protocol. At the very least some logs would indicate how easy/hard it's likely to be.
Chinese SW is likely to be using very something simple and specific to the task with minimal thought given to expansion etc. It ain't going to be XML!
I'd be surprised if it's even as complex as Gcode.
-
I wonder if the SMallSMT machiens use Gcode.
-
Anther machine released before its ready?
Many specialist machines are released before they're ready - the critical thing is how quick and responsive the manufacturer is to improve things. Neoden have so far seemed to only address very specific issues rather than doing any general improvements. The fact that there are things like passwords just to make it speak English doesn't look promising.
3rd party SW driving the N4 looks like a good approach, and could potentially run on the N4 embedded PC.
Unfortunately the Chinese place little value on software, so it seems unlikely that a significant discount could be possible for buying the machine without SW.
Re. CAN decode, the 4-channel Agilent MSO/DSO 6/7000 series scopes have a CAN decode option, and all options are easily enabled by a very simple hack so if someone has access to one of those that would be an option.
It would be good to find out what they are using for the CAN interface, as that may give some clues as to the API.
For feeders I'd be surprised if it wasn't something extremely simple like a few digits of <feeder number> <number of indexes>
BTW how are feeders addressed ? Is there a switch on each feeder, are they daisychained or do they all go to individual connectors ?
-
The fact that there are things like passwords just to make it speak English doesn't look promising.
That really made me go WTF. Why would they do this?
Regards, Axel
-
The fact that there are things like passwords just to make it speak English doesn't look promising.
That really made me go WTF. Why would they do this?
Regards, Axel
It's possible that it's just to prevent Chinese users getting it into a state where it speaks a language they don't understand, but may be a licensing thing or a way to attempt to control grey exports
-
Regarding reversing the protocol remotely, without having the machine for tests - good luck with that :) Yes it is "entirely possible", in a sense that it is also possible to jump off a 5th floor and not break anything. Possible but highly unlikely.
I'm speaking from experience - I have nearly finished reversing TVM802B protocol and in the past I reversed a couple of other protocols. For TVM802B it is quite simple and straightforward, but it requires collecting several dozens of independent logs for very specific scenarios. It just would not be possible to do that remotely. And then of course comes up an issue of testing... Do you want to run a s/w on your machine that nobody knows what will do to it?
It is just an unrealistic path.
-
I wonder if the SMallSMT machiens use Gcode.
I'm fairly certain that it is not. G-code is too complex for the things that low level controller does.
-
Regarding reversing the protocol remotely, without having the machine for tests - good luck with that :) Yes it is "entirely possible", in a sense that it is also possible to jump off a 5th floor and not break anything. Possible but highly unlikely.
Not sure anyone is suggesting fully reversing it remotely, simply remotely evaluating the feasibility of reversing it once a machine is available.
-
Could very well be a GRBL clone that only supports a GCode subset, like no arcs etc. GRBL runs on a 328P and the STM32 in the TVM would be easily powerful enough for that.
Regards, Axel
-
* Screen captures from Windows device manager showing any connections the machine has to the computer.
See attached (nothing much except the cameras)
* Manufacturer and model of the cameras, and their connection methods. Are they UVC? Do they require a special driver?
Cameras are CG Imagetech CGU2-130M/C http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_b7cb32ce0102v458.html (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_b7cb32ce0102v458.html) Uses special driver CGUSB2.dll
* If the machine connects via USB to Serial, a serial dump would be magnificent.
It looks like rs232 directly
-
The fact that there are things like passwords just to make it speak English doesn't look promising.
That really made me go WTF. Why would they do this?
Regards, Axel
It's possible that it's just to prevent Chinese users getting it into a state where it speaks a language they don't understand, but may be a licensing thing or a way to attempt to control grey exports
Its common for production equipment to have everything the production people don't need access to behind password protection. Otherwise people hitting things at random can get a production line pretty messed up.
-
@Thommo what is this supposed to mean?
Trust me when I say 'hang on for about 4-6 weeks' before you make any decisions in this space. I'm fairly certain it'll be worth the wait.
A new machine will be released by NeoDen that you are not allowed to talk about? Something else? How can you leave us in the dark on this? O0
-
Pretty good result today, just watch - it should be not a boring 9 minutes video for all of you ;D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoZlsa4xWI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoZlsa4xWI)
Nine minutes per-panel, much below my early expectation but still more than double the throughput of my other machine.
The pcb is adhesive sprayed lightly using 3M spray mount, i forgot about the edge that will be clamped by the conveyor so i put masking tape on the edge covering the adhesive.
(http://s20.postimg.org/4m3jts0j1/Panelized.jpg)
Will start production tomorrow with 50 panel as the target.
-ichan
-
The fact that there are things like passwords just to make it speak English doesn't look promising.
That really made me go WTF. Why would they do this?
Regards, Axel
It's possible that it's just to prevent Chinese users getting it into a state where it speaks a language they don't understand, but may be a licensing thing or a way to attempt to control grey exports
Its common for production equipment to have everything the production people don't need access to behind password protection. Otherwise people hitting things at random can get a production line pretty messed up.
True, though this ought to be done via an installer-settable password with options on what to allow or disallow in production mode.
It's also not uncommon to hide more advanced options behind passwords to avoid support calls for things that less capable end-users will not normally need to fiddle with. Just having it for language does seem a little odd though.
-
The crossout on that panel made me wonder - does the Neoden SW have a sensible way of dealing with panel cross-outs?
-
I wonder if the SMallSMT machiens use Gcode.
Sorry no GCODE we have a special protocol because of lots of parameters to set.
But it's open for our customer.
-
* Screen captures from Windows device manager showing any connections the machine has to the computer.
See attached (nothing much except the cameras)
* Manufacturer and model of the cameras, and their connection methods. Are they UVC? Do they require a special driver?
Cameras are CG Imagetech CGU2-130M/C http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_b7cb32ce0102v458.html (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_b7cb32ce0102v458.html) Uses special driver CGUSB2.dll
* If the machine connects via USB to Serial, a serial dump would be magnificent.
It looks like rs232 directly
Thanks g00se, this is very helpful!
Would you be able to capture a serial dump? Doesn't need to be a huge job or anything - even just firing up the machine, moving it around a bit and maybe running a feed operation would do the trick. Just looking to get an idea of the scope of the work.
I can't find very much online about those cameras and even less about their software stack. That's a potential show stopper there, or at least show complicator. Is anyone familiar with this company? I did find a shop that I think might be theirs on Taobao: https://shop111849796.world.taobao.com/category-1011394905.htm?search=y&catName=USB2.0%B9%A4%D2%B5%CF%E0%BB%FA (https://shop111849796.world.taobao.com/category-1011394905.htm?search=y&catName=USB2.0%B9%A4%D2%B5%CF%E0%BB%FA)
And one of the items seems to show documentation for an SDK: https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/15794551/TB2wsoEcFXXXXbfXpXXXXXXXXXX_ (https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/15794551/TB2wsoEcFXXXXbfXpXXXXXXXXXX_)!!15794551.jpg
So, to keep everything on the up and up I'd probably need to talk to the manufacturer and potentially buy one of the cameras to get access to the SDK. The cameras are pretty cheap, so that's not much of a burden, although one thing that concerns me is that the product link for that specific camera goes to a page that says (translated) something along the lines of local laws and regulations don't allow me to buy the item: http://world.taobao.com/item/42474854441.htm?fromSite=main (http://world.taobao.com/item/42474854441.htm?fromSite=main)
They do claim to support OpenCv, Halcon, Labview, etc. so it might be easier than it looks.
Anyway, the more info we can get the better. A serial dump is priority #1 and from there I can see what else might be needed to make a good determination.
-
Further along on that topic, do I remember correctly that someone in Vancouver, BC has one of these? I'm in Seattle, so if someone in Vancouver wants to let me drive up for the weekend and poke through their machine I'd be up for that. Even better if someone in Seattle has one :)
Jason
Hi Jason et al.
I've been quietly watching for the sidelines, waiting to see how the N4 plays out for the 'beta testers'.
I need a prototype / low volume production machine (100~500 boards) that can reliably place 0201 passives, and tiny 0.35mm pitch board to board connectors (e.g. Molex 504622 series). Has anybody had success placing these small parts? Other than Neoden sales propaganda, I couldn't find anything.
I'm very much in support of getting openPNP working with the N4, so if I buy one, Jason you are most welcome to come over and hack and packet-sniff our machine.
Tim.
-
@ichan Nice to see you up and running multiple panels now :-+
It will be interesting to see how the machine holds up over the course of a full day.
So did you basically just go through every part and off set the placement data by the amount it was being placed incorrectly?
If you knew what you know now about getting the file setup how quickly do you think you could have had the machine up and running after you got it setup?
-
Let's know if I can help in any way. FWIW - is it an option to change out the controllers in the N4 if you already have OpenPnP code that works with them? I know it's an additional cost, but it may also be the quickest and, in the end, cheapest way forward. [I say this blissfully unaware of the relative cost of the controllers you have designed for in the OpenPnP project].
As I said in a couple other responses, the biggest help will be a serial dump of the machine running a job.
It's possible to use a different controller, but it's not ideal. The N4 has a lot more outputs than a typical DIY pick and place and it has a board that has been designed for it. If we can just use that board it will be much easier. I think this is probably the easiest path and should be explored fully first. If it turns out to be a dead end and if there is enough interest then a custom controller would be a good next choice.
Jason
-
Hi Jason et al.
I've been quietly watching for the sidelines, waiting to see how the N4 plays out for the 'beta testers'.
I need a prototype / low volume production machine (100~500 boards) that can reliably place 0201 passives, and tiny 0.35mm pitch board to board connectors (e.g. Molex 504622 series). Has anybody had success placing these small parts? Other than Neoden sales propaganda, I couldn't find anything.
I'm very much in support of getting openPNP working with the N4, so if I buy one, Jason you are most welcome to come over and hack and packet-sniff our machine.
Tim.
Thanks Tim! If that happens, will you let me know? Drop me a line at jason@vonnieda.org.
Jason
-
I've been looking at the pics, hard to tell under the mess of cables but AFAICS the MB has 4 USB cables, a ribbon cable and a 4-core cable which are candidates for the interface. The ribbon cable seems to disappear off somewhere, not sure about that 4-core.
Looks like their board controls everything - motors, pumps etc. so if this is on a serial /usbserial interface it shoud be pretty simple.
As regards cameras, it would be annoying, but by no means the end of the world if you had to replace them with something better supported. It might be interesting to just plug one into a Windoze box, as they may be accessible via UVC.
How /where do the feeders connect? Someone mentioned CAN - where did that info come from ?
-
I've been looking at the pics, hard to tell under the mess of cables but AFAICS the MB has 4 USB cables, a ribbon cable and a 4-core cable which are candidates for the interface. The ribbon cable seems to disappear off somewhere, not sure about that 4-core.
Looks like their board controls everything - motors, pumps etc. so if this is on a serial /usbserial interface it shoud be pretty simple.
As regards cameras, it would be annoying, but by no means the end of the world if you had to replace them with something better supported. It might be interesting to just plug one into a Windoze box, as they may be accessible via UVC.
How /where do the feeders connect? Someone mentioned CAN - where did that info come from ?
It's possible the cameras support UVC, but I don't think it's likely. Most of the industrial cameras I've seen don't, this one appears to have an SDK that requires a DLL, which makes it even more likely. Maybe g00se can confirm, though? Just scroll up in Device Manager and see if they are listed under Cameras, Capture Devices, or anywhere else?
As for CAN, I bought one of these feeders a couple months back and tore it apart. It's got 4 wires and there is a CAN controller chip. The four wires are power, ground and two signals directly to the CAN controller. You can see it here: http://i.imgur.com/XVQudSA.png (http://i.imgur.com/XVQudSA.png)
Jason
-
So where does the feeder plug in ? And how are addresses assigned? Did that feeder come with any instructions ?
-
I'm fairly certain that there must be another controller of some sort in the machine, likely a USB to CAN interface, this one should also show up in device manager. The pics from the motherboard show several USB connections (note text on cables and wire colors typical for USB). We already established the GPIO chip (ITE IT8781F), likely for limit switches, solenoids and the like. I too think that the cameras are plain USB devices.
Regards, Axel
-
So did you basically just go through every part and off set the placement data by the amount it was being placed incorrectly?
If you knew what you know now about getting the file setup how quickly do you think you could have had the machine up and running after you got it setup?
1. No, i just scale up the cad data coordinates by 1.002 using spreadsheet (now i am thinking how to install ms excel on the machine ;D), including the mark point / fiducial coordinates.
2. Within one day, well add one more day to setup the feeders ;).
I have to say that N4 software is already workable, yes there are some bug and strange behavior, but all softwares are like that they all will have many revision before become stable, right?
-ichan
-
So where does the feeder plug in ? And how are addresses assigned? Did that feeder come with any instructions ?
All things I'd like to know too :) It did not come with any instructions or documentation.
-
I need a prototype / low volume production machine (100~500 boards) that can reliably place 0201 passives, and tiny 0.35mm pitch board to board connectors (e.g. Molex 504622 series). Has anybody had success placing these small parts? Other than Neoden sales propaganda, I couldn't find anything.
I'm very much in support of getting openPNP working with the N4, so if I buy one, Jason you are most welcome to come over and hack and packet-sniff our machine.
Tim.
The SmallSMT ( check the other thread ) folks claim they can place 0201s' they posted some pics.
-
The SmallSMT ( check the other thread ) folks claim they can place 0201s' they posted some pics.
What I noticed from my experience is those pics or videos are very misleading. Sure they populate 20 parts that would look decent. What about 1000 or 10000 parts? How many times will you have a mispick or part lost or installed crooked? I really would like to see those specs from manufacturer.
-
The SmallSMT ( check the other thread ) folks claim they can place 0201s' they posted some pics.
What I noticed from my experience is those pics or videos are very misleading. Sure they populate 20 parts that would look decent. What about 1000 or 10000 parts? How many times will you have a mispick or part lost or installed crooked? I really would like to see those specs from manufacturer.
In deed, and its unlikely they are going to post pics that show such events.. Heck even the $250,000 line that i use for my large scale production screws up from time to time. ( often assisted by operator stupidity )
-
Congratulations Ichan !!!
I'm so happy for you, and it's great to know you've developed a method that will allow you to proceed to production now.
Looking forward to the next stage where you produce the first batch.
Is the N4 connected to your reflow oven now?
Your mentioned installing Excel onto the machine. Is your intention to try and interface it with the application somehow?
Also, did you get a response from NeoDen about multiple heads loading from the same feeder?
So did you basically just go through every part and off set the placement data by the amount it was being placed incorrectly?
If you knew what you know now about getting the file setup how quickly do you think you could have had the machine up and running after you got it setup?
1. No, i just scale up the cad data coordinates by 1.002 using spreadsheet (now i am thinking how to install ms excel on the machine ;D), including the mark point / fiducial coordinates.
2. Within one day, well add one more day to setup the feeders ;).
I have to say that N4 software is already workable, yes there are some bug and strange behavior, but all softwares are like that they all will have many revision before become stable, right?
-ichan
-
The SmallSMT ( check the other thread ) folks claim they can place 0201s' they posted some pics.
Thanks, I'll check it out. Our boards are tiny, with only a couple of dozen off-chip components (most of the work is done by an ASIC). If all boards need to be visually inspected and 10~20% need an 0201 nudged back into place, that would be sufferable. But if it routinely screws up the placement of the fine pitch connectors, that's a deal-breaker.
-
https://youtu.be/aeW66c9oN5Y (https://youtu.be/aeW66c9oN5Y)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb9YtTLT1E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb9YtTLT1E)
-
We run the machine for about 5 hours non-stop today, finishing 31 panel (124 board). Still some pick failed happen but better than my other machine, really!
Here is the video, taken from several angle - watch something at the end of the video ;).
https://youtu.be/pBTZm1Lf3WM (https://youtu.be/pBTZm1Lf3WM)
Congratulations Ichan !!!
I'm so happy for you, and it's great to know you've developed a method that will allow you to proceed to production now.
Looking forward to the next stage where you produce the first batch.
Is the N4 connected to your reflow oven now?
Your mentioned installing Excel onto the machine. Is your intention to try and interface it with the application somehow?
Also, did you get a response from NeoDen about multiple heads loading from the same feeder?
Thank you. Yes the pcb goes to the conveyor oven on the first floor, before that some manual placement done plus visual inspection and correction.
I am not very serious about the Excel, just quite annoyed that i have to go back and forth to another pc.
I do not have many conversation with Neoden so far, besides i know they follow this thread closely - let they decide themselves want to win the competition or not.
In general i am fairly happy with the machine, not in big amount but for me i win the bet - it will be a jackpot if later i can use the feeders on the other machine.
Jackpot? I bought also N4 extra feeders 8x8mm + 4x12mm + 4x16mm, the cost of similar feeders for the LS60V will be enough to buy N4 machine with full feeders! (using their 2010 price when i bought the machine).
-ichan
-
It's really nice to see the machine up and running consistently for you now :-+ :scared:
I see that you placed some weights or quarters on one of the part lines. Tell us more about this.
Are any particular parts being miss picked consistently?
Are those small USB no lead .5mm pin chips being placed accurately every time?
Is anything needing fixed up on each board by hand consistently?
Now I did find a place that does small scale fabrication. They have a online pricing tool and I was wondering if you could load your design into to and see what kind of cost they would charge you to run the same 2000 boards vs what you think your cost is by doing it in house. The cost savings of having a Neoden 4 machine is something that is really hard to calculate and its something I would love to see more comparison on.
The company that does this small scale fab is here: https://macrofab.com/
-
Here is the video, taken from several angle - watch something at the end of the video ;).
This is a really great video, thank you for posting it! I noticed several interesting things:
* They are not using linear interpolation on the motion planner. This tells me that they are probably not using one of the common open firmwares available for CNC machines since most of these don't implement G0 properly. They could be using TinyG, I suppose, since I think that it does implement it properly, but based on how jerky the motion is I doubt it.
* It looks like they can only image all four nozzles for very small parts. A little tough to tell, but it looks like the upper limit is SOT-23. This seems to be the case for the nozzle calibration as well. During startup it images all four nozzles once and then appears to image the larger nozzle separately.
* It appears the camera only captures one image at a time, rather than a stream. I noticed that as it's loading a board with the conveyer it's strobing the top LEDs instead of just leaving them on. This makes me think their camera API consists of something like "strobe and capture" versus "turn on strobe", "capture", "turn off strobe". I would not be surprised to find that the LEDs are wired to the cameras for triggering.
Very cool to see all this in action. Maybe not that interesting to a machine owner/user but for someone who develops PnP software it's very enlightening! :)
Jason
-
On the cost equation.. For me at least, i know that getting a machine, and loading more than afew 10's of boards will actually cost me MORE than having them fabricated in China, in a PCBA factory. Our labour costs kill it every time a monkey.
The reason for me to do this, is the sub < a few 10's of boards, where speed and time is of the essense. Yes, they will cost more, but the cost of time is way more valuable. I figure i'll be able to save 30% in elapsed time on projects from design --manufacturing sampel.
It's really nice to see the machine up and running consistently for you now :-+ :scared:
I see that you placed some weights or quarters on one of the part lines. Tell us more about this.
Are any particular parts being miss picked consistently?
Are those small USB no lead .5mm pin chips being placed accurately every time?
Is anything needing fixed up on each board by hand consistently?
Now I did find a place that does small scale fabrication. They have a online pricing tool and I was wondering if you could load your design into to and see what kind of cost they would charge you to run the same 2000 boards vs what you think your cost is by doing it in house. The cost savings of having a Neoden 4 machine is something that is really hard to calculate and its something I would love to see more comparison on.
The company that does this small scale fab is here: https://macrofab.com/
-
* It appears the camera only captures one image at a time, rather than a stream. I noticed that as it's loading a board with the conveyer it's strobing the top LEDs instead of just leaving them on. This makes me think their camera API consists of something like "strobe and capture" versus "turn on strobe", "capture", "turn off strobe". I would not be surprised to find that the LEDs are wired to the cameras for triggering.
but it doesn't do this when looking at fids. Wonder if it's due to alternating move-rail and take-image commands.
* They are not using linear interpolation on the motion planner. This tells me that they are probably not using one of the common open firmwares available for CNC machines since most of these don't implement G0 properly. They could be using TinyG, I suppose, since I think that it does implement it properly, but based on how jerky the motion is I doubt it.
Is this actually a problem? I can see how it could actually be a benefit, as it means each axis always goes through a consistent speed profile. With interpolation, speeds will be very variable, which may cause issues with resonances at particular speeds, causing possible part movement/drop issues.
As noticed before, at slow speeds it still goes slow when there is no part - I can't see any excuse for this and suggests to me that the controller is pretty dumb and has only a global speed control. ISTR some mention that Z speed couldn't be independently set from XY speed, which is even more dumb.
Can you set it up so you can place the next PCB(s) in the rail and have it auto-load the next when the last one is done? Can PCBs be loaded end-to-end to fill as many as will fit the rail?
-
Is this actually a problem? I can see how it could actually be a benefit, as it means each axis always goes through a consistent speed profile. With interpolation, speeds will be very variable, which may cause issues with resonances at particular speeds, causing possible part movement/drop issues.
Nope, not a problem at all. I've been preaching for years that we (OpenPnP) need a dead simple motion controller that skips all interpolation and just does per axis acceleration and and velocity.
-
Thanks for publishing this MrP.
Well done Jason. The Fids interface looks very clear - something we can't say for the N4 at present.
And the machine vision is coming along great too.
How close do you feel you are to estimate work on the N4? Are you still waiting on those serial bus dumps?
Are you able to turn off the top camera LEDs while you're using the bottom camera yet?refucing extraneous light sources will definitely improve resolution and definition.
I made a comment in SmallSMT just before about the bottom camera LED array being square/rectangular, instead of circular. Is this what you are doing? You will get MUCH better results illuminating pads and legs etc if the light source is parallel to the edges rather than in an arc. All the large commercial machines appear to use box configurations of LEDs rather that circular or tube arrangements.
Image sensors and components are square/rectangular after all. Only lenses are circular ;-)
https://youtu.be/aeW66c9oN5Y (https://youtu.be/aeW66c9oN5Y)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb9YtTLT1E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb9YtTLT1E)
-
Thanks for publishing this MrP.
Well done Jason. The Fids interface looks very clear - something we can't say for the N4 at present.
And the machine vision is coming along great too.
How close do you feel you are to estimate work on the N4? Are you still waiting on those serial bus dumps?
Are you able to turn off the top camera LEDs while you're using the bottom camera yet?refucing extraneous light sources will definitely improve resolution and definition.
I made a comment in SmallSMT just before about the bottom camera LED array being square/rectangular, instead of circular. Is this what you are doing? You will get MUCH better results illuminating pads and legs etc if the light source is parallel to the edges rather than in an arc. All the large commercial machines appear to use box configurations of LEDs rather that circular or tube arrangements.
Image sensors and components are square/rectangular after all. Only lenses are circular ;-)
Hi thommo,
Yes, the serial dumps are the main thing I need to be able to estimate the work. Still waiting and hoping :)
Re: turning off the LEDs: Not yet, although I've got a plan for it. Just need to do some wiring. Right now I'm finding I don't need it so I am holding off until I finish the first pass at bottom vision.
Part of the pipeline that processes the image for bottom vision masks out everything within the green circle that you see in the video, so the LEDs from the top camera are not considered in the image.
In case you are curious, here is my current bottom vision processing pipeline: http://pastebin.com/fCp7JbkB (http://pastebin.com/fCp7JbkB)
The filtering portion of the pipeline primarily masks out the circle and then subtracts green hues from the image, which pulls out the large disk above the nozzle as well as the green part of the nozzle itself. This is working very well so far, although I have to add scaling of the circle mask for tall parts since the disk "shrinks" with respect to the image when the nozzle is higher.
I do want to switch to rectangular array of LEDs but I have not been able to find one pre-made. The rings were cheap on eBay. I'm probably just going to design one and make it a low angle light at the same time. Just another thing on the TODO list :)
Jason
-
We had a very successful build today - the best yet. Powered the machine off for a bit, when we turned it back on it made a thunk sound(pretty normal) and then died. It is currently dead, no signs of life.
We're opening it up now.
-
We had a very successful build today - the best yet. Powered the machine off for a bit, when we turned it back on it made a thunk sound(pretty normal) and then died. It is currently dead, no signs of life.
We're opening it up now.
Ewww....
-
Well nothing too scary in the end, just the main fuse. It is only rated at 3 amps which seems awful low to us. I wonder if Neoden has spec'd different fuses for 120 and 240 VAC. The fuse is integrated into the IEC mains input and actually holds a spare.
-
We had a very successful build today - the best yet. Powered the machine off for a bit, when we turned it back on it made a thunk sound(pretty normal) and then died. It is currently dead, no signs of life.
We're opening it up now.
How many boards did you guys run? Were they the same red boards that were pictured in the post you made not that long ago?
Are you have any other feeder issues now that you have put some weight on end of the reels that were giving you some trouble in the past?
What exactly is that weight accomplishing?
It's stating to sound like everybody has finally figured out how to program the machines to the point they can run thousands of boards without to much trouble which is very promising.
Having looked at the more expensive and stable machines on the market it becomes very clear how revolutionary the NeoDen 4 is when it comes to price, weight, and size.
-
We had a very successful build today - the best yet. Powered the machine off for a bit, when we turned it back on it made a thunk sound(pretty normal) and then died. It is currently dead, no signs of life.
We're opening it up now.
How many boards did you guys run? Were they the same red boards that were pictured in the post you made not that long ago?
Yes, same red boards, We ran 5 panels with 560 parts on each. So over 2500 parts, no stoppage. It was nice to be able to get some work done while the machine ran. I can hear it in my office upstairs so I know if stops. One panel takes about 24 minutes. I was running most parts at 60% speed. 2 different nozzle sizes, 3 small and 1 larger one for the IC.
0603 parts and .65mm pitch IC
I'm using 2 fiducials bottom left and top right.
Last time we had a 12mm feeder problem with parts jumping out. at the time didn't know if was a bad feeder or a crappy feeder design problem...turns out it was just a bad feeder/peeler. I used a different feeder this time and it went very smooth no parts jumping and tape peeler working like it should and no retries.
Also had feeder issues with the 24mm feeder with another board, still need to test again with the 2nd 24mm feeder that I have.
-
Hi TankSparks,
Did you say 24mm N4 feeder?
I asked recently and they said they no longer support the 24mm feeder. It has some 'undefined issues' and they are trying to redesign it [at least that's what I took from the conversation].
Great news about the general stability all the same! Thanks for the feedback too.
We had a very successful build today - the best yet. Powered the machine off for a bit, when we turned it back on it made a thunk sound(pretty normal) and then died. It is currently dead, no signs of life.
We're opening it up now.
How many boards did you guys run? Were they the same red boards that were pictured in the post you made not that long ago?
Yes, same red boards, We ran 5 panels with 560 parts on each. So over 2500 parts, no stoppage. It was nice to be able to get some work done while the machine ran. I can hear it in my office upstairs so I know if stops. One panel takes about 24 minutes. I was running most parts at 60% speed. 2 different nozzle sizes, 3 small and 1 larger one for the IC.
0603 parts and .65mm pitch IC
I'm using 2 fiducials bottom left and top right.
Last time we had a 12mm feeder problem with parts jumping out. at the time didn't know if was a bad feeder or a crappy feeder design problem...turns out it was just a bad feeder/peeler. I used a different feeder this time and it went very smooth no parts jumping and tape peeler working like it should and no retries.
Also had feeder issues with the 24mm feeder with another board, still need to test again with the 2nd 24mm feeder that I have.
-
It's really nice to see the machine up and running consistently for you now :-+ :scared:
I see that you placed some weights or quarters on one of the part lines. Tell us more about this.
Are any particular parts being miss picked consistently?
Are those small USB no lead .5mm pin chips being placed accurately every time?
Is anything needing fixed up on each board by hand consistently?
Now I did find a place that does small scale fabrication. They have a online pricing tool and I was wondering if you could load your design into to and see what kind of cost they would charge you to run the same 2000 boards vs what you think your cost is by doing it in house. The cost savings of having a Neoden 4 machine is something that is really hard to calculate and its something I would love to see more comparison on.
The company that does this small scale fab is here: https://macrofab.com/
1. The weight mean to add a tension on the tape. Small parts in plastic tape like to do circus flea actions, that because the plastic tape had some springy action when some (unwanted) force applied making the parts jumping out of the pocket. The weight i use is a small spanner held in position by some magnets, adding some tension will damp that springy action.
2. That is the usb chip who like to do the acrobat, the others are all calm.
3. On these boards we found about 1 out of 5 panel need correction on those two small ic, seems it caused by not good reference point (fiducial) used / available. Can be seen on the video sometimes the fiducial recognition is not good finding the center point of the drilled hole. I do not want use manual recognition, i just want to enjoy pressing that tempting green start button and go.
4. About outsourcing, if you have good control over them then it would be a good choice, IMO.
-ichan
-
* It appears the camera only captures one image at a time, rather than a stream. I noticed that as it's loading a board with the conveyer it's strobing the top LEDs instead of just leaving them on. This makes me think their camera API consists of something like "strobe and capture" versus "turn on strobe", "capture", "turn off strobe". I would not be surprised to find that the LEDs are wired to the cameras for triggering.
The camera on N4 used as a still image camera, not a video camera.
-ichan
-
Quote from: rwb on March 22, 2016, 11:06:36 AM (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=59827.msg900669#msg900669)
I saw this on Adafruits blog today and figured I would share here.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/03/21/updated-visionbot-pick-and-place-shipping-in-europe-manufacturingmonday-makermovement/ (https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/03/21/updated-visionbot-pick-and-place-shipping-in-europe-manufacturingmonday-makermovement/)
(https://blog.adafruit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/VisionBot-SMT-Placement-Equipmenet-Laboratory-BIT-TECHNOLOGIES-1030x648.jpg)
If only the Neoden 4 had this software with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewQUH6qBHEM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewQUH6qBHEM)
I asked the guy to come join the party over here.
Hi rwb and you guys! I am Alexandru from VisionBot SMT Pick and Place machines (http://visionbot.net/). Really sorry for responding late to your questions, but I am still a junior college student and I had exams last week. We are still developing VisionBot because it is not yet 100% finished and many new features will be added very soon. This is a review from one of our VisionBot users based in the UK from MegaPoints Controller. He installed and powered on for the first time the VisionBot just a couple of hours before making the film (yesterday). And this is his first day impression of using a VisionBot PnP machine in doing a simple TEST PCB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGW-_7knZBQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGW-_7knZBQ)
In the mean while, we bought the Juki nozzles and holder and we started to change from making our own nozzle system with a fine mechanics lathe to use the Juki nozzles. The hardware was intended let open to be easy for hacking in case someone wants this. We didn't want to close it in a plastic box like N4. If you will remove N4's plastic box, you will discover a TM240 PnP with two cameras :) . Actually, I truly believe the production cost of N4 is almost if not equal with TM240. Also we designed our own electronics to be really easy for hacking and debugging. We give our electronic layouts to our users.
I understand that you guys are complaining about the software User Interface that is too complex. I will graduate as a computer scientist and not as an EE engineer. If is possible I would trully love to get some feedback from you of how should I improve the User Experience. Btw: I developed the entire VisionBot Software by myself, so major UX can be added very fast if I know what should I change in my bad design.
-
If you will remove N4's plastic box, you will discover a TM240 PnP with two cameras :).
Whew... really? Re-read this thread from the begining you will find all people who own N4 say that the machine is mechanically impressive.
I myself have a thought that people beyond Neonden is very good in design, they do design milimeter by milimeter of the machine - and as i remember all other similar machines out there are actually follower (more like imitation) of their TM2xx machine.
I open their feeder today, it is not a perfect feeder but once again it impress me! Forgot to take some picture, but Jason post it some pages before. Look at the brushless motor, it is integral part of the aluminum casing, not a stock motor mounted in there!
I will sniff the CAN bus soon... ;)
Anyway, we run the machine almost 8 hours non-stop today - no problem so far.
-ichan
-
@ichan So how has all the following days gone with the machine? How many boards have you guys completed so far?
About that charging chip that your having to move a tad after the machine run them due to not have proper fudicals , I did see in the video where the machine did not properly track the holes your using as fudicials so that makes sense.
-
@rwb, this machine running every day since the last video i make, for four days now with average running time 6 hours per day. As per today it had made 148 panels (592 boards), roughly the rest of the job left is about 100 panels, most of the panels had been done by the other machine.
The machine is running very well, but do not expect the machine can be left running unattended - it will need someone to 'help' the machine sometimes, mostly on failed picking. In my case it happens at about every 3 panels in average.
Visual inspection and some placement correction is not a problem for me as i have a pack of skilled manual placer in here :).
My interest now is on the feeder, why sometimes the chip jumps over the pocket and how to make it more stable. I am thinking to take a slow motion video capturing the event when the chip doing the acrobat, but i need to finish current job first.
-ichan
-
@rwb, this machine running every day since the last video i make, for four days now with average running time 6 hours per day. As per today it had made 148 panels (592 boards), roughly the rest of the job left is about 100 panels, most of the panels had been done by the other machine.
The machine is running very well, but do not expect the machine can be left running unattended - it will need someone to 'help' the machine sometimes, mostly on failed picking. In my case it happens at about every 3 panels in average.
Visual inspection and some placement correction is not a problem for me as i have a pack of skilled manual placer in here :).
My interest now is on the feeder, why sometimes the chip jumps over the pocket and how to make it more stable. I am thinking to take a slow motion video capturing the event when the chip doing the acrobat, but i need to finish current job first.
-ichan
1 in 3 panels fails? Wow. Thats Huge.
-
1 in 3 panels fails? Wow. Thats Huge.
Yes that is true, but not a huge thing for this class of machine, IMO. Even my LS60V had some problems too with the feeders, especially the bank feeder.
Maybe i just hasn't found the right setting for the feed and peel strength, it seems different setting for different component type - i hope Neoden people can provide suggested settings for that.
The most failed happen is where the cover not peeled correctly, the second is parts jumping out of the pocket, the rarest is failed to feed.
I will dig more about this machine feeder later.
-ichan
-
Ichan, out of the 592 boards, approx how many parts 'failed' due to those feeder issues?
Others have reported issues with feeders also.
Is it always the same feeder/component, or does it occur randomly?
Do you have some spare feeders to try swapping it/them out to see if the issue persists?
The others report the issue disappearing after a feeder swap.
Would be interested to know.
-
Thommo - You are correct. I remember recently TankSparks said he was having parts jump from a feeder consistently and that stopped as soon as he replaced it with a different spare feeder. It was a bad feeder that was causing the part to jump. Try swapping it out and see if the problem persist.
-
Ichan, out of the 592 boards, approx how many parts 'failed' due to those feeder issues?
...
Is it always the same feeder/component, or does it occur randomly?
I do not know as i am not the person who operate the machine daily, but not much. Most failed can be handled within a minute, just by manually pull the tape cover and re-seat it properly on the peel box plastic gear.
Always on the same feeder, on two feeders for my case.
I remember recently TankSparks said he was having parts jump from a feeder consistently and that stopped as soon as he replaced it with a different spare feeder. It was a bad feeder that was causing the part to jump. Try swapping it out and see if the problem persist.
Yes i remember that post, i do have some spares but i decide to wait until the job done, it is only about four days more than i will play intensively with the feeders. My main suspect is the peel box, it is an innovative device but still need some enhancement.
-ichan
-
Hi Ichan - when these feeder failures occur, what actually happens?
Does the machine execute some retrys, then stop and sound an alarm or flash a light?
Continue, without any feedback?
Become destructive and do things like continue 'stabbing' at the tape until the machine is physically stopped?
Cause any issue with components that are already sitting on the solder paste footprints?
In other words, is it a destructive problem, or a delaying annoyance?
Glad to hear it is localised to some extent, and thanks for the feedback too!
Ichan, out of the 592 boards, approx how many parts 'failed' due to those feeder issues?
...
Is it always the same feeder/component, or does it occur randomly?
I do not know as i am not the person who operate the machine daily, but not much. Most failed can be handled within a minute, just by manually pull the tape cover and re-seat it properly on the peel box plastic gear.
Always on the same feeder, on two feeders for my case.
I remember recently TankSparks said he was having parts jump from a feeder consistently and that stopped as soon as he replaced it with a different spare feeder. It was a bad feeder that was causing the part to jump. Try swapping it out and see if the problem persist.
Yes i remember that post, i do have some spares but i decide to wait until the job done, it is only about four days more than i will play intensively with the feeders. My main suspect is the peel box, it is an innovative device but still need some enhancement.
-ichan
-
On pick failed the machine will do some re-try, do not know how many times it do the retry and seems there is no setting for that.
If still failed the nozzle will go to park position, sounds a beep, and pause asking to continue or stop. If we click YES the machine will continue with another re-try, clicking NO will stop the current job. I would like to have another option in here which is SKIP, to skip current component and continue with the next.
-ichan
-
Yes - 'skip' sounds like a good suggestion.
Glad to learn that it is a non-destructive type of issue nonetheless - just inconvenient
On pick failed the machine will do some re-try, do not know how many times it do the retry and seems there is no setting for that.
If still failed the nozzle will go to park position, sounds a beep, and pause asking to continue or stop. If we click YES the machine will continue with another re-try, clicking NO will stop the current job. I would like to have another option in here which is SKIP, to skip current component and continue with the next.
-ichan
-
Tonny just inform me about several nozzle taking from the same fedder by email without i asked him first, clearly they follow this thread.
Here is what he writes:
It's very easy,pls try to do nozzle selection like 1,2,on chiplist,then the nozzle 1 and nozzle 2 will
pick components together and then go to camera area to take photo.
If you set 1,1,2,then the nozzle 1 will pick one only and after finish the placement,then nozzle 1 and 2 pick two components.
Yes that is easy, just put several nozzle definition by comma on the chip list - but no information of that anywhere.
And for the feeder problem:
About another problem currently you met(peel box),one fast solution is change a new one.
Well, at least they care enough... ;)
-ichan
-
Tonny just inform me about several nozzle taking from the same fedder by email without i asked him first, clearly they follow this thread.
Here is what he writes:
It's very easy,pls try to do nozzle selection like 1,2,on chiplist,then the nozzle 1 and nozzle 2 will
pick components together and then go to camera area to take photo.
If you set 1,1,2,then the nozzle 1 will pick one only and after finish the placement,then nozzle 1 and 2 pick two components.
Yes that is easy, just put several nozzle definition by comma on the chip list - but no information of that anywhere.
And for the feeder problem:
About another problem currently you met(peel box),one fast solution is change a new one.
Well, at least they care enough... ;)
-ichan
The do care, and they do provide support. It seems that support is not the exclusive thing by a ChineseGerman? company, who wants you to pay a 50% premium
-
The do care, and they do provide support. It seems that support is not the exclusive thing by a ChineseGerman? company, who wants you to pay a 50% premium
I thought it was 30?
-
On pick failed the machine will do some re-try, do not know how many times it do the retry and seems there is no setting for that.
If still failed the nozzle will go to park position, sounds a beep, and pause asking to continue or stop. If we click YES the machine will continue with another re-try, clicking NO will stop the current job. I would like to have another option in here which is SKIP, to skip current component and continue with the next.
-ichan
There should also be an option to make it automatically go to the next feeder, and alert the user at the end of the job to go back and to the parts it missed.
Retry number should be configurable in the part definition.
-
The do care, and they do provide support. It seems that support is not the exclusive thing by a ChineseGerman? company, who wants you to pay a 50% premium
I thought it was 30?
depends which maths you use i guess...
34,000RMB vs $10,499
-
The do care, and they do provide support. It seems that support is not the exclusive thing by a ChineseGerman? company, who wants you to pay a 50% premium
I thought it was 30?
depends which maths you use i guess...
34,000RMB vs $10,499
From what I can see: not the same configuration. So I'm not sure if that is 100% fair...
-
The do care, and they do provide support. It seems that support is not the exclusive thing by a ChineseGerman? company, who wants you to pay a 50% premium
I thought it was 30?
depends which maths you use i guess...
34,000RMB vs $10,499
From what I can see: not the same configuration. So I'm not sure if that is 100% fair...
Maybe its the $9499 version.. Still $5240 vs $9499. * Thats about an ~80% markup.
the real point was that support is'nt the exclusive offering of one company
-
NeoDen N4 video
Has anyone ever seen video of the N4 mounting 0201, or TQFP240 size components?
This is from their website:
Component sizes with vision:
Smallest Component size:0201
Largest Component size:TQFP240
-
@Thommo - As what ever sales lady your talking with at NeoDen for a video showing it placing these parts. I think we would all love to see it.
-
There's one video from Neoden here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIneSvqm7E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIneSvqm7E)
...placing 0201's, albeit on double sided tape.
-
I don't think placing them on double sided tape really counts for anything.
-
I don't think placing them on double sided tape really counts for anything.
Why?
-
Surely it counts for 'something' TheSteve.
It illustrates that it can successfully pick the component
Determine its alignment on the head, and modify to 'zero'
Rotate it as required
and finally,
Place it in the desired position on the board
Agree that it says nothing for the placement pressure, or component's paste displacement, but surely it's a big achievement just getting this far. Those factors are largely handed over to the quality of the stencil and paste applicator.
Have you guys tried placing any 0201's yourself yet?
What is the finest component that you've tried to date TheSteve?
I don't think placing them on double sided tape really counts for anything.
-
There's one video from Neoden here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIneSvqm7E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIneSvqm7E)
...placing 0201's, albeit on double sided tape.
Pity they couldn't be bothered to get a decent photo...
-
Pity they couldn't be bothered to get a decent photo...
I love the loose screw rolling around.
-
We use mainly 0603 and don't have plans to go smaller. Without an independent Z speed adjustment anything smaller will take forever as you'll need to also slow the pick and X/Y. The machine is anything but gentle when placing parts otherwise. Even with 0603 sized parts it's very easy to see the difference between paste and tape. So having used the machine I still think them showing 0201 with tape doesn't really count.
-
0603 used to seem small. and then 0402 did.. and then ...
-
0603 used to seem small. and then 0402 did.. and then ...
No kidding. The margins are so small now. I have been moving toward smaller and smaller parts and each move requires some learning on the assembly side. They all look big in CAD on my 30" monitor. In assembly it looks like dust.
-
@TheSteve - do you mean that the Neoden4 does not appear to implement S-Curve deceleration to minimize jerk in the head movements? I would imagine that if they didn't implement some form of this the simple stand that they provide would not be sufficient to prevent the machine from shaking heavily and walking all over the room when running at full speed.
-
@TheSteve - do you mean that the Neoden4 does not appear to implement S-Curve deceleration to minimize jerk in the head movements? I would imagine that if they didn't implement some form of this the simple stand that they provide would not be sufficient to prevent the machine from shaking heavily and walking all over the room when running at full speed.
At full speed I am sure the machine can easily move itself around. What I am saying(and that has been said before) is that the X/Y/Z speeds are all set by a single parameter. So if you want it to place a part at a slower speed you have to slow down all aspects of the placement for that component, which includes the X/Y speed and the pick speed.
-
We finished the job today, the machine do about 300 panel (1200 board) while the rest 4800 board done by the other machine (for almost two months). The last three days we run the machine for about 12 hours/day in 8+4 hours overtime with 2 hours off time in between.
Two days ago the machine suddenly stops and hung in the middle of the work, restarting the machine giving an error "camera initialization failed" - found the bottom camera connector dislodged, perhaps caused by vibration, everything back to work after reconnecting it.
After running this machine for about 1 week, i can say that the machine is very much worth it for the money spent. First thing that need to be improved on this machine is not the software, but the feeders - they spits many chips daily! (please do not ask the percentage as i do not have numbers in detail).
I have a simple 100 board job to do, will gonna play with the feeders on this job.
-ichan
-
Ichan what speed were you using... 60% or faster?
I had a 12mm feeder with parts jumping out, it was ok after switching feeder, 99% sure the problem was with the peel box, but did not switch one at a time to verify if it was feeder or peel box
-
TankSparks, i use feeder speed 100% for all 1206 and 50% for the others, general speed setting is on 100%. The machine shaking a little.
The last job is time constrained, i have to run the machine as fast as possible no time to try to switch feeders - i let the spitted parts handled manually.
Problems with feeders i found, started from the most happen:
1. Spitted parts. Mostly on thick 8mm plastic tape where the white plastic base need to be removed to accomodate the thick tapes. SOT23 in plastic tape is thin enough, no need to remove the base - but they also spitted frequently, seems the bang-bang action of the peeler is the cause (i never like picking SOT23). Happen also on wider plastic tape (ic) but can be reduced by using some weight tension.
2. Mylar cover not peeled. Most of the time because the mylar shifted to the left (never found to the right) on the peel box plastic gear.
3. Tape does not feed. Only one cause, blocked reel.
What "strength" values that you use?
-ichan
-
TankSparks, also what values that you use for pick and place "delay"? What units are they, milisecond?
-ichan
-
Just what percentage of parts are placed properly at the speed you're running?
-
We had no problems with the sot23 transistors.
Feeder strength 50, peel strength 80,
pick delay 30 and place delay 30, it appears to be milliseconds. I set it to 500 for testing and looked like 1/2 a second.
-
How is everything in planet Neoden? Everything going well.
-
Too well lastly, 100 simple board in 15 board panel finished in a blink of eye, which make me missed to take any photo or video of it... ;D
Slowing the machine down and put some delay on picking surely calm down the feeders.
Still can not found my CAN Analyser tool, will Saleae works too sniff CAN bus?
-ichan
-
For those running the machine on 120 VAC the fuse in the IEC socket should be 5 amps. Our fuse blew as they shipped our unit with the 220 VAC fuse which is 3 amps.
-
@ICHAN
MHS has a nice tool for CAN monitoring.
The software is open source
http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=content&action=show&page=tinycan_monitor (http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=content&action=show&page=tinycan_monitor)
http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=content&action=show&page=can_cool (http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=content&action=show&page=can_cool)
This is a cheap interface
http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=artikel&action=artikel&id=16 (http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=artikel&action=artikel&id=16)
I use
http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=artikel&action=artikel&id=3 (http://www.mhs-elektronik.de/index.php?module=artikel&action=artikel&id=3)
-
Re CAN: IIRC, CAN analyzer is in Saleae SW. Just try it wirh a 5$ Saleae clone, thereis nothing to lose :)
-
Hello Friends,
1st post in This EEvblog. read almost all the discussion in N4 PNP machine. we are thinking to buy the PNP machine for startup. I do not a familiar with the PNP machines because do not work on any PNP before.
I want to ask to MR. @ICHAN & @TheSteve about N4 PNP machine. That, Can you prefer me about buying this machine? or you prefer any other PNP ? your answer was great help to me for buying my 1st PNP.
Thanks. :)
-
Hello AaiRIz!
It will be very difficult if there is no previous experience. A lot of time will be spent in vain. You must pass the practice and study for a while. Or have a specialist who will do the training. N4 has a lot of ignoring industry standards and feature innovative solutions and restrictions. It also needs to want to examine and apply.
-
I bought Microchip CAN Analyser about a year ago, hasn't use it yet and now it is hidding from me :(.
I have Saleae Logic Pro 8 on my bench, will try it soon. The objective is to find how to command the feeder so i can use it on the other machine.
-ichan
-
I want to ask to MR. @ICHAN & @TheSteve about N4 PNP machine. That, Can you prefer me about buying this machine? or you prefer any other PNP ? your answer was great help to me for buying my 1st PNP.
The short answer is YES.
If you do (or plan to) do a small assembly business then Neoden 4 is the right choice, mine already pay itself for about 25% of it's own cost only in 3 weeks.
If you only do your own prototype and have limited budget then i think QIHE TVM802A/B will fit better.
SmallSMT machine looks good but no real user so far reporting their experience, and reading the other thread - sending money to a personal account in china is a big NO to me.
Charmhigh is a new player, they usually on hobby cnc router business.
QIHE TVM920 may become the nearest competitor of Neoden 4, but seems at $6500 no feeders included will mean the price can be higher then N4 and without conveyor.
Borey Tech machines are interesting but limited information out there.
-ichan
-
@ICHAN
SmallSMT machine looks good but no real user so far reporting their experience, and reading the other thread - sending money to a personal account in china is a big NO to me.
You can use paypal too!
And real user reports are on our website.
How did you pay your NEODEN machine?
This was my Payment for my TM240A Neoden machine in 2013!
Looks like a personal account in China !?!
"PAYMENT: Bank Wire Transfer
SWIFT Code: ABOCCNBJ110
Bank account number: 6228480323024499713
Bank name: AGRICULTURAL BANK OF CHINA,ZHEJIANG BR.
Beneficiary's address: No. 11, Xiyuan eight road, West Lake science and Technology Park, San Dun, Hangzhou
Receiver name: Weng Guofu (????
Phone Number: 13958891178"
Best regards
Michael
-
How did you pay your NEODEN machine?
Attached is the bank info part of the Proforma Invoice of the machine purchase.
Michael, you should register a company account soon, for your own good - not only me who says NO, since the last two years our central bank will reject any bank wire transfer to a personal account in China. Guess why... ;)
-ichan
-
I'm thinking of purchasing Neoden 4 for low volume inhouse manufacturing but have zero experience working with PNP machines. This thread has been awesome at answering a lot of questions and overall adding to my understanding of what is involved.
One question that I'm having difficulty answering is regarding footprints that may not be available in the 'Footprint Library' (see attached image). An example footprint might be an SD card holder or USB micro B connector. This would be the footprint used by the imaging algorithm to locate the center and rotation offsets of the currently picked part. How does one go about setting up a custom footprint? Is a foot print necessary even? Any advice and/or input would be helpful.
Thanks,
~John
-
If you follow teh paypal link it goes to yet another name, which has no reference to SmallSMT in it...
@ICHAN
SmallSMT machine looks good but no real user so far reporting their experience, and reading the other thread - sending money to a personal account in china is a big NO to me.
You can use paypal too!
And real user reports are on our website.
How did you pay your NEODEN machine?
This was my Payment for my TM240A Neoden machine in 2013!
Looks like a personal account in China !?!
"PAYMENT: Bank Wire Transfer
SWIFT Code: ABOCCNBJ110
Bank account number: 6228480323024499713
Bank name: AGRICULTURAL BANK OF CHINA,ZHEJIANG BR.
Beneficiary's address: No. 11, Xiyuan eight road, West Lake science and Technology Park, San Dun, Hangzhou
Receiver name: Weng Guofu (????
Phone Number: 13958891178"
Best regards
Michael
-
I'm thinking of purchasing Neoden 4 for low volume inhouse manufacturing but have zero experience working with PNP machines. This thread has been awesome at answering a lot of questions and overall adding to my understanding of what is involved.
One question that I'm having difficulty answering is regarding footprints that may not be available in the 'Footprint Library' (see attached image). An example footprint might be an SD card holder or USB micro B connector. This would be the footprint used by the imaging algorithm to locate the center and rotation offsets of the currently picked part. How does one go about setting up a custom footprint? Is a foot print necessary even? Any advice and/or input would be helpful.
Thanks,
~John
Don't know about N4 specifically, but P&P vision generally only cares about a few simple parameters like part X/Y size for vision, height (for vision focus and placement height) and a few other things like nozzle type and speed.
Vision will typically just use the overall outline and not need to know about individual pad locations, though oddball parts may need some tweaking.
-
Don't know about N4 specifically, but P&P vision generally only cares about a few simple parameters like part X/Y size for vision, height (for vision focus and placement height) and a few other things like nozzle type and speed.
Vision will typically just use the overall outline and not need to know about individual pad locations, though oddball parts may need some tweaking.
That method seems to make perfect sense and I’d be surprised if the N4 designers deviated too much from the typical implementations. Even non-rectangular footprints (ex. SOT-23-3) could be best fit into a rectangle. Thanks for your help.
Out of pure curiosity it would be nice to see exactly what's inside the N4 Footprint Library file(s). At this point my guess is that it’s a CSV with all the parameters that you mentioned. If anyone on this thread has access to the files, please share. Either an example file, a screen capture or a cut/paste.
-
Don't know about N4 specifically, but P&P vision generally only cares about a few simple parameters like part X/Y size for vision, height (for vision focus and placement height) and a few other things like nozzle type and speed.
Vision will typically just use the overall outline and not need to know about individual pad locations, though oddball parts may need some tweaking.
That method seems to make perfect sense and I’d be surprised if the N4 designers deviated too much from the typical implementations. Even non-rectangular footprints (ex. SOT-23-3) could be best fit into a rectangle. Thanks for your help.
Out of pure curiosity it would be nice to see exactly what's inside the N4 Footprint Library file(s). At this point my guess is that it’s a CSV with all the parameters that you mentioned. If anyone on this thread has access to the files, please share. Either an example file, a screen capture or a cut/paste.
SO23-3 is a bit of an oddball - as the body is black you tend to image just the pads, but triangular outlines can be harder to interpret correctly for rotation than rectangular ones - these are parts that are more likely to need tweaking for reliable placement
-
Hello guys,
As another (proud) owner of Neoden4 I would like to share my experiences from this machine as this is the main goal of this thread.
We got the machine in February, 2016. Since then we have a few hundreds of PCBs already populated on it. Because this is our first machine I can’t compare it to any similar product but it looks suitable for the needs of our business – which is quite a niche one and the quantities are in the range of 5-10 boards up to 100-200 per order.
The problems we faced so far with ND4 are the following:
- Initially, after the installation we detected that two of the feeders don’t work – after opening them we found that the problem with the first one was mechanical – simply the upper part of the motor wasn’t put properly and there was a friction b/w both parts. With the second one there was a cable problem.
- After couple of weeks of exploitation two of the nozzles stopped working – by consulting with Neoden the problem was located in the control board which is on the top of the nozzle-head. It seems that the step-motor driver for this side was gone. We got very quickly a replacement of this board and the problem was solved. However we had some period when the machine was operating only with two of the nozzles – a little slower but still functional.
- Another issue we faced during the installation of few extra feeders which were purchased recently. All of them were supposed to come with address #50, however some of them came with different addresses (like 2,7,8.. etc.) which cost us some time to figure out what is going on. Talking to Neoden they told me that each feeder should come with a label with its address however our feeders were w/o such labels. So we need to ‘discover’ the address of each of them.
One point I can’t find in this thread – this is about the maintenance of the machine. I understand that just cleaning the axis from dust and putting some oil on them regularly is enough. Are there any other actions that need to be done?
BR,
George
-
About footprint, i don't really know how and when exactly the footprint definition used ;D sometimes i just left it empty and got no proplem.
(http://s20.postimg.org/ytuwqgxpp/Feeder_Setting.jpg)
The footprint definition itself is only the rectangular boundary and thickness of the component.
(http://s20.postimg.org/m3qoddprh/Footprint.jpg)
Some people asking me about the price detail of the machine, for that just see it on their aliexpress store:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/NeoDen4/231675_504814084.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/NeoDen4/231675_504814084.html)
I was quoted the same prices as on that store.
-ichan
-
Talking to Neoden they told me that each feeder should come with a label with its address however our feeders were w/o such labels. So we need to ‘discover’ the address of each of them.
Can the end-user program the address of a feeder?
-
I was quoted the same prices as on that store.
-ichan
What about feeders?
-
What about feeders?
Neoden4 automatic pick & place system with vision, special version with
conveyor for pcb, incl built-in pc with monitor, keyboard and mouse, preinstalled
software, 5-lane vibratory stick feeder (2x8, 1x14, 2x16 pin SO), tray
holder, 8 tape feeders (5x8, 2x12, 1x16 mm tape) and pedestal
Accessories
NEODEN4-8 Tape Feeder 8mm 70,00
NEODEN4-12 Tape Feeder 12mm 80,00
NEODEN4-16 Tape Feeder 16mm 90,00
NEODEN4-24 Tape Feeder 24mm - available on request
Prices in EUR ex VAT from neodentech.eu
-
Heh... Was looking there yesterday, never found it or saw it. Thanks!
-
Talking to Neoden they told me that each feeder should come with a label with its address however our feeders were w/o such labels. So we need to ‘discover’ the address of each of them.
Can the end-user program the address of a feeder?
Yes, quite easily from the GUI –> System Setup -> Modify Feed ID and then a dialog window appear where can be specified the new feeder address.
So it turns that the feeders itself contain their address where the feeder-connectors are equal. This means that feeder #1 can be connected to a connector in the middle of the row and it will respond again. Even more if you have two feeders with the same address connected – both of them respond ;)
BR,
George
-
That seems pretty spendy.. You can pick up 8mm Yamaha CL feeders or about $60.00. they are not genuine yamaha feeders but pretty good and seem reliable.
What about feeders?
Neoden4 automatic pick & place system with vision, special version with
conveyor for pcb, incl built-in pc with monitor, keyboard and mouse, preinstalled
software, 5-lane vibratory stick feeder (2x8, 1x14, 2x16 pin SO), tray
holder, 8 tape feeders (5x8, 2x12, 1x16 mm tape) and pedestal
Accessories
NEODEN4-8 Tape Feeder 8mm 70,00
NEODEN4-12 Tape Feeder 12mm 80,00
NEODEN4-16 Tape Feeder 16mm 90,00
NEODEN4-24 Tape Feeder 24mm - available on request
Prices in EUR ex VAT from neodentech.eu
-
Heh... Was looking there yesterday, never found it or saw it. Thanks!
That from a quote I received from them.
-
What about feeders?
There feeder prices on the store link i mentioned before, easy to find if you sort it by price ascending, like picture below.
That seems pretty spendy.. You can pick up 8mm Yamaha CL feeders or about $60.00. they are not genuine yamaha feeders but pretty good and seem reliable.
Remember that Yamaha CL feeder is simple pneumatic feeder, no motor, no electronics - should be low in cost but will need external air compressor.
-ichan
-
The footprint definition itself is only the rectangular boundary and thickness of the component.
(http://s20.postimg.org/m3qoddprh/Footprint.jpg)
-ichan
Thanks for posting the image. Was the Footprint List displayed when the 'Footprint Library' button was pressed? Can the existing footprints be edited, and more importantly, can new custom footprints be added to the list?
Funny how alignment continues to work well even though the feeder footprint definition is left blank. Perhaps for rectangular parts the length and width are determined dynamically (based on the captured part image) if a footprint definition has not been selected. I'd be concerned that alignment may become temperamental at times without an assignment.
~John
-
Funny how alignment continues to work well even though the feeder footprint definition is left blank. Perhaps for rectangular parts the length and width are determined dynamically (based on the captured part image) if a footprint definition has not been selected. I'd be concerned that alignment may become temperamental at times without an assignment.
All you need for alignment is centre and rotation. Size will be used for things like rejecting out-of-tolerance sizes (usually a mis-pick), and deciding if a part can be imaged in one shot or needs multiple offset views to make up the whole image.
Height/thickness is more important, for placement height and also vision focus position.
-
All you need for alignment is centre and rotation. Size will be used for things like rejecting out-of-tolerance sizes (usually a mis-pick), and deciding if a part can be imaged in one shot or needs multiple offset views to make up the whole image.
Height/thickness is more important, for placement height and also vision focus position.
Ah, this is all beginning to make sense. Part boundaries are found using image processing techniques (thresholding etc.), one or more edges are best-fit to a line for use in rotational alignment and the centre is found perhaps as the average x,y of the part boundaries. The secret recipe of how all of this has been implemented in software is irrelevant for the end user, what matters is the outcome and the iterative tweaks we make to get proper centring based on those outcomes.
There is a SMT micro B USB port in my design that may fit into the oddball category. By tweaking the part height I'd expect the centre to be found reliably (if the above spiel is correct) but rotational offset may prove tricky as the part outline (see link to part drawing below, with flange) deviates from a rectangular outline. I'd likely initially set the part height so as to focus on the PCB-part interface plane and see how things turn out. Have you had experience PNPing these types of parts? Any advice/cautions would be helpful.
Link to part drawing: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/154/10118192-793027.pdf (http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/154/10118192-793027.pdf)
-
Any tweaks will be very machine specific,so it will be trial and error. Over time you will get to know how to deal with oddities
-
Another newbie question:
what's the reason why these low-end-but-machine-vision-supported PnP machines with ~50um resolution steppers w encoders typically don't claim to be able to place parts with 0.35mm pitch pads? If it's not due to XY accuracy, presumably it's the place head that cannot drop the part consistently, or is it something else?
Thanks!
-
I'm a newbie too at this but I will hazard a guess and say that it has to do with repeat-ability and margins of error. If you say you can place 0.35mm pitch then you must be able to do it, each time - every time. Maybe call it a clearance? They could probably get the machine to place a 0.35mm pitch part for a demo, but I'm glad they don't advertise it until it is reliable.
BTW; Mike, as a viewer of your channel - may I suggest that you share your experiences with PnP machines? What statistics are important (parts per hour, or percentage error or number of feeders etc). A beginners guide to pick and place is something I'm sure at least ten of us would watch ;) Full disclosure: I am in the market for one...hehe
I know you have some videos that touch on the subject and I've seen them all more than once :-+
-
They actually have 25-30um resolution, and pretty good repeatability. But there are other factors that degrade reliability of placement. First of all, accuracy of visual system might not be sufficient for smaller pitches. Second, the vibration causes parts to drift about while on the nozzle, and by the time it travels from camera to the destination it can be no longer aligned properly.
-
They actually have 25-30um resolution, and pretty good repeatability. But there are other factors that degrade reliability of placement. First of all, accuracy of visual system might not be sufficient for smaller pitches. Second, the vibration causes parts to drift about while on the nozzle, and by the time it travels from camera to the destination it can be no longer aligned properly.
OK, thanks. I figured it must be the nozzle/z-travel related. For neoden 4, I don't see how camera accuracy could be a factor, otherwise it would be useless at aligning 0201s etc.
Cheers, Tim.
-
For fine pitch parts, rotation step size becomes an issue as it needs to have enough resolution to rotate the largest part by a small enough fraction of the pitch at the outer edge
-
Thanks for posting the image. Was the Footprint List displayed when the 'Footprint Library' button was pressed? Can the existing footprints be edited, and more importantly, can new custom footprints be added to the list?
Funny how alignment continues to work well even though the feeder footprint definition is left blank. Perhaps for rectangular parts the length and width are determined dynamically (based on the captured part image) if a footprint definition has not been selected. I'd be concerned that alignment may become temperamental at times without an assignment.
YES for all three questions.
My best guess is the footprint boundary definition helps the image recognition processing not to calculate the whole image, just limited to the boundaries.
I got new software by email from Tony, will try it today.
-ichan
-
Hi.I have troubles with coordinate transformation from my data to machine.Can you send me some video how to do it ?
-
Well on my quest to procure a pnp machine I've come to china and the first of the rank to look at was the N4.
Really nice folks to talk to and they knew what they were talking about. They went straight for the hard one and ran a job using 0201s and placed a stack of them on one of those sample pcbs
It auto loaded it found the fiduicals. Fed parts imaged them and that was that. So functionally it seemed to do the job. 0402 and some .5mm QFPs all worked and I had a decent look at them
All in all this machine actually performed better than I expected
On the down side they need to tidy up the wiring. There are loops of tiny wire on those peel boxes and I can see those getting caught in load/unload operations. Also the wiring around the head is messy. It's a shame because is just stands out and makes It look silly. Now granted those peelers all work independently so the take up issues that some other machines have. The. Feeders them self seem sort of cheap. Esp when for the same price you can get a Yamaha styled machine
It's def a desktop machine and quite cute. It did rattle around a bit but still placed ok
Build wise it doesn't look as good as the YS machines Which are half the price. Will be interesting to see another two machines this week and compare
I put the N4 as a real challenger. I think the N5 ( oops did I spill the beans ) will be another advance and they will def improve on what they deliver on today. Overall I had low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised.
FYI I also showed them this blog and they were surprised at the interest. Hopefully they will post some more answers
As a company Neoden check out as legit. They have offices in several city's in china and a good nber of agents globally. Proper export licenses and a registered company. You should be ok
Well my feet are killing me after a day of slog and tommorrow it's more factroy time. Hope I can find the railway station I need to get off at!
-
AFAICS NeoDen only need to do a few things to produce a serious killer machine
Support taller parts
Auto nozzle change
Better feeders (24/32mm, easily swappable )
Some software improvements
Once they get it right, as well as having a machine that suppports low-volume users, higher volume users could consider buying multiple Neoden machines instead of a single machine form the traditional suppliers to give improved flexibility and some redundancy.
-
AFAICS NeoDen only need to do a few things to produce a serious killer machine
Support taller parts
Auto nozzle change
Better feeders (24/32mm, easily swappable )
Some software improvements
Once they get it right, as well as having a machine that suppports low-volume users, higher volume users could consider buying multiple Neoden machines instead of a single machine form the traditional suppliers to give improved flexibility and some redundancy.
The TVM920 would fit this envelope? it is about 6.5k and is made by the same people that make the cheap (2.3k euro in china TVM820).
There are several videos on youku.
No conveyor but it uses reel feeders, closed loop stepper (have this on my cnc and it is quite good!) design and looks like is is built quite good.
If the conveyor is a must have I'm sure ther is some kind of company that sells them. Just make a autohotkey script and you can do those things.
http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_tvm920?f=1&kb=040200000000000__tvm92&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9 (http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_tvm920?f=1&kb=040200000000000__tvm92&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9)
Neoden 4 with conveyor and feeders is around 9-10k euro anyway. For that price you kinda want "real" feeders.
-
AFAICS NeoDen only need to do a few things to produce a serious killer machine
Support taller parts
Auto nozzle change
Better feeders (24/32mm, easily swappable )
Some software improvements
Once they get it right, as well as having a machine that suppports low-volume users, higher volume users could consider buying multiple Neoden machines instead of a single machine form the traditional suppliers to give improved flexibility and some redundancy.
The TVM920 would fit this envelope? it is about 6.5k and is made by the same people that make the cheap (2.3k euro in china TVM820).
There are several videos on youku.
No conveyor but it uses reel feeders, closed loop stepper (have this on my cnc and it is quite good!) design and looks like is is built quite good.
If the conveyor is a must have I'm sure ther is some kind of company that sells them. Just make a autohotkey script and you can do those things.
http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_tvm920?f=1&kb=040200000000000__tvm92&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9 (http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_tvm920?f=1&kb=040200000000000__tvm92&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9&_rp=1460912858843RUDNu9)
Neoden 4 with conveyor and feeders is around 9-10k euro anyway. For that price you kinda want "real" feeders.
The main thing about the conveyor is it allows you to do longer boards automatically, though I wouldn't be surprised if the software support for this isn't ideal - it ought to be possible to give it one file with all parts and fids, and it should split it into the required sections and handle sequencing ( including prompting for nozzle changes).
-
So what they really need to do is add some script running ability or even better just convert it to openpnp or something like that.
Since automatic nozzle change and those things is really easy with those JUKI nozzles can be done really easy.
-
Hello Friends, I read the threads and find one major problem with N4 about it's feeders. So, I have one question about feeders. That, Can we place original Yamaha Feeders into N4? Is it possible? And if it is possible then can anyone provide the price for original Yamaha or Other best feeder's price (8mm, 12mm, 16mm) ??
Thanks,
-Rahul
-
Since automatic nozzle change and those things is really easy with those JUKI nozzles can be done really easy.
Do you need a special holder/adapter for this? Can you give an example or link to such autochange nozzle holder?
-
Hello Friends, I read the threads and find one major problem with N4 about it's feeders. So, I have one question about feeders. That, Can we place original Yamaha Feeders into N4? Is it possible? And if it is possible then can anyone provide the price for original Yamaha or Other best feeder's price (8mm, 12mm, 16mm) ??
Thanks,
-Rahul
I'm not saying its impossible, but it would be a *LOT* of work. The N4's feeders are electric, the Yamaha are pneumatic. The N4's are much smaller.. It would require a *LOT* of messing around.
-
Since automatic nozzle change and those things is really easy with those JUKI nozzles can be done really easy.
Do you need a special holder/adapter for this? Can you give an example or link to such autochange nozzle holder?
Just have a stationary object that goes on top op the plastic ring on the JUKI nozzle, and pull the pnp head up.
If this is not possible than a stationary object with a bit of a incline is needed so it pull's itself off.
(http://i.imgur.com/KpbuOtc.png)
-
Sorry don't understand :-// I have not an example of this mechanism can you explain in more detail?
If you look at the connection it is something similar to pressure connectors probably with rubber rings against leakage. And the eject mechanism is probably something similar as with pressure connectors or garden hose connectors that you have to mechanically pull the ring up in order to release the connector (nozzle)
So as far as I understand the holder of the nozzle needs some sort of electronic and mechanical mechanism to eject the nozzle (release) and to lock the new nozzle.
Or if the holder has a seperate second vaccuum tube connection to hold the nozzle with vacuum than there is a need for an extra controlled vaccuum valve.
Or does it not work like this?
-
Like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEghwd0IDTA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEghwd0IDTA)
-
A couple of guys on the OpenPNP user group have reverse engineered the JUKI nozzle holder. Its principle is very similar to pneumatic/hydraulic quick connects. There's a springloaded ring holding the balls in place, this ring has to be pulled back for the nozzle to eject. Here's a link to the thread (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openpnp/82hIAKQZnr0).
The Samsung CP45 nozzles (which I believe is what is being used on the N4) works in a similar manner but here the balls retaining the nozzle in the holder is held in place by rubber band instead of the metal ring so the nozzles snap in and out out of the holder with a little bit of force (not much is needed).
-
I'm not saying its impossible, but it would be a *LOT* of work. The N4's feeders are electric, the Yamaha are pneumatic. The N4's are much smaller.. It would require a *LOT* of messing around.
Thanks for the ans.,
But, My main purpose of the question was, about changing to a similar type branded feeders. So we can directly switch to a branded and reliable one....... Is it possible ?? Any other good brand was making this electrical type reliable feeders ????
-
Like this:
A great a picture shows more then thousands words :-+ Thanks, so the coupling detaches easily (auto)mechanically with a vertical pull force and attaches with a push force. Nice. Should be easy doable.
-
It's pretty clear that the nozzles in the video above, linked to by Spikee is using magnets to be held in place on the shaft, you can see the nozzle "jump" as the motorshaft moves down into the nozzle. The JUKI nozzles pictured earlier does, to my knowledge and as I wrote earlier, not release by simply pulling on them.
-
It's pretty clear that the nozzles in the video above, linked to by Spikee is using magnets to be held in place on the shaft, you can see the nozzle "jump" as the motorshaft moves down into the nozzle.
Second that.
The JUKI nozzles pictured earlier does, to my knowledge and as I wrote earlier, not release by simply pulling on them.
That depends on how the receiving end is implemented. For example on TVM802B, which uses JUKI nozzles that are on the right, there is no locking of any kind. The nozzles can be just pulled out. They are only held in place by friction created by the o-ring that goes into the little groove.
-
I'm not saying its impossible, but it would be a *LOT* of work. The N4's feeders are electric, the Yamaha are pneumatic. The N4's are much smaller.. It would require a *LOT* of messing around.
Thanks for the ans.,
But, My main purpose of the question was, about changing to a similar type branded feeders. So we can directly switch to a branded and reliable one....... Is it possible ?? Any other good brand was making this electrical type reliable feeders ????
The QiHe920 machine uses Yamaha CL feeders... THe electric ones are much more expensive and hoenstly on a machine like a N4, there is no issue with using the pneumatic.
-
We haven't used our machine for a few weeks. Built 10 panels today, ~ 5000 parts and it was pretty smooth. I believe the machine did drop one 0603 resistor, or it stayed on the nozzle and then fell off. We are slowly increasing the speed, running it at 60% now. Also further tweaking the feeders for smoother operation.
-
Neoden 4 with LED strip lights installed. Very helpful to see and doesn't effect camera.
-
:-+ Nice! Where did you put the strips?
-
They run down both sides attached to the metal frame and there is a strip that runs across the plastic cover just behind the hinge.
-
Neoden 4 with LED strip lights installed. Very helpful to see and doesn't effect camera.
:-+ It looks fantastic! Can you provide some more pictures of the details?
-
Well on my quest to procure a pnp machine I've come to china and the first of the rank to look at was the N4.
Any hint when "neoden 5" might arrive? And how did the other vendors check out?
-
Full disclosure: I am the author of OpenPnP.
If ya'll are serious about retrofitting a Neoden 4 with new software, please check out OpenPnP. OpenPnP is a working, Open Source pick and place platform that can be used for nearly any machine.
I don't know of anyone who has done a Neoden 4 retro fit with it yet, but others have done TM-240 (older Neoden machine) retros. We also recently have a Zevatech retrofit and there are numerous examples of people DIYing their own machines with OpenPnP.
Now, OpenPnP doesn't have all the features that the N4 software currently has - the biggest two being bottom vision and conveyer support. Bottom vision is my current focus and will be the next major feature release. Conveyer support is on the list but pretty far down, since few people (in the area OpenPnP usually serves) need it.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it because there's really no need to develop a new solution from scratch. OpenPnP has a completely modular model for machines and it can be adapted to run nearly anything. I personally think the N4 is a great candidate for a retro fit. It's an incredible hardware platform but it really needs better software to make it shine.
So, if anyone would like to talk about doing a retrofit of this machine with OpenPnP, please come check us out! We have an active mailing list and IRC channel which you can find at http://openpnp.org/. (http://openpnp.org/.) I will personally devote time and resources to helping make it happen.
Hi Jason,
I'm close to pulling the trigger on the neoden 4 (though wondering if neoden 5 is worth the wait, given feeder issues). If I do, are you still interested in checking one out in the flesh, with the goal of getting it to run openPNP? We won't be running it much over the summer, so if you have the time, we have the place :)
Tim.
-
Hi Tim,
I am absolutely still interested. I can't really make any guarantees since I still don't know very much about the hardware, but I'd definitely like to get my hands on it and see if we can make it work. I'll PM you and we can get into details.
Thanks,
Jason
-
I am also very interested in using the electronic feeders, has anyone got any data from the CanBus line yet for the feeders?
In order to figure out canbus commands, somone will need to monitor the canbus line, then using one feeder set it's feeder ID.
Then set it's feeder strength. Then do a pickup test. Then send me the log and I will figure out the rest :-+
-
When we collect that data we will indeed post it on this forum.
-
Questions for those that have already bought a Neoden 4 (before we pull the trigger ourselves):
Did you buy the floor-standing base or do you use it on a benchtop? If the former, is it stable without anchoring to the floor or wall?
Did you get the auto-rails (and are you happy with them)?
What accessories did you buy? Replacement nozzles? Anything else?
Also wondering if anyone has experience with their solder stenciling equipment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050)
Thanks for the feedback!
-
Also wondering if anyone has experience with their solder stenciling equipment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050)
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi
... or if not that specific printer, what *are* people getting to go with this machine? There are a couple of
similar printers out there and then the price just keeps going on up :)
Bob
-
Also wondering if anyone has experience with their solder stenciling equipment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050)
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi
... or if not that specific printer, what *are* people getting to go with this machine? There are a couple of
similar printers out there and then the price just keeps going on up :)
Bob
I physically had a good look at this printer while i was in china, and did a couple of stencil pass's with it. It well made, and with care and good operation attention you'll produce good repeatable stencilling with it.
Kind Regards.
Andrew.
-
Hey folks,
I haven't been here in a while. But we've been successfully using our Neoden 4 and have built 150 boards (3 different designs) so far and real products are going in boxes ready for customers.
But I have a question for other Neoden 4 users. Each job seems to be a bit of a pain when we are getting it set up the first time. Specifically this 4th job is the biggest yet... 247 parts and a 6"x10" board. I'm having trouble with the fiducials... they are in the corners of the board basically, and they seem to detect fine. But when I use Vision Align not all parts are centred on the camera. The ones near the top of the PCB (the end that feeds into the machine) are spot on, but the ones near the bottom image off to the right a considerable amount.
Originally this problem seemed to be due to the type / number of fiducials and where they are placed. But I'm using proper fids this time arranged near the corners of the board and STILL it's not reliable. I updated to the latest software (4.0.3.2) and it didn't improve things at all. So far this is the single most frustrating part of setting up a new job.
Does anyone have any tricks to getting this right?
-
Also wondering if anyone has experience with their solder stenciling equipment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050)
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi
... or if not that specific printer, what *are* people getting to go with this machine? There are a couple of
similar printers out there and then the price just keeps going on up :)
Bob
BTW I bought the PM3040 stencil printer so common on Aliexpress. Neoden shipped it with the machine. The smallest stencil my local house can make is 23" which requires more counterweight on the back end. I have a piece of 3/8" threaded rod that I stick on the back of the machine to put the weight further out and it works fine. I just put the two rods inside a length of CPVC tubing to hold them together. It's easily removable with no tools. The stencil printer is on a wheeled cart since it needs a lot of space when in use, but tucks away behind the machine when idle.
-
Also wondering if anyone has experience with their solder stenciling equipment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/182080963050)
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi
... or if not that specific printer, what *are* people getting to go with this machine? There are a couple of
similar printers out there and then the price just keeps going on up :)
Bob
BTW I bought the PM3040 stencil printer so common on Aliexpress. Neoden shipped it with the machine. The smallest stencil my local house can make is 23" which requires more counterweight on the back end. I have a piece of 3/8" threaded rod that I stick on the back of the machine to put the weight further out and it works fine. I just put the two rods inside a length of CPVC tubing to hold them together. It's easily removable with no tools. The stencil printer is on a wheeled cart since it needs a lot of space when in use, but tucks away behind the machine when idle.
Hi
I just went for one of the Neoden printers via their eBay store. They accepted an offer price that was very close to the numbers I had been getting on Alibaba for the other similar units. Judging by the delivery date, it's shipping air freight.
Bob
-
Thanks Bob, do let us know if it works out.
-
But I have a question for other Neoden 4 users. Each job seems to be a bit of a pain when we are getting it set up the first time. Specifically this 4th job is the biggest yet... 247 parts and a 6"x10" board. I'm having trouble with the fiducials... they are in the corners of the board basically, and they seem to detect fine. But when I use Vision Align not all parts are centred on the camera. The ones near the top of the PCB (the end that feeds into the machine) are spot on, but the ones near the bottom image off to the right a considerable amount.
No problems here if I use only 2 fiducials bottom left and top right.
-
Thanks Bob, do let us know if it works out.
Hi
Well, I just got a very nice "DHL is shipping your printer" note from Neoden. So far they are doing everything right. I should have the printer before the end of the week.
Bob
-
Alas, no Neoden 4 for us, as we need to place 0.35mm pitch connectors.
Kudos to Neoden 4 for the quick and honest reply:
Hello Mr. Tim Blanche,
Thanks for your email and inquiry about our vision PnP Machine Neoden4, after checked your attached file, we are a little pity to inform your esteemed company that maybe Neoden4 can't support this kind of components, regarding Neoden4 it can support :
Max placement height : 5mm
Available for fine-pitch of IC : More than 0.5mm
Attached file is our detail introduction of Neoden4 for your reference, and if any questions just feel free to tell us, we will do our best to help you.
Thanks a lot!
---
Kind regards!
Suntee from Neoden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Having said that, I did personaly watch the machine place 0201's which also is not it its spec sheet. You might be best to find a N4, and see what it does..
Alas, no Neoden 4 for us, as we need to place 0.35mm pitch connectors.
Kudos to Neoden 4 for the quick and honest reply:
Hello Mr. Tim Blanche,
Thanks for your email and inquiry about our vision PnP Machine Neoden4, after checked your attached file, we are a little pity to inform your esteemed company that maybe Neoden4 can't support this kind of components, regarding Neoden4 it can support :
Max placement height : 5mm
Available for fine-pitch of IC : More than 0.5mm
Attached file is our detail introduction of Neoden4 for your reference, and if any questions just feel free to tell us, we will do our best to help you.
Thanks a lot!
---
Kind regards!
Suntee from Neoden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
An issue with fine pitch is rotation accuracy - most of these machines use steppers for rotation, so probably 200 or 400 steps, which isn't enough to accurately rotate larger or fine-pitch QFPs with enough accuracy.
-
An issue with fine pitch is rotation accuracy - most of these machines use steppers for rotation, so probably 200 or 400 steps, which isn't enough to accurately rotate larger or fine-pitch QFPs with enough accuracy.
So what do the machines that can handle these parts use for rotation?
And won't the reflow process place the part correctly just as resistors that are not place 100% accurate will be placed ok due to this proces?
-
An issue with fine pitch is rotation accuracy - most of these machines use steppers for rotation, so probably 200 or 400 steps, which isn't enough to accurately rotate larger or fine-pitch QFPs with enough accuracy.
Almost certainly these machiens are using Microstepping, and at least 1:4 if not 1:8, 1:8 is about the minium to acehive the accruacy that you'll need for a large QFP ( say 14x14 or greater )..
-
An issue with fine pitch is rotation accuracy - most of these machines use steppers for rotation, so probably 200 or 400 steps, which isn't enough to accurately rotate larger or fine-pitch QFPs with enough accuracy.
So what do the machines that can handle these parts use for rotation?
And won't the reflow process place the part correctly just as resistors that are not place 100% accurate will be placed ok due to this proces?
Qfps won't self-centre as the solder area is small compared to the package area.
Say you have a big QFP 20mm wide, with 0.5mm pitch, the 0.5mm pitch represents about 2.8 degrees of rotation, and you want to be accurate to within maybe 20% of a pin width max, so that's 0.5 degrees (720 steps) absolute minimum resolution for that size, assuming no other error sources, so you should probably be aiming for more like 0.1degrees.
-
An issue with fine pitch is rotation accuracy - most of these machines use steppers for rotation, so probably 200 or 400 steps, which isn't enough to accurately rotate larger or fine-pitch QFPs with enough accuracy.
So what do the machines that can handle these parts use for rotation?
And won't the reflow process place the part correctly just as resistors that are not place 100% accurate will be placed ok due to this proces?
Qfps won't self-centre as the solder area is small compared to the package area.
Say you have a big QFP 20mm wide, with 0.5mm pitch, the 0.5mm pitch represents about 2.8 degrees of rotation, and you want to be accurate to within maybe 20% of a pin width max, so that's 0.5 degrees (720 steps) absolute minimum resolution for that size, assuming no other error sources, so you should probably be aiming for more like 0.1degrees.
So you use microstepping on good steppers, or you use a Servo motor...
-
Or a stepper with gearing/reduction
-
QFPs won't self-centre as the solder area is small compared to the package area.
Say you have a big QFP 20mm wide, with 0.5mm pitch, the 0.5mm pitch represents about 2.8 degrees of rotation, and you want to be accurate to within maybe 20% of a pin width max, so that's 0.5 degrees (720 steps) absolute minimum resolution for that size, assuming no other error sources, so you should probably be aiming for more like 0.1degrees.
Yes, that's our experience too with these hand-placed board-board connectors - they don't self-center, let along self rotate during reflow, you have to get it right during placement.
Since these connectors are small, 5.6mm from first to last pin on the long axis, or 2.8mm radius to the farthest pin assuming they are picked up in the center, then a coarser theta resolution might suffice, even for 0.35mm pitch. I've optimistically asked Neoden for their step size...
In the meantime, I'm happy to send a cut tape of these connectors to anybody with a working Neoden who's willing to do some quick tests on double sided tape ;)
-
There are mitigation strategies that the software could use to get the rotational accuracy they need for even big 0.35mm pitch if the mfrs wanted to , using standard steppers and microstepping-IE existing hardware.
...I've found some 5 phase NEMA9 (24mm) hollow shaft motors, if I can get my hands on one, I'll blog up the result. 0.72deg full steps... Less issue with unloaded vibration modes etc, more accurate microsteps bla bla bla. pricey though....
-
Thanks, I wonder if they're suitable size / drive signals to retrofit to the Neoden?
-
Does anyone know if the NeoDen4 feeders can accept cut tape? Are there any requirements for leader and trailer length? We'd be using the machine for small runs, and for pricier components full reels are unrealistic. I've looked into services like DigiReels but it limits our choice of suppliers. Thanks.
-
Does anyone know if the NeoDen 4 feeders can accept cut tape?
I've done some experiments... You can feed cut tape into the feeder but you will need to extend the peel tape about 8 inches to feed into the tape peeler. I did get it to work but did not use it in production. Plus it may have problems where the two are joined together as it goes through the tape peeler gears, so may require some help there.
Another option is use your tape as a tray. I've made a tape holder for 24mm tape, or just use double sided tape to hold the tape down, I've used that method.
Digi reel or mouse reel is really the way to go.
-
I wonder how everyone is doing with production boards on the Neoden 4? We are on our fourth run... 150 units this time. It's the biggest board so far with 248 parts, TQFP100 and a bunch of small resistor packs and things. So far the machine has been the least cooperative this time around. After it blew its fuse several times a few days ago it's been troublesome ever since... I'm assuming that's just a coincidence but thought I'd mention it anyway.
The TQFP100 part is actually placing really well, but we still get some shorts after reflow... is it common to have to touch up parts like this? Does anyone have suggestions to minimize rework?
The rest of the problems have to do mostly with pick error which seem quite frequent. I've tried different pick heights, pick delay, nozzle sizes, etc. and a few feeders are still being a pain. Specifically a Spansion flash chip that has a bit of a textured surface... I wonder if this is reducing suction. Also, CTS 1206 4x resistor packs which seem to have a bumpy epoxy surface often get a suction error. And most frustratingly the vibration feeders often fail to detect suction on even the most common SOP16 parts like 7400 series chips.
Would anyone mind sharing info about settings that they found work better for more troublesome components? I found that increasing the pick delay appears to give more time for suction to increase before sensing. Also, when using Neoden's recommended nozzle sizes for larger parts they just don't work. I often get pickup error and have moved to the second smallest nozzle on most parts like small SOP ICs and the like. The smallest nozzle seems to work great on 0603, 1206, SOT23, etc. parts and we rarely have problems with these.
Oh, and I should mention that two feeders have started acting up this week. One 8mm feeder just died and wouldn't respond to the system anymore... Neoden sent me a replacement for it. And just today a 16mm feeder stopped feeding. It makes a noise but the tape doesn't advance. Unfortunately the software doesn't let you skip a part when there is an error, so if you can make a feeder work you have to just cancel the run and start it where you left off later.
-
Fuse: According to Neoden For 110vac you should use 5 amp fuse. Ours was shipped with a 2 amp
If it picks and gives error try -20 vacuum level detect, had to do that on some of our parts, no more retries. I actually started using that value on all the parts instead of the default -40 or -50
We ran 8000 parts last friday. Only intervention required was when a reel got stuck, that was a quick fix.
Also had one part which wasn't placed accurately, it appears part moves on nozzle from the aggressive acceleration, so we used a slower speed on that part, which solved the problem.
-
If you are getting shorts on your TQFP's and they are placed well, then i'd almost certianly look at your solder pasting..
I reduce the apatures on a TQFP to 70%, ( the solder paste window vs the pad side ).. Have you done that? Also check are you getting good gasketing on the board from teh stencil..
-
but we still get some shorts after reflow
It's very likely your paste is too much on the pads. Even with hand stenciling and hand pick and place, I don't have shorts even with 0.5 mm pitch TQFP.
Usually for less crucial parts, I left the paste opening at -5% only with 0.125 mm stencil thickness.
-
Stencil thickness coudl be part of the issue as well.
-
I have a few basic questions about the neoden4.
#1: Are the x and y motions driven by DC brushed motors, DC brushless motors, steppers or some other type?
#2: How is x and y position detected (linear optical encoders, rotary optical encoders, open-loop via steppers, other)?
#3: Are there any SMT components the neoden4 cannot place? I'm not much worried about components with coarse pitch that can be placed manually, but I'd like to know about them too.
#4: Do any thorough reviews exist?
#5: What other relatively inexpensive PnP machines are available that can accurately place 0201 components and QFNs and such with 0.30mm to 0.50mm pitch?
#6: Before I saw this machine, I was seriously considering a dmmnovastar LE40V, but that costs 3~4 times as much. Can anyone compare the neoden4 with the LE40V, or mention alternatives to the LE40V that are better and cheaper (and can handle 0201 or smaller)?
#7: Are there any inexpensive (sub $50K) "solderpaste-jet" printers available or in the works (or rumor mill)?
Thanks in advance for answers.
-
I have a few basic questions about the neoden4.
#1: Are the x and y motions driven by DC brushed motors, DC brushless motors, steppers or some other type?
#2: How is x and y position detected (linear optical encoders, rotary optical encoders, open-loop via steppers, other)?
Open-loop stepper I think
#3: Are there any SMT components the neoden4 cannot place? I'm not much worried about components with coarse pitch that can be placed manually, but I'd like to know about them too.
Tall parts - don't recall the limit but it's mentioned somewhere here
#4: Do any thorough reviews exist?
I think this thread is the most comprehensive source of info from users
#5: What other relatively inexpensive PnP machines are available that can accurately place 0201 components and QFNs and such with 0.30mm to 0.50mm pitch?
I think these parts are at the edge of the capabilities of all the cheaper machines - I think SmallSMT was claiming to be able to do 0201
#7: Are there any inexpensive (sub $50K) "solderpaste-jet" printers available or in the works (or rumor mill)?
Doubt it - I don't think there would be enough market for something like that - you can buy an awful lot of stencils for $50K
AIUI the Mydata is well into 6 figures, mostly used by assemblers with high mix, and/or special requirements like package on package and variable paste thickness, i.e. people who don't have any other realistic option.
-
Thanks for the info about paste.... both paste application and the reflow oven are areas that I initially underestimated. I think I was more enamoured by the idea of robots making boards. (it still is cool every time it's running) With paste I think careful adjustment of the stencil printing jig to properly support the board at the right height is critical. Also, the mixing and condition of the paste is something I've been trying to assess. When is it time to change the paste? It does end up sitting out for periods of time on the end of the squeegee while waiting for the next board to be ready.
As for bootstrap's questions:
- The machine has steppers with optical homing switches. So far we haven't found any problem with losing steps, but the motors are quite noisy.
- As for large parts, I am placing some 6mm inductors directly from 16mm tape... they are probably the most heavy / chunky parts and with proper tuning of the settings are working okay.
- For stencils: buy a stencil printer jig and find a local vendor near you that makes stencils. We found two in our area and chose one of them that had more responsive service. They charge $240 CAD shipped to our door and even let us put multiple designs on the same stencil for no extra charge.
- Parts that the machine cannot place would basically be stuff that you can't feed easily. - Tapes >16mm (although Neoden can make custom 24mm feeders for you) and probably some types of tube parts unless you modify the vibration feeder mouthpiece plate. Keep in mind that a bit of hand placement is not really the end of the world. We have an SMT crystal that we are placing by hand right now and it takes about as long as the machine to do it by hand.
Another thought about machine limitations... every process has limits even at the big PCBAs... you pay more for access to the best tech. But in engineering like in art, limitation is a form of inspiration... there are usually multiple ways to solve a problem and you get more creative when you can't use everything. If you're trying to make an iPhone then you probably have Apple-sized budgets for your processes. But if you're doing what most small shops are doing that need their own lost cost PNP machine, I'd bet there are options in how you design your board. And surely whatever you can place with the Neoden 4 will work even better on the next generation of machine. I've standardized on 0603 for most passives, and feel confident using pretty much any IC down to 0.5mm pitch or so. I have avoided QFN and BGA for now, but would probably try them if needed after getting to know our workflow a bit better.
BTW I wouldn't recommend Neoden 4 as a good machine for a mini PCBA job shop. It's great if you have full control over the entire design / build process though.
-
Thanks for the info about paste.... both paste application and the reflow oven are areas that I initially underestimated.'
Dont' worry, you wont' be the first.. Myself included. Everything else is dependant on the paste process. If you cant' get that right, you are stuffed. If you are getting tombstones, its probalby because your paste is wrong. if you are getting shorts, its probalby because your paste is wrong.. and so on and so on..
I think I was more enamoured by the idea of robots making boards. (it still is cool every time it's running) With paste I think careful adjustment of the stencil printing jig to properly support the board at the right height is critical
Absolutely..
. Also, the mixing and condition of the paste is something I've been trying to assess. When is it time to change the paste? It does end up sitting out for periods of time on the end of the squeegee while waiting for the next board to be ready
Check the paste manufacturers data sheets.. Having it at the right temp makes a big difference.. you can just pull it out of the fridge and start printing.. The stuff i use is suppoably good for 8 hours, but i've never left it sitting around that long..
-
Reply to mikeselectricstuff and elmood:
I don't really know how to reply properly (with included quotes), so I won't try.
#1/#2: Open loop steppers: OUCH. That makes backlash in the x,y drive mechanics a potential problem, as well as bends and warps in the general mechanics. If they're smart they can attempt to compensate for backlash with clever software. For example, if they know where the nozzle is over the camera, and they know where the final placement location will be, they can step the motors several steps (maximum backlash distance) towards the final placement position before they stop to take a photo of the part. MAYBE (depends on how this might interact with PCB reference marks).
#3: Tall parts: Probably any part over a few millimeters high can be placed well enough by hand.
#4: Reviews: Can you (or anyone) who has experience working with pick and place machines try to estimate the real world practical differences between having one of these machines ($12K with some feeders) and the ddmnovastar LE40V machine ($35K with some feeders): http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/le-40v-pick-and-place-equipment-with-vision (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/le-40v-pick-and-place-equipment-with-vision))?
#5: Competition: The smallSMT machine with servos appears to cost about $12K with some feeders, which is roughly the same as the neoden4. They do have some smaller stepper-motor machines, but I doubt I'd trust them. Also, they claim they support only as small as 0402 and I need to support 0201 or smaller (required for some of my BGA components that I need, which means I'm sure to run into this same requirement in the future). I'm not sure why the servo-based machines are not accurate enough, unless it is what seems like the classic silly mistake that cheap pick and place machine designers make (200 step stepper to rotate parts on nozzle).
Do you know whether the smallSMT machines with servo-motors have linear encoders on the x,y slides, or just rotary encoders on the lead-screw shaft (which still leaves the backlash problem)?
Requirements: I absolutely need to place 0201 discrete components and 0.50mm BGAs and QFNs (and maybe 0.30mm later on). On the other hand, I do not need speed, as I'm only need to build small batches of prototypes and demos units (at the moment, anyway).
#7: Solder Paste: A couple people I've communicated with claim most of their defective PCBs are due to imperfect solder-paste application. That has made me strongly consider what I consider outrageously expensive automatic stencil printers like these:
A: SPR-45: http://www.ddmnovastar.com/stencil-printers/automated-systems/spr-45-stencil-printer (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/stencil-printers/automated-systems/spr-45-stencil-printer)
B: SPR-45A: http://www.ddmnovastar.com/stencil-printers/automated-systems/spr-45va-stencil-printer (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/stencil-printers/automated-systems/spr-45va-stencil-printer)
What do other folks who have assembled SMT PCBs with 0201 and 0.30mm~0.50mm pitch BGA/QFN/etc think about this topic and these stencil printers? Please point me to better value/quality stencil printers.
#8: Reflow Oven: They also said a good reflow oven is important, especially for lead-free which I probably need to adopt. I've been looking at the following two products but also anxious to hear about experiences from other folks and learn about alternative products. The price of the A unit below was something like $9000 last I checked (a couple years ago), and I'm sure the second one is at least $3K more (but never asked price).
A: GF-12HT: http://www.ddmnovastar.com/reflow-ovens/low-volume/gf-12ht-benchtop-reflow-oven (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/reflow-ovens/low-volume/gf-12ht-benchtop-reflow-oven)
B: GF-120HT: http://www.ddmnovastar.com/reflow-ovens/low-volume/gf-120ht-reflow-oven (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/reflow-ovens/low-volume/gf-120ht-reflow-oven)
Costs: I try to avoid "false savings". In other words, I'd rather spend more up front for good equipment than find out my total costs are more for cheap equipment due to rejects, rework, debugging and other costs associated with lowering initial costs. If I buy all this ddmnovastar equipment mentioned above, I'm probably looking at somewhere between $60K before shipping. If anyone has suggestions for better value/quality equipment, let me know.
Collaboration: I like the idea of collaboration, both the "sharing expenses" part as well as the benefits of brainstorming that come with collaboration. So if anyone wants or needs to assemble fine-pitch PCBs and might want to collaborate on this equipment, let me know. Since I tend to bounce between (Maui, Hawaii), (LasVegas, Nevada) and (Atacama, Chile), the equipment would probably need to be located in one of those places. I have a fair amount of test equipment and "related junk" (like 4-channel 5-gigasample oscope), so we should be able to have a pretty nice development lab. In fact, I'm also thinking about maybe opening the lab up as a "advanced/high-end private hackerspace/makerspace", but have only visited a couple of these places and they are way, way, way too "low-end" for what I do. I'm not so much thinking of charging for membership as setting up a place for serious, advanced, experienced developers like me where more-or-less we all bring are great stuff for everyone to benefit from. Or something like that. Any comments along these lines will also be appreciated. Note: I've been developing hardware, software, optical and other advanced technologies for many years, but I've never collaborated, never been particularly social, and from my limited checks, kind of doubt there are very many advanced developers out there that haven't started formal companies. In my case, I've always worked from home to keep expenses down (though I have had a partner or two on a few projects in the past).
Other equipment: What else do I need for a complete assembly setup? How about cleaning the PCBs after assembly? I have a pretty good (~$500) stereo microscope, hot-air soldering iron and I forget what else, but it has been a while since I assembled PCBs (been doing mostly software for a few years), and now need to dive head first into PCBs with SMTs. We are now FAR past the point where high-performance through-hole parts are available, and pretty much everything I make is (and always has been) fairly-to-very high-performance.
How I design: Unfortunately, I don't design PCBs that look much like what I see on most electronics web-sites. It seems I always design things that need to be "too complex" or "too small" or "too fast". For example, one project is to create a high-speed, high-resolution robotics vision system camera that have a lot of fast components, FPGA, 10 gigabit per second ethernet interface. In fact, an advanced version of that camera may have an 8/16-core AMD Zen CPU plus all components necessary to make a working embedded linux system. And that board (and the camera board) need to be SMALL. That's just the way things go with me! OTOH, I'll be needing to make some simpler stuff in the near future too, like an advanced H-bridge DC servo motor controller for [brushed] pancake motors, DC-to-DC converters (for power supply voltages), and some other fairly straight-forward stuff. But they all end up being at least a little bit advanced in some way or other, even if only because they are made as tiny as possible. Incidentally, seems like most of my PCB designs are 8-layer PCBs, though I do have a couple 6-layer PCBs and might in the future too. But knowing how things go with me, I may not be able to constrain myself to 8-layers someday in the future.
Thanks to everyone who helps me dive head first into the world of fine-pitch SMT.
-
For 0201's and 0.5mm BGA's I think you should look for something other then the Neoden4. Consider spending real money, not buying one of the cheap machines. The Neoden4 is actually pretty capable when dialed in and you figure out the software oddities etc but really doubt you'd get the results you want with it.
-
- For stencils: buy a stencil printer jig and find a local vendor near you that makes stencils. We found two in our area and chose one of them that had more responsive service. They charge $240 CAD shipped to our door and even let us put multiple designs on the same stencil for no extra charge.
Wow, i pay about $40 for a very well laser cut, electroformed framed stencil and another $30 to get it here. ( $USD70 ).. and they just make it per the gerber i send them, so they dont' care whats on it. Most PCB houses will now do this as a stndard service, so the stencil arrives at the same time as the pcbs..
-
For 0201's and 0.5mm BGA's I think you should look for something other then the Neoden4. Consider spending real money, not buying one of the cheap machines. The Neoden4 is actually pretty capable when dialed in and you figure out the software oddities etc but really doubt you'd get the results you want with it.
Thanks. Do you have a neoden4 or work with pick and place machines? I'm just curious what your reasons are for giving this advice.
-
Thanks. Do you have a neoden4 or work with pick and place machines? I'm just curious what your reasons are for giving this advice.
It's best for you to read through the 40 pages of the thread then you will notice who owns a unit.
Wow, i pay about $40 for a very well laser cut, electroformed framed stencil and another $30 to get it here. ( $USD70 )
Got mine laser cut 47 cm x 37 cm framed, 0.12 mm thickness, laser cut USD15 shipped from China to here. Yes, shipping included!
Stencil usually take few hours to make but the shipping take like 4-6 days. You can add as many design into stencil as long it fits.
They do help to modify the opening if they think it is necessary.
Can't complain for the price.
-
Wow, i pay about $40 for a very well laser cut, electroformed framed stencil and another $30 to get it here. ( $USD70 )
Got mine laser cut 47 cm x 37 cm framed, 0.12 mm thickness, laser cut USD15 shipped from China to here. Yes, shipping included!
Stencil usually take few hours to make but the shipping take like 4-6 days. You can add as many design into stencil as long it fits.
They do help to modify the opening if they think it is necessary.
Can't complain for the price.
It's because you buy cheap mechanically polished stencil with a slow shipping. mrpackethead gets much better quality stencil in a few days with dhl.
It's best for you to read through the 40 pages of the thread then you will notice who owns a unit.
Yeah, spend half a day just to know who has neoden4, very productive time spending.
-
Reply to mikeselectricstuff and elmood:
#1/#2: Open loop steppers: OUCH. That makes backlash in the x,y drive mechanics a potential problem, as well as bends and warps in the general mechanics. If they're smart they can attempt to compensate for backlash with clever software. For example, if they know where the nozzle is over the camera, and they know where the final placement location will be, they can step the motors several steps (maximum backlash distance) towards the final placement position before they stop to take a photo of the part. MAYBE (depends on how this might interact with PCB reference marks).
You get what you pay for. You mustn't forget these machines are maybe a tenth or less the cost of anything you could buy a very few years ago.
They are creating a new market that simply didn't exist before - low cost, low(er) performance
You want sub-micron servos and granite bases, talk to Mydata, Juki, Essemtech etc. and bend over.
#3: Tall parts: Probably any part over a few millimeters high can be placed well enough by hand.
Unless you have a large number of them on the board. IMO this is one of the less necessary shortcomings of the Chinese machines.
#5: Competition: The smallSMT machine with servos appears to cost about $12K with some feeders, which is roughly the same as the neoden4. They do have some smaller stepper-motor machines, but I doubt I'd trust them. Also, they claim they support only as small as 0402 and I need to support 0201 or smaller (required for some of my BGA components that I need, which means I'm sure to run into this same requirement in the future). I'm not sure why the servo-based machines are not accurate enough, unless it is what seems like the classic silly mistake that cheap pick and place machine designers make (200 step stepper to rotate parts on nozzle).
Small parts are not just about placement accuracy - things like feeder performance become increasingly important - parts not bouncing out. Also nozzle design and vision becomes harder.
Stuff like 0201s are still regarded as a bit exotoc by many assembly houses - Chinese are aiming at a higher volume market than the big guys, I'm not sure we'll ever see parts that small being supported on cheaper machines.
Requirements: I absolutely need to place 0201 discrete components and 0.50mm BGAs and QFNs (and maybe 0.30mm later on). On the other hand, I do not need speed, as I'm only need to build small batches of prototypes and demos units (at the moment, anyway).
In which case I suggest you increase your budget or spend time looking for a good subcontractor with a high end machine.
Not needing speed isn't really going to save much money as most of the market for tiny parts is for high volume users, so there isn't enough market for a machine with high accuracy but low speed for anyone to put in the R&D to make something that can do it with a high degree of reliability.
#7: Solder Paste: A couple people I've communicated with claim most of their defective PCBs are due to imperfect solder-paste application.
Absolutely - paste quality is the biggest factor in final board quality.
-
"#1/#2: Open loop steppers: OUCH. That makes backlash in the x,y drive mechanics a potential problem, as well as bends and warps in the general mechanics. If they're smart they can attempt to compensate for backlash with clever software. For example, if they know where the nozzle is over the camera, and they know where the final placement location will be, they can step the motors several steps (maximum backlash distance) towards the final placement position before they stop to take a photo of the part. MAYBE (depends on how this might interact with PCB reference marks)."
Nothing wrong with open loop if it is done properly.....
backlash. where is backlash ? there are no meshed gears and 2mm pitch belt is pretty good. or ballscrews. backlash you can barely measure.....
If you are designing for a board full of 0201s then IMO you are in a expensive league, and you will wear it.
it's the same reason I don't design with 0.3mm BGAs nor more than a couple (hand placed) 0201 per board. You put yourself into an expensive arena with that sort of construction. When a customer says to me "How small can I make it " . I reply "How much money do you have ?"
I'd suggest one of SmallSMTs ballscrew machines. try it. get one to evaluate. Only USD10k, if you have a board full of 0201s then the reality is your budget should be OK with that. it *may* do the job.
-
"#1/#2: Open loop steppers: OUCH. That makes backlash in the x,y drive mechanics a potential problem, as well as bends and warps in the general mechanics. If they're smart they can attempt to compensate for backlash with clever software. For example, if they know where the nozzle is over the camera, and they know where the final placement location will be, they can step the motors several steps (maximum backlash distance) towards the final placement position before they stop to take a photo of the part. MAYBE (depends on how this might interact with PCB reference marks)."
Nothing wrong with open loop if it is done properly.....
backlash. where is backlash ? there are no meshed gears and 2mm pitch belt is pretty good. or ballscrews. backlash you can barely measure.....
If you are designing for a board full of 0201s then IMO you are in a expensive league, and you will wear it.
it's the same reason I don't design with 0.3mm BGAs nor more than a couple (hand placed) 0201 per board. You put yourself into an expensive arena with that sort of construction. When a customer says to me "How small can I make it " . I reply "How much money do you have ?"
I'd suggest one of SmallSMTs ballscrew machines. try it. get one to evaluate. Only USD10k, if you have a board full of 0201s then the reality is your budget should be OK with that. it *may* do the job.
Once you're down to this level it becomes more like a game of statistics - to make a machine that will place small parts with a high reliability level gets expensive, and needs a lot of testing and refinement - cheaper machines may do it, most of the time, on a good day, but the manufacturers aren't going to guarantee it. Do you feel lucky?
-
#1/#2: Open loop steppers: OUCH. That makes backlash in the x,y drive mechanics a potential problem, as well as bends and warps in the general mechanics. If they're smart they can attempt to compensate for backlash with clever software. For example, if they know where the nozzle is over the camera, and they know where the final placement location will be, they can step the motors several steps (maximum backlash distance) towards the final placement position before they stop to take a photo of the part. MAYBE (depends on how this might interact with PCB Actually having watched one in depth and watch it place parts i'n doubt its missing any steps and it certainly seems to be mataining it over placement over several hundred parts.
#4: Reviews: Can you (or anyone) who has experience working with pick and place machines try to estimate the real world practical differences between having one of these machines ($12K with some feeders) and the ddmnovastar LE40V machine ($35K with some feeders): http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/le-40v-pick-and-place-equipment-with-vision (http://www.ddmnovastar.com/pick-and-place/automated-systems/le-40v-pick-and-place-equipment-with-vision))?
This is a low cost machine that is in a different class from a production machine. You get what you pay for.. Mostly the issues are with the feeder system and the software. The actual placement is not too bad. I watched it place 0201's and it got most of them right.
#5: Competition: The smallSMT machine with servos appears to cost about $12K with some feeders, which is roughly the same as the neoden4.
you can buy the same machine in china on tabao for a whole lot less than that. The servos are actually closed loop steppers so the use of the word 'servo' is true ( steppers are servos ) but its not whats commonly thought of. The feeder system on these machines is what really lets them down.
They do have some smaller stepper-motor machines, but I doubt I'd trust them. Also, they claim they support only as small as 0402 and I need to support 0201 or smaller (required for some of my BGA components that I need, which means I'm sure to run into this same requirement in the future). I'm not sure why the servo-based machines are not accurate enough, unless it is what seems like the classic silly mistake that cheap pick and place machine designers make (200 step stepper to rotate parts on nozzle).
#7: Solder Paste: A couple people I've communicated with claim most of their defective PCBs are due to imperfect solder-paste application. That has made me strongly consider what I consider outrageously expensive automatic stencil printers like these:
Solder paste is the root of so many issues. But with a bit of practice and knowhow a $30 stencil and a $500 manual printer will do a very good job time after time. I'm doing fine pitched QFN's ( 0.4mm ) and 0201 this way. But like learning to solder with an iron, it requires some effort to learn.
#8: Reflow Oven: They also said a good reflow oven is important, especially for lead-free which I probably need to adopt. I've been looking at the following two products but also anxious to hear about experiences from other folks and learn about alternative products. The price of the A unit below was something like $9000 last I checked (a couple years ago), and I'm sure the second one is at least $3K more (but never asked price).
I have a great multizone oven in the factory.. I also have a converted toaster oven.. Honestly for doing 1offs, the toaster oven with the spark fun kit does just a good a job.. and its ready instantly to use.
osts:[/b] I try to avoid "false savings". In other words, I'd rather spend more up front for good equipment than find out my total costs are more for cheap equipment due to rejects, rework, debugging and other costs associated with lowering initial costs. If I buy all this ddmnovastar equipment mentioned above, I'm probably looking at somewhere between $60K before shipping. If anyone has suggestions for better value/quality equipment, let me know.
I've been doing this game for quite some years now, and i have a variety of gear. You can build great boards with nothing more than a pair of $5 tweezers and a frying pan. It takes a lot of time, but it can be done. I've also seen absolutely terrible results from million dollar lines made when people don't know what they are doing. Good equipment does not guarantee good results. My best advise to you is that i've you've had little or no experience in this stuff, find someone who has to help you out.. Otherwise you're just going to face frustration and not get the job your looking done.
Other equipment: What else do I need for a complete assembly setup? How about cleaning the PCBs after assembly? I have a pretty good (~$500) stereo microscope, hot-air soldering iron and I forget what else, but it has been a while since I assembled PCBs (been doing mostly software for a few years), and now need to dive head first into PCBs with SMTs. We are now FAR past the point where high-performance through-hole parts are available, and pretty much everything I make is (and always has been) fairly-to-very high-performance.
From what i read, here, my advise is that you might be better of using a service like macrofab in Dallas. They do outstanding work, will save you a lot of time and money.. and its relatively easy to use.
-
Once you're down to this level it becomes more like a game of statistics - to make a machine that will place small parts with a high reliability level gets expensive, and needs a lot of testing and refinement - cheaper machines may do it, most of the time, on a good day, but the manufacturers aren't going to guarantee it. Do you feel lucky?
I watched the N4 place 100 odd 0201's.. it did about 98 of them properly... Is that good enough?
-
Once you're down to this level it becomes more like a game of statistics - to make a machine that will place small parts with a high reliability level gets expensive, and needs a lot of testing and refinement - cheaper machines may do it, most of the time, on a good day, but the manufacturers aren't going to guarantee it. Do you feel lucky?
I watched the N4 place 100 odd 0201's.. it did about 98 of them properly... Is that good enough?
Not really, if you are looking to buy a machine that needs to do them.
With that error rate, how can you have any confidence that the next board might be 98% or 50% or 0% unless you completely understand the reasons for the problems.
My machine will do 0402s on a good day but I'd only do it for my own stuff, not a customer job as it's really hit & miss whether it will do it OK, or will need most of teh parts nudging.
-
Once you're down to this level it becomes more like a game of statistics - to make a machine that will place small parts with a high reliability level gets expensive, and needs a lot of testing and refinement - cheaper machines may do it, most of the time, on a good day, but the manufacturers aren't going to guarantee it. Do you feel lucky?
I watched the N4 place 100 odd 0201's.. it did about 98 of them properly... Is that good enough?
Not really, if you are looking to buy a machine that needs to do them.
With that error rate, how can you have any confidence that the next board might be 98% or 50% or 0% unless you completely understand the reasons for the problems.
My machine will do 0402s on a good day but I'd only do it for my own stuff, not a customer job as it's really hit & miss whether it will do it OK, or will need most of teh parts nudging.
in deed it means *every* board is a failure!
-
And of course pick position becomes increasingly important for smaller parts - you can pick a larger part pretty much anywhere on its surface and the position will be corrected by vision, but as the part size reduces, consistent positioning accuracy of your feeder becomes increasingly critical.
It is possible to fine-tune the pick position over a number of pics by looking at the offsets when visioning, but this only practical when the offset is consistent from part to part.
-
And of course pick position becomes increasingly important for smaller parts - you can pick a larger part pretty much anywhere on its surface and the position will be corrected by vision, but as the part size reduces, consistent positioning accuracy of your feeder becomes increasingly critical.
It is possible to fine-tune the pick position over a number of pics by looking at the offsets when visioning, but this only practical when the offset is consistent from part to part.
That's interesting. So you're saying reels are designed such that component centers are exactly across from sprocket holes (or some other fixed relationship to the sprocket holes and tape edges)? I guess that's one way to do it. Another would be to have a camera on the pickup head (right next to the pickup nozzles). Since the center of the camera field and centers of the nozzles should be fixed distances, that should assure every component is picked up very close to its center. But I guess when they design these machines, they try to minimize parts. These days fairly high-rez cameras are rather cheap, so maybe the tradeoff is different than when most mainstream pick and place machines were built.
This raises another point. If a pick and place machine did have such a camera, the fixed relationship I just described could be a way to place parts super precisely even on not very precise mechanics. How? After the machine picks up the parts off the tape, it moves over an up-looking camera which flashes and takes a photo of the part/parts on the nozzle/nozzles, then slews to where the down-looking camera on the place-head is looking at the pads on the PCB where the part belongs, then centers itself exactly. Then it only needs to move a known short distance in x and/or y to put the component over the pads. Obviously this is one extra step for every part (look down at the pads on the PCB), but it should assure perfect placement of every part, every time. If having zero errors is as important as many people say it is, the machine could also look at the placed parts on the PCB to make sure they are really there (and didn't fall off or fail to be picked up or something). This step is probably more efficient to perform for the whole PCB after all parts are placed.
About your question "do I feel lucky"?
Well, that's an interesting question! If I'm paying $10K for high-quality automatic stencil printer and another $10K for an adequate oven, the final question is whether to spend ~$12K or ~$40K for the pick and place machine (for a total of $32K or $60K.
If you look at it your way (as a "gamble"), there are three possibilities:
$32K - neoden4 plus novastar oven and stencil printer
$60K - novastar LE40V plus novastar oven and stencil printer
$72K - neoden4 plus novastar LE40V plus novastar oven and stencil printer
The last would happen if I tried to spend $32K and the neoden4 wasn't up to my requirements. In other words, that's what happens if I start with the $32K neoden4 option, then had to upgrade. Actually, maybe I could get $6K or $8K for the "barely used neoden4" if I had to upgrade, which would make the last option more like $65K.
Actually, I left out the "very cheap" option that I have no idea about yet because nobody here has given me any guidance about yet. That would be a possibility if people can show me quality, reliable stencil printer and oven that aren't so expensive. I definitely know I'm not going with a "toaster oven", but perhaps there are some quality ovens and stencil printers for $5K each or so. In which case the cheapest package would be more like $20K~$25K instead of $32K.
Or I could design and build my own pick and place machine. They are rather fascinating beasts. But I'd really rather not, because I have other projects I want to complete. An added irony is, some of those projects would be excellent components for a precision pick-and-place machine (servo controller/driver with encoder inputs and robotics vision system camera at the very least).
-----
One more question. I assume there is a very significant difference in consequences for different types of assembly errors. For example, if a part fails to place, a review of the PCB under a stereo microscope will catch that. Actually, this could and should be done by the pick-and-place machine with the down-looking camera! Is it? If not, why not? If a part is placed so poorly that the review under the microscope will catch it, that error can be fixed manually.
I assume the really huge disaster is when a part is placed in a way or position that smears solder-paste in a manner that causes either a short or open, but is not obvious before the PCB is run through the oven. What other assembly problems cause PCBs to not function?
-----
Oh, at least some of my PCB designs need to have components on both sides. Is there anything I need to know about the pick-and-place machine or stencil printer or assembly process? For example, are the components soldered on one side first, then run back through the stencil-printer, pick-and-place and oven a second time for the other side? Seems like that's the only way that works... or am I missing something?
-
Mr Bootstrap
you said
" An added irony is, some of those projects would be excellent components for a precision pick-and-place machine (servo controller/driver with encoder inputs and robotics vision system camera at the very least)."
You are clearly inexperienced with all aspects of this stuff- but making wild claims.... especially your belief that servos and closed loop is required. If this is from your own experience, your implementations have been flawed.
I'd suggest you go and read the following forums end to end, yes all 20 to 40 pages on eevblog
:
Neoden 4 forum
smallSMT forum
TVM 802B forum
and then go into say the DIY cnc forums and see what those guys are doing with regards to accuracy and precision and what they're using.
then go and consult all the tech manuals of all the mfrs of belts, belt drives, ballscrews, linear guideways.....
and then go and do the numbers on exactly what is required. You'll find if local datums are used and sensible motion practices are used, it is not a difficult job considering that the placement head requires no dynamic accuracy , only static.
You seem fascinated by needing closed loop and servos when the reality is, depending on the choices you make and the speed this may be entirely unnecessary (or indeed entirely necessary ) if you understand the technology rather than... guessing.
I'm actually suspect of your motives in this forum. Can you let us know if you work for a high end manufacturer?
-
...
It's very likely your paste is too much on the pads. Even with hand stenciling and hand pick and place, I don't have shorts even with 0.5 mm pitch TQFP.
Usually for less crucial parts, I left the paste opening at -5% only with 0.125 mm stencil thickness.
with these sizes I still get shorts.
Now I'm using -10% and 0.08 to max 0.1mm thickness, and no more shorts.
The other improvement was using another solder paste. Now the Loctite GC10 works very well.
-
Saleae logic tried to do in house assembly of many 0201 components in house with a brand name 60K pick and place and dit not have good luck with that (see blog posts / their theamphour episode).
Doing 0201 reliably could be possible if the software was more advice. But it is not.
Backslash and things like that can be compensated for is software without much issue. And than you are not even using the vision as additional compensation.
Feeding / pickup issues can also be detected in hardware or in software (via vision). Did the pickup for 0201 passive not work? , just let the feeder peel another part, let the vision detect the position and pick it up.
One weird idea that came up in my head is:
Get it to scan the whole (empty) pcb and make a high detail stitched image of it. The idea of that is so real time vision positioning could be used instead of purely relying on mechanical accuracy. ... or just get it to quickly re-calibrate via fiducials every time you want to place a very small component.
Having a good camera that that can autofocus / has good resolution is key in that case.
or even fancier add more camera's to the head (for example one in each corner) and do a full (realtime) stitched image. In this way you can calibrate the offset for each part using all the fiducials on your board without doing additional movement or even loose placing speed. (assuming you can see the whole board with those four camera's (or just use ... more fiducials))
In other words if you have good vision / software you do not need super expensive fancy closed loop servo systems with glass encoders and exotic granite pnp bases.
-
Mr Bootstrap
you said
" An added irony is, some of those projects would be excellent components for a precision pick-and-place machine (servo controller/driver with encoder inputs and robotics vision system camera at the very least)."
You are clearly inexperienced with all aspects of this stuff- but making wild claims.... especially your belief that servos and closed loop is required. If this is from your own experience, your implementations have been flawed.
I'd suggest you go and read the following forums end to end, yes all 20 to 40 pages on eevblog
:
Neoden 4 forum
smallSMT forum
TVM 802B forum
and then go into say the DIY cnc forums and see what those guys are doing with regards to accuracy and precision and what they're using.
then go and consult all the tech manuals of all the mfrs of belts, belt drives, ballscrews, linear guideways.....
and then go and do the numbers on exactly what is required. You'll find if local datums are used and sensible motion practices are used, it is not a difficult job considering that the placement head requires no dynamic accuracy , only static.
You seem fascinated by needing closed loop and servos when the reality is, depending on the choices you make and the speed this may be entirely unnecessary (or indeed entirely necessary ) if you understand the technology rather than... guessing.
I'm actually suspect of your motives in this forum. Can you let us know if you work for a high end manufacturer?
You don't know me, so don't pretend you do. I'm perfectly happy to freely admit my weaknesses, so if you want to know something, just ask (don't assume).
I've created a number of precision mechanical systems in the past, including advanced automated telescopes that have to do some rather amazing things very precisely (I'm sure you realize the earth rotates, so both satellites and astronomical objects in the sky are constantly moving, and need to be acquired and tracked precisely if they're being photographed... sometimes for hour+ exposures). So I understand precision mechanical systems, and I've created both open-loop stepper and closed-loop servo systems before (often with DC brushed "pancake motors").
So I've been though the issue of backlash many, many, many times in a great many devices. Which means I'm aware of the problem that backlash is, and also various methods to compensate for backlash. However, there are several things going on in pick-and-place machines, and they interact with each other, so the consequences of an open-loop system on a pick-and-place system isn't definitive or necessarily immediately obvious. For one, you need to know the mechanical design of the specific pick-and-place machine, plus what factors it depends upon (far beyond just the reference marks on the PCB).
I already have thousands of PDF spec sheets on all the mechanical components you mentioned, plus many other kinds of components, plus numerous articles, and so forth. In fact, I've been designing and building devices with the mechanical components you mention for decades.
If you think it is possible to make a final and definitive statement about whether what I need can or cannot be done with an open-loop system, then I can answer that from past experience. With enough tricks, cheats, schemes, methods, algorithms and creativity, I am certain it is possible. That doesn't mean it is wise, or reliable, or efficient for this kind of device at the precision levels I require. In my experience, having designed and implemented both kinds of systems (and dealt with the working devices at length), I can say that my experiences with closed-loop servo systems have been MUCH more satisfying.
I never said it is impossible to create a pick-and-place machine with steppers or open-loop design. However, from past experience, open-loops systems can be problematic and inaccurate for a great many reasons (including even obscure issues like [differential] thermal expansion/contraction for example). Of course even closed-loop servo systems aren't 100% immune to problems either, but they definitely tend to be more precise and reliable in my experience (and theory).
What I AM NOT experienced with is modern SMT equipment. I've been doing mostly software for several years, and my return to hardware puts me in a situation where I need to switch over to SMT. All the advanced and compact electronics components I need for new designs are SMT. Though I looked at this equipment now and then over the past year or two, I have no operational experience with the equipment (but tons with older though-hole tech).
I have looked at most of those forums (and others elsewhere), and spent two or three days reading other sites recently too. However, I pretty much move on when I find a thread is discussing systems incapable of 0201 and 0.50mm pitch. Surely that means I miss worthwhile messages now and then, but I have to judge what is worth reading and what is not. More than likely I will spend $60K to $80K on SMT equipment in 2 or 3 weeks, and so I need to learn what I need to know in order to make good choices. That's why I'm here. I know many people here haven't physically worked with this equipment, but some have.
No, I do not work for a "high end manufacturer". Since [before, actually] I finished school I've been a self-employed scientist, engineer, inventor and product developer. Mostly I've invented, designed, develop and prototyped products and technologies that I sold or licensed to companies that already manufacture and market the kinds of devices and technologies I created. But also from time to time I've taken contracts from outfits like NASA, AirForceResearchLabs and various astronomical observatories to solve problems they have, or design systems they need. So while I always design in ways appropriate for quality and reliability (and sometimes volume production), I have never been in the situation of needing to worry about volume production (if that's what you mean by "high end manufacturer"). I have always spent a lot on the equipment I've purchased to do my work. I have enough problems and hassles already, and don't want my equipment adding more. BUT, "it is just me here", so spending $60K ~ $80K of my savings isn't something I do without a second thought. So I want to make smart decisions. So my one and only "motive" here is to figure out whether I should buy a neoden4, a LE40V, or some other pick-and-place machine... and also figure out what are the best stencil-printer and reflow-oven products for my purposes and budget. If that's not a specific enough answer to your question, inquire further.
I hope you can understand that it is entirely possible to know A LOT about mechanical and electronic systems, but NOT MUCH about these specific devices and processes. Because that is the case with me here.
The bottom line is this. I'll appreciate anyone who knows about this area and gives me the benefit of their experience in these equipment and processes.
-
Hi Spikee
Advanced Assembly asked me to put some local fiducials nearby the 0201s I had on JESD204 thin traces.... on a big area board
IE I had global fiducials and local fiducials- which makes alot of sense.
regards
-
Hi Spikee
Advanced Assembly asked me to put some local fiducials nearby the 0201s I had on JESD204 thin traces.... on a big area board
IE I had global fiducials and local fiducials- which makes alot of sense.
in that case they are probably doing offset calibration for each placement because they don't want to mess up boards.
Since vision is so fast these days it is possible to do continuous calibration with very little time loss.
Mechanical accuracy is really expensive. Adding some more fiducials is more or less free.
-
Saleae logic tried to do in house assembly of many 0201 components in house with a brand name 60K pick and place and dit not have good luck with that (see blog posts / their theamphour episode).
Doing 0201 reliably could be possible if the software was more advice. But it is not.
Backslash and things like that can be compensated for is software without much issue. And than you are not even using the vision as additional compensation.
Feeding / pickup issues can also be detected in hardware or in software (via vision). Did the pickup for 0201 passive not work? , just let the feeder peel another part, let the vision detect the position and pick it up.
One weird idea that came up in my head is:
Get it to scan the whole (empty) pcb and make a high detail stitched image of it. The idea of that is so real time vision positioning could be used instead of purely relying on mechanical accuracy. ... or just get it to quickly re-calibrate via fiducials every time you want to place a very small component.
Having a good camera that that can autofocus / has good resolution is key in that case.
or even fancier add more camera's to the head (for example one in each corner) and do a full (realtime) stitched image. In this way you can calibrate the offset for each part using all the fiducials on your board without doing additional movement or even loose placing speed. (assuming you can see the whole board with those four camera's (or just use ... more fiducials))
In other words if you have good vision / software you do not need super expensive fancy closed loop servo systems with glass encoders and exotic granite pnp bases.
Can you provide a link to "theamphour episode" for me to read? Thanks.
Also, I was also thinking along the same lines as you... doing with cameras what has in the past been done with precision mechanics and linear encoders. I posted a few comments about that about seven messages back.
I would guess this approach has not been adopted in modern pick-and-place machines for two reason:
#1: Existing companies resist switching over to new approaches, so they stick with whatever approach they have.
#2: Doing more with cameras slows down the process, because it adds more steps (some for every placed component).
For a new manufacturer or an advanced DIY project, this approach may have much promise. And for DIY and low volume projects, the moderate slowdown is of little importance, while the ability to place smaller components will be a great advantage for some to many people... especially as the years pass and the most desirable components continue to shrink in size and pitch.
-
http://www.theamphour.com/237-an-interview-with-joe-and-mark-garrison-subtly-spelling-sayleeay/ (http://www.theamphour.com/237-an-interview-with-joe-and-mark-garrison-subtly-spelling-sayleeay/)
http://blog.saleae.com/need-raise-logics-price/ (http://blog.saleae.com/need-raise-logics-price/)
A lot of pick and place machines are based on 20-30+ year old products. Having small updates every few x years ( this has been mentioned in that or other electronics podcasts). It is not in their interest to design products that change to much from this base design.
Its all about money. The low cost pnp market is not really a market they want to be in. You want those 0201 specs (for example) well than you just have to pay 100k (for example). They could design a low cost 10k pnp who does that with vision and all using off the shelf feeders but that more or less completely destroys their whole product line.
Vision can more or less be as fast as you want it to be. But if you want ultra fast (than you are looking at a big pricepoint anyway) it is easier to just trow a bunch of money at glass encoders and that kind of stuff than actually doing some work on your software.
For 3k a good base could be made. Extruded alu profiles, hiwin rails, closed loop steppers and china ballscrews , pick and place head.
Add off the shelf feeders to that and you have a good place to start. For 0402 and those kind of things the current openpnp sw is probably good enough already.
For good 0201 placement the said vision steps / capability need to be added.
You'll want to use these somewhat precision components so you get close enough for most parts , and can do vision offset cal for the special ones .
Spending a little money here greatly reduces the time commitment of doing major location adjustments in software.
For cameras it would be good to actually use a machine vision camera as these have features that are quite nice to have in such application. Some even have the capability to do the lens correction itself. (like matlab vision can do) otherwise you might have to do that processing yourself in realtime which can probably take quite some processing time. This feature gives a corrected image where the lens curvature is gone. This can be quite useful.
Tbh at 10-12k ex tax ex feeders one could commercially design and produce such machine but it would cost about a year of dev time for two engineers or so.
The harder part of this is making it foolproof so you are not spending time on customer fault finding / fine tuning. Unless you get paid for it via some on demand remote troubleshoot service.
-
For 0201's and 0.5mm BGA's I think you should look for something other then the Neoden4. Consider spending real money, not buying one of the cheap machines. The Neoden4 is actually pretty capable when dialed in and you figure out the software oddities etc but really doubt you'd get the results you want with it.
Thanks. Do you have a neoden4 or work with pick and place machines? I'm just curious what your reasons are for giving this advice.
To answer your first two questions - Yes and Yes. As for the last question you should read through this thread.
-
I've created a number of precision mechanical systems in the past, including advanced automated telescopes that have to do some rather amazing things very precisely (I'm sure you realize the earth rotates, so both satellites and astronomical objects in the sky are constantly moving, and need to be acquired and tracked precisely if they're being photographed... sometimes for hour+ exposures). So I understand precision mechanical systems, and I've created both open-loop stepper and closed-loop servo systems before (often with DC brushed "pancake motors").
With all that experience, you should build one.
-
I've created a number of precision mechanical systems in the past, including advanced automated telescopes that have to do some rather amazing things very precisely (I'm sure you realize the earth rotates, so both satellites and astronomical objects in the sky are constantly moving, and need to be acquired and tracked precisely if they're being photographed... sometimes for hour+ exposures). So I understand precision mechanical systems, and I've created both open-loop stepper and closed-loop servo systems before (often with DC brushed "pancake motors").
With all that experience, you should build one.
I am so, so tempted to do so, partly because I need one (lame excuse), but mostly because I am finding the various aspects of pick-and-place machine operation fascinating. And as a few of my recent posts indicate, there appears to be enormous opportunities to create different configurations of pick-and-place machines to make cheaper precise [but probably not fast] units.
Frankly, if I had one or two talented partners on such a project, I'd probably buckle and go for it. I wouldn't be surprised if we could build a new pick-and-place machine from scratch for roughly the same I will probably spend on the complete production line (stencil-printer, pick-and-place, and reflow-oven). As with most projects, the problem is TIME.
-
Come and join the fun with the openPNP project, theres lots goign on, and some amazing results.
-
Come and join the fun with the openPNP project, theres lots going on, and some amazing results.
Is that your project? If so, where are you located?
-
Come and join the fun with the openPNP project, theres lots going on, and some amazing results.
Is that your project? If so, where are you located?
No, its not "my" project, but im using it.. I'm in New zealand, but there are people in Europe, USA, Australia, Canada, UK...
-
Come and join the fun with the openPNP project, theres lots going on, and some amazing results.
Is that your project? If so, where are you located?
No, its not "my" project, but im using it.. I'm in New zealand, but there are people in Europe, USA, Australia, Canada, UK...
I assume OpenPnP is only software, correct?
If I do decide to make a pick-and-place machine, I would certainly be inclined to adopt as much open software, hardware and mechanics as possible.
-
Come and join the fun with the openPNP project, theres lots going on, and some amazing results.
Is that your project? If so, where are you located?
No, its not "my" project, but im using it.. I'm in New zealand, but there are people in Europe, USA, Australia, Canada, UK...
I assume OpenPnP is only software, correct?
If I do decide to make a pick-and-place machine, I would certainly be inclined to adopt as much open software, hardware and mechanics as possible.
Theres software, several hardware builds and all sorts of stuff.
-
With all that experience, you should build one.
I am so, so tempted to do so, partly because I need one (lame excuse), but mostly because I am finding the various aspects of pick-and-place machine operation fascinating. And as a few of my recent posts indicate, there appears to be enormous opportunities to create different configurations of pick-and-place machines to make cheaper precise [but probably not fast] units.
Frankly, if I had one or two talented partners on such a project, I'd probably buckle and go for it. I wouldn't be surprised if we could build a new pick-and-place machine from scratch for roughly the same I will probably spend on the complete production line (stencil-printer, pick-and-place, and reflow-oven). As with most projects, the problem is TIME.
Do you need a P&P machine to assemble PCB's in-house or an all new business? I would have a ton of fun with the challenge of designing and building a P&P machine. I have a lot of experience designing and building very high precision mechanics for imaging and motion control. Now I design electronics and write embedded software most of the time. It would still take a mountain of time and money to do it with no guarantees. It would literally be an all new career to go down that path with the remarkably lofty goal of making MyData performance for low cost.
Seriously. Skip the N4 based on what you seem to require. You will be looking for a tall bridge to jump off of if you really need very fine pitch assembly as a reliable process. I don't have an N4, but I do have a Quad 4000C. The design of my machine goes back to the 80's and went out of production in the late 90's. PPM purchased the remnants of the company and started an update program for the software. Without getting too distracted with details - they definitely improved the machine and it is capable of placing 1005's. I am not suggesting you buy the same machine, but something like it. It is ridiculous (in my humble opinion) to consider one of the lowest cost/quality P&P machines on the market and expect it to nail PCB's with 0201 and .3mm without constant fiddling and re-work. You really can't be surprised that the moco subsystem is open loop steppers either - there is no money to put them in there. The PPM machine is steppers with linear encoders and a side scanner for alignment on the fly. Up vision for big parts and BGA. It is not fast, but is precise. With all that said, the small passive parts require the super precision feeders - there is no way around that. The placement accuracy of the machine is meaningless if it struggles to pickup the parts in the first place. If the nozzle picks up on the edge of the component, it will flip or be at an angle causing a pick failure. You can only solve that by have very precise feeders that put the part in the exact same location every time and it has to be gentle about it. If the feeder is bumpy, the parts will jump out of the pocket before the head even arrives. From what I have read so far in this thread, the biggest weakness of the N4 is the feeders. For the price it seems pretty good. The Quad precision 8mm feeders are about $800ea which is still rather cheap when compared to the high-end machines - but they can index 2mm very precisely and smoothly.
I would not try to satisfy your requirements for under 80k with feeders, printer, oven, training, vacuum/air, accessories, etc. . If you are industrious like I was, you can get a broken machine and fix it up. That allowed me to get a 1005 capable machine with about 60 feeders for under $10k in cash - but it took nearly 10 months of nights and weekends to get it up and running. To buy it from PPM with with all the feeders and other parts would have been about $50-60k and would be ready to go on the first day. I also looked at DDM Novastar and liked them in general. They are targeted towards low volume and only the bigger machines can deal with 0201 (so it seems). What I did not like is that they cannot hold very many parts at a time. The Quad I have now can handle a TON of parts so I can have 6 designs ready to roll (in the machine) at any time and still be able to do prototypes without tearing the machine apart. That is super critical in my case where I do small batches of a bunch of different designs and don't want to have to setup each one every time I need a batch.
How much is your time worth and what business are you in?
-
I bought two 2nd hand Yamaha machines for exactly the same reason.. Foruantly they did'nt take 10 months, but it did take a month of engineering effort to get them back to running condition.. About $25k each.
Im building a machine, slowly, just becuase it intrigues me.
-
One weird idea that came up in my head is:
Get it to scan the whole (empty) pcb and make a high detail stitched image of it. The idea of that is so real time vision positioning could be used instead of purely relying on mechanical accuracy. ... or just get it to quickly re-calibrate via fiducials every time you want to place a very small component.
That won't work as the PCB has paste on it, so you can't see the pad edges accurately. If you had a super-precise paste print that would allow it, chances are you could get away with poorer placement accuracy
Having a good camera that that can autofocus / has good resolution is key in that case.
You don't need AF as the board distance is fixed.
In other words if you have good vision / software you do not need super expensive fancy closed loop servo systems with glass encoders and exotic granite pnp bases.
Unfortunately yes.
I do wonder if it might be feasable to use something like laser interferometry to accurately measure the head position in 2D space, to allow cheaper mechanics, but even then speed might be an issue
-
For cameras it would be good to actually use a machine vision camera as these have features that are quite nice to have in such application. Some even have the capability to do the lens correction itself. (like matlab vision can do) otherwise you might have to do that processing yourself in realtime which can probably take quite some processing time. This feature gives a corrected image where the lens curvature is gone. This can be quite useful.
Processing time for vision isn't a huge deal as you can do it while travelling to the placement position. CPU time is cheap, and for a PC controlled machine, it isn't really doing anything else during travel.
-
I agree with glenenglish, this smells like bullshit. A seasoned linear motion engineer would start small and humble to understand his needs. A "2-3 weeks read of forums" planning is ridiculous and even more ridiculous is asking newbie questions then three sentences later reveal how the industry should do it according to your standards.
-
I agree with glenenglish, this smells like bullshit. A seasoned linear motion engineer would start small and humble to understand his needs. A "2-3 weeks read of forums" planning is ridiculous and even more ridiculous is asking newbie questions then three sentences later reveal how the industry should do it according to your standards.
My intial thoughts where that this guy might be working for one of the other PNP manufacturers.. Its realy hard to tell, thats for sure.. but anyone returning to hardware thats going straight into 8 layer PCB' with high speed traces, is probalby way too buys doing those designs to have any time to be building bits of hardware... I'll sit on the fence. this is the internet and well its just hard to tell.
I'd farm this work out out to someone like macrofab.
-
ADMIN NOTE:
As requested I have moved bootstrap's recent posts to a new thread.
-
ADMIN NOTE:
As requested I have moved bootstrap's recent posts to a new thread.
I don't see it. Can you provide me a link or something to help me find it? Thanks.
PS: I assume it would still be within "Manufacturing and Assembly".
PS: Found it, but this is a thread about ideas, not products. Can it remain under "Manufacturing & Assembly"?
-
ADMIN NOTE:
As requested I have moved bootstrap's recent posts to a new thread.
I don't see it. Can you provide me a link or something to help me find it? Thanks.
PS: I assume it would still be within "Manufacturing and Assembly".
PS: Found it, but this is a thread about ideas, not products. Can it remain under "Manufacturing & Assembly"?
Hi
Just for the sake of others who are wondering where things went:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-and-place-discussion/msg936104/#msg936104 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-and-place-discussion/msg936104/#msg936104)
Bob
-
Thanks Bob, do let us know if it works out.
Hi
Ok, so here's the summary on the printer:
I ordered it on eBay and it came in via DHL in a few days. Absolutely nothing to complain about in terms of shipping speed. I did not have "CNC machine precision" expectations for the printer. I'd say it's fit and finish are a bit better than I expected. I have not run up any stencils on it, that's a bit in the future. It appears to have working controls and reasonable adjustments. I see no reason why it will not do a very adequate job for the levels (0.5 mm pitch) I'm trying to hit.
The only negative is the rubber feet. They were *supposed* to be in the package. They are nowhere to be found. Given that I have lots of those running around here ... no big deal at all. It came with a steel scraper and a solder spreading knife that I didn't expect. Overall that's a win.
Bob
-
My experience with paste printing so far is that it is a learned and practiced skill to make it happen well. The end goal is to have the exact right amount of paste in the exact place every single pull of the squeegee. This is simple in concept but quickly becomes a challenge as the parts become smaller and the volume goes up.
I have a rotten little printer that I modified into being acceptable. On the first day, I was definitely frustrated with alignment, thickness, and sticking issues. Over time, I have learned how to get the the printer set up just right and how to pull a print that is about 99%+ successful on fine pitch boards. It did not take long to realize that cleaning the board and pulling another print is generally faster than dealing with aftermath of a bad print. Almost all of my printing problems were fixable by human skill. The good news is that I am able to print successfully, the bad news is that I could not hire someone to take that job without a learning curve. The higher-end manual printers require less human skill. The full-auto printers require very little skill.
Some general purpose printing notes:
Take a deep breath and be prepared for unexpected details.
The squeegee is a critical part of the process - not just a flat piece of metal.
The angle and even lateral pressure is critical.
The speed of the pull is critical.
The quality of the paste is critical.
Doing a 'bubble pull' 1-2 times is important to get the bubbles out of the paste before the first print(over lexan).
There should be enough paste to roll as you pull it toward you.
Paste does not last forever, when it gets dry enough to stop rolling, it stops flowing through the apertures. Adding more paste can remedy that - adding flux is risky and I don't do that.
I wipe the bottom of the stencil after each pull with Chemwipes for fine pitch.
The stencil design is not trivial for fine pitch. If you want it to work every time - take some time to read about aperture geometry.
Supporting the stencil evenly around the PCB is important to prevent distortion of the stencil.
ENIG finished PCB's are a lot easier than HASL
In general, you can get away with violating the 'rules' for a prototype run. For production, you have to give yourself the best chance of getting it perfect every time since it is very expensive to mess up at this stage in the process.
-
Any new findings on the Neoden 4 ?
I guess a bunch of boards must have traveled thru your machines and I wonder if things looks promising ?
-
We came across a rather frustrating issue the other day with our Neodeon 4. We setup a board to build that we hadn't yet run on the Neoden. The board uses one tantalum capacitor, standard SMT box style, super common, I don't recall the specific package off hand. The issue is that the feeders are not compatible with it. The gear drive pushes up on the bottom of the tape and pinches the capacitor so no amount of suction can remove it from the pocket. If we switch to a wider feeder the drive gear pushing on the tape forces it right off the gear drive so it doesn't feed at all. In the end we had to use a strip of capacitors configured as a tray. We also had a full size normal tray for CPU's so it is a good thing we don't have the conveyor, there would be no room left to mount strips of tape as a tray.
So a rather big fail for the Neoden 4 right there.
-
Thanks!
Would it be possible for you to get info on the package type that did not work (interested in if it is a "common" package or something more special)
-
Thanks!
Would it be possible for you to get info on the package type that did not work (interested in if it is a "common" package or something more special)
Absolutely. I am back in the shop now. The exact part is a Kemet T491D107K010AT which is a 2917 package and uses a 12mm feeder.
-
Thanks!
Nice to know what to avoid (datasheet: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/212/KEM_T2005_T491-533941.pdf (http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/212/KEM_T2005_T491-533941.pdf))
Trying to decide what machine to eventually get my hands on
-
Does anyone have an idea about the conveyor and rail of Neoden4?
Sales people told me that conveyor is required for the machine with rails. Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks.
-
Does anyone have an idea about the conveyor and rail of Neoden4?
Sales people told me that conveyor is required for the machine with rails. Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks.
Not really sure what you are asking. If you want the rails to slide the board into the machine you'll be getting the conveyor. If you just want to mount a board etc you can order it without the rail/conveyor option.
-
@blackarboy:
A conveyor is refer to "Conveyor"machine which can help build a Complete Automatic SMT Production Line,whole line are show as below: PCB loader machine+Automatic Solder Printer+Conveyor+NeoDen4(with rails)+Conveyor+Reflow Oven+PCB Unloader machine.The NeoDen4 with rails mean the Rails inside the NeoDen4.
See below photo of Conveyor:
(https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13483181_1752622848345169_4759649829005749022_o.jpg)
Photo of Automatic Production Line:
1.(https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13517644_1753157074958413_933705697084190702_o.jpg)
2.(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xft1/t31.0-8/13483032_1753157418291712_3300242238396021815_o.jpg)
3.(https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13502513_1753157678291686_7591738971520609490_o.jpg)
4.(https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13450054_1753157811625006_9208060825236188522_n.jpg?oh=f9c7025477bb36d58424a7ae7f0d55ed&oe=57F816A9)
-
We came across a rather frustrating issue the other day with our Neodeon 4. We setup a board to build that we hadn't yet run on the Neoden. The board uses one tantalum capacitor, standard SMT box style, super common, I don't recall the specific package off hand. The issue is that the feeders are not compatible with it. The gear drive pushes up on the bottom of the tape and pinches the capacitor so no amount of suction can remove it from the pocket. If we switch to a wider feeder the drive gear pushing on the tape forces it right off the gear drive so it doesn't feed at all. In the end we had to use a strip of capacitors configured as a tray. We also had a full size normal tray for CPU's so it is a good thing we don't have the conveyor, there would be no room left to mount strips of tape as a tray.
So a rather big fail for the Neoden 4 right there.
Hello Daniel,
Sorry to know that. May I know the total height of this tape please? We would help to check this issue with our engineer and provide a comment accordingly.
Your early reply on the above matter is highly appreciated.
-
Hello All -
First, thanks to everyone for all the great information. We're excited about the potential of the Neoden 4.
We're a small shop in San Antonio, TX thinking about buying the N4 as our first SMT. While the price is reasonable, we'd really like to "see one in person" before we take the plunge.
I see there are units in Canada and PA - Does anyone have a unit in the southern United States (ideally TX) yet? Would anyone be open to letting on of our engineers visit and watch it run?
Thanks, doug.
-
Doug, i'd seriously consider looking at the QiHe 920 if you are considering a machine of this size.. It uses 'real' feeders ( or at least clone ) and thats where so much of the problem comes from. Having seen the N4 in action, its just somethign that really puts me off it.
-
Doug, i'd seriously consider looking at the QiHe 920 if you are considering a machine of this size.. It uses 'real' feeders ( or at least clone ) and thats where so much of the problem comes from. Having seen the N4 in action, its just somethign that really puts me off it.
Hello mrpackethead,
As far as we know, you are not a current owner of N4, so could you please advise from which customer you've seen N4 in action?
We would like to contact the owner and try best to solve any issues,
Besides, we've been collecting the feedback and suggestion from customers since the release of N4, any feedback could contribute to our further improvement and upgrade.
-
mrpackethead,
As far as we know, you are not a current owner of N4, so could you please advise from which customer you've seen N4 in action?
We would like to contact the owner and try best to solve any issues,
Cathy, it was your machine at the Neoden Shop in the SEG in Shenzhen.
-
mrpackethead,
As far as we know, you are not a current owner of N4, so could you please advise from which customer you've seen N4 in action?
We would like to contact the owner and try best to solve any issues,
Cathy, it was your machine at the Neoden Shop in the SEG in Shenzhen.
Hello mrpackethead,
Glad to know that you've visited our SEG store.
May we confirm with you if it was around April? During the 0201 placement, one component was offset.
According to such kind feeder problem, we've actually done some improvements on following batches accordingly.
Welcome you and more customers visit our SEG store and watch N4 in action again.
-
It was in May. Anyway.
Hello mrpackethead,
Glad to know that you've visited our SEG store.
May we confirm with you if it was around April? During the 0201 placement, one component was offset.
According to such kind feeder problem, we've actually done some improvements on following batches accordingly.
Welcome you and more customers visit our SEG store and watch N4 in action again.
-
Glad that Neoden is here at least attempting to support their machine, but after reading the entire thread I'm convinced that unless they improve the Z axis and clean up the feeder clearance issues I'll have to look elsewhere.
-
Neoden 4 Mounting SIM 800 Module , VQFN64 and QFN24 packages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpFudzD71Bk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpFudzD71Bk)
-
Thanks for the video George12 , it looks like the machine did a fine job.
-
Just wanted to thank all you guys for the info here. I'm probably in the market for a machine around the capabilities of the Neoden4, in about a year or so. I'll be keeping an eye on all of this to see how it develops.
-Hans
-
They must like game of thrones
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hodor-of-NeoDen4-Working-Table-Stand-for-Pick-and-Place-Machine-/182197834376 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hodor-of-NeoDen4-Working-Table-Stand-for-Pick-and-Place-Machine-/182197834376)
-
That's funny and odd at the same time :)
-
I was over in Shenzhen a couple of weeks ago and dropped into Seg Market where I had a look at the Neoden4 SMT placing 0201 components (Resistors only) at the Neoden Shop. I have to say that it did a great job on the boards that I saw being placed, therefore it is possible to get it tuned to a high degree of accuracy. The questions in my mind are:
How difficult is it to get that level of accuracy; and
How long does it maintain that accuracy.
When placing against adhesive tape (which is the typical demo), there is a good "grab onto the component so z Accuracy is not so important. When placing against pastee, that grab is not there and the Z accuracy needs to be very good. Is performance against paste as good...
Most of my work is 0603, but I am planning to move to 0402, so I am pretty confident that it would be up to that task.
I am planning to return to Shenzhen / Seg market from Sydney in a couple of months, so will go and have a more comprehensive look at it next time I am there. They suggested doing a sample of one of my boards next time, so that may be the go to prove the capability...
cheers
Paul
-
Hi Paul,
That's a very good question.
I am just about to purchase a QiHe TVM920 machine :
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-machinetvm920/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-machinetvm920/)
and I'm asking myself exactly the same question.
At least it appears that all those 'feeder' type problems that I've read about are less likely to be the cause of any issues on the TVM920, with them using a well-proven Yamaha design. So it comes down to machine repeat ability after that. My guess and hope is that, normal wear & tear aside, it should be very do able.
Let's hope so.
I was over in Shenzhen a couple of weeks ago and dropped into Seg Market where I had a look at the Neoden4 SMT placing 0201 components (Resistors only) at the Neoden Shop. I have to say that it did a great job on the boards that I saw being placed, therefore it is possible to get it tuned to a high degree of accuracy. The questions in my mind are:
How difficult is it to get that level of accuracy; and
How long does it maintain that accuracy.
When placing against adhesive tape (which is the typical demo), there is a good "grab onto the component so z Accuracy is not so important. When placing against pastee, that grab is not there and the Z accuracy needs to be very good. Is performance against paste as good...
Most of my work is 0603, but I am planning to move to 0402, so I am pretty confident that it would be up to that task.
I am planning to return to Shenzhen / Seg market from Sydney in a couple of months, so will go and have a more comprehensive look at it next time I am there. They suggested doing a sample of one of my boards next time, so that may be the go to prove the capability...
cheers
Paul
-
I am just about to purchase a QiHe TVM920 machine :
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-machinetvm920/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-machinetvm920/)
and I'm asking myself exactly the same question.
where do you purchase the 920 ? Can't find any sources in the internet
-
where do you purchase the 920 ? Can't find any sources in the internet
Probably contact qihekj.com directly. It is on taobao, but interestingly not on aliexpress anymore. Other interesting pneumatic feeder machines are chmt530p, smt330, smt460. Hoping someone reviews some of these.
-
Hi Harry4516,
I don't want to hijack the Neoden space but, in answer to your question:
Sparkswillfly is correct - you can contact them directly on 0086-577-62058872, or
http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html (http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html)
or, you can contact Daisy [salesperson] on Skype - live:daisyqiu1994
The reason I'm going with the TVM920 is due to the fact that their GUI runs on a separate monitor and keyboard. Other manufacturers use small touch interfaces, and other systems which I didn't find attractive.
That, and a mate of mine has purchased one and is very impressed - he says the build quality if absolutely fantastic.
Good luck
-
Hi Harry4516,
I don't want to hijack the Neoden space but, in answer to your question:
Sparkswillfly is correct - you can contact them directly on 0086-577-62058872, or
http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html (http://www.qihekj.com/en/product/html/?45.html)
or, you can contact Daisy [salesperson] on Skype - live:daisyqiu1994
The reason I'm going with the TVM920 is due to the fact that their GUI runs on a separate monitor and keyboard. Other manufacturers [who also offer Yamaha feeders], use small touch interfaces, and other systems which I didn't find attractive.
That, and a mate of mine has purchased one and is very impressed - he says the build quality if absolutely fantastic.
Good luck
-
4 head
http://pt.aliexpress.com/item/Vertical-type-4-Place-heads-High-Speed-SMT-Pick-and-Place-Machine-Pick-Place-Machine-For/32420182694.html?spm=2114.10010308.0.40.7QZViL&isOrigTitle=true (http://pt.aliexpress.com/item/Vertical-type-4-Place-heads-High-Speed-SMT-Pick-and-Place-Machine-Pick-Place-Machine-For/32420182694.html?spm=2114.10010308.0.40.7QZViL&isOrigTitle=true)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUG1xoS9ysk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUG1xoS9ysk)
-
Are those the Yamaha feeders? Driven entirely by pneumatic power?
The nozzles look massive, curious what type they are. The crazy thing is that is can't hold a useful payload of parts - you would be swapping feeders constantly with all the most basic PCB's.
-
Are those the Yamaha feeders? Driven entirely by pneumatic power?
The nozzles look massive, curious what type they are. The crazy thing is that is can't hold a useful payload of parts - you would be swapping feeders constantly with all the most basic PCB's.
yes, 40 feeders is too little. But the Neoden4 also has only 48 reel feeders, not many more.
(The TVM802B has 46, and I am swapping reels all the time, which is a terrible job without real feeders).
The 920 with 56 Yamaha feeders looks good in this price range.
Does anyone know videos showing how to insert reels into Neoden4 or Yamaha Feeders ?
-
no video of yamaha CL feeder, but can tell you it only takes 20 seconds.. Hardest bit is sometimes getting the cover tape free of the carrier tape.
-
yes, 40 feeders is too little. But the Neoden4 also has only 48 reel feeders, not many more.
Not sure if I am in the minority or not, but most of my boards have 12mm, 16mm, and some 24mm tapes which very quickly reduce the total number of parts that the machine can handle. Something to consider, for sure. Take a look at your typical boards or create some realistic scenarios and see how many feeder swaps may be required. The use cases of any P&P obviously varies wildly, but these seem so limiting that it would be tough for me to consider it a business tool.
no video of yamaha CL feeder, but can tell you it only takes 20 seconds.. Hardest bit is sometimes getting the cover tape free of the carrier tape.
In my experience, the threading of the feeder is a fraction of the total time needed to swap out feeders. You have figure out what needs to happen, get the reel or cut tape, take out the old parts, thread the new one, get it into the machine and verify that everything is ok. As I have gained more experience, I can do this pretty fast on my machine, but if I had to multiply that times the number of total feeder changes during a daily run - I would be very very frustrated. I would rather buy two-three of these and have the option of serializing the process.
Before I accidentally found the machine I have - I did consider 2 or more of the entry level machines so that I could have backup, parallel, or serial setups. This machine could be a good candidate for that type of setup - it's cheap enough. My assumption is that anyone looking seriously at any level of P&P has some sort of business need for it. Reliability and flexibility are more important than CPH and head count overall. if your machine has 8 heads and rated at 50k CPH, that is not helpful if it is always messing up or is not flexible enough to do the whole job. For example, my machine initially could not place tall parts and I had a bunch (thousands) of tall caps that needed to be hand placed. Although the machine did great with 99% of the parts - hand placing thousands of caps was not part of my plan. I fixed that problem ASAP!
-
Aggree with that last comment, that the actual swap out is not really the big time thing.. Its the big picture of just thinking about the swap out, that really takes time.
Im a bit like you RX, that 56 slots, is not really enough. I'd have jumped in and bought a 920 ages ago, but the total count is just not enough, to get to this narvana position of "press print".
-
Swapping feeders is a constant headache, no matter what machine you have. It's something you need to take a whole-process approach to in order to find all the efficiency you can. Parts commonality, packaging selection, verification process, even down to how you queue your standby racks. Do you keep the machine constantly loaded, with a single load pattern, for all assemblies? Or do you empty it out and re-load from assembly to assembly? All depends on your priority and PCBA complexities.
We've got some assemblies at my full-time which fill almost all 214 slots in our CP6/IP3 lines, talk about a nightmare to change over. But the vast majority are under 50 slots worth of space. Usually connectors are the worst offender for taking up a lot of feeder slots per component. Yet still we end up with hand placed parts from time to time for whatever reason.
The biggest limitation I can see in most of the tabletop machines isn't really feeder count, but tray count.
-
Swapping feeders is a constant headache, no matter what machine you have. It's something you need to take a whole-process approach to in order to find all the efficiency you can. Parts commonality, packaging selection, verification process, even down to how you queue your standby racks. Do you keep the machine constantly loaded, with a single load pattern, for all assemblies? Or do you empty it out and re-load from assembly to assembly? All depends on your priority and PCBA complexities.
We've got some assemblies at my full-time which fill almost all 214 slots in our CP6/IP3 lines, talk about a nightmare to change over. But the vast majority are under 50 slots worth of space. Usually connectors are the worst offender for taking up a lot of feeder slots per component. Yet still we end up with hand placed parts from time to time for whatever reason.
The biggest limitation I can see in most of the tabletop machines isn't really feeder count, but tray count.
Truth in all of that. My machine has (I think) 118 slots plus 2 matrix trays. It took quite a while to develop a strategy for efficiency - but I will say that the machine to completely packed full to cover our normal PCB's. By only swapping the trays, I can do 6 different PCB's without swapping a single feeder. That capability allows me to do the small 'just in time' runs with very little penalty. The small desktop machines would be full swaps of every single feeder for each PCB design.
Not sure how I would approach it as a job shop, never done it. We are able to design the P&P work flow around our designs, schedule, proto-types, etc which means we end up with a solution that may not match others needs. In general, I would say that feeder count is a critical consideration for most operations. If the machine cannot hold very many, buy enough feeders to fill the machine twice or more and setup a dedicated prep station to get feeders prepped while another job is running.
For those just getting into PCB assembly, what @HHaase says It's something you need to take a whole-process approach to in order to find all the efficiency you can.
is very true. The P&P machine is the fancy centerpiece, but it is only as good as the whole process allows it to be. It took me the better part of a year to really dial in a system that is smooth and error resistant.
-
yeah, for those that thing they will be able to "press print" and make pcbs like they make plastic forks on a 3d printer.. they will be getting a beating
-
I just read a very informative and interesting article on "Next generation NeoDen pick and place machine"
http://paxinstruments.com/next-generation-neoden-pick-and-place-machine/ (http://paxinstruments.com/next-generation-neoden-pick-and-place-machine/)
-
I just read a very informative and interesting article on "Next generation NeoDen pick and place machine"
http://paxinstruments.com/next-generation-neoden-pick-and-place-machine/ (http://paxinstruments.com/next-generation-neoden-pick-and-place-machine/)
Spam. Theres not a lot in that article. Mr #3 posts.
-
Not sure how I would approach it as a job shop, never done it. We are able to design the P&P work flow around our designs, schedule, proto-types, etc which means we end up with a solution that may not match others needs. In general, I would say that feeder count is a critical consideration for most operations. If the machine cannot hold very many, buy enough feeders to fill the machine twice or more and setup a dedicated prep station to get feeders prepped while another job is running.
For those just getting into PCB assembly, what @HHaase says It's something you need to take a whole-process approach to in order to find all the efficiency you can.
is very true. The P&P machine is the fancy centerpiece, but it is only as good as the whole process allows it to be. It took me the better part of a year to really dial in a system that is smooth and error resistant.
Sounds about right to get a machine dialed-in properly. Particularly if you're doing all aspects of it yourself. Then, once you get it all settled down, inevitably there's a change in design philosophies and the cycle starts again. Sometimes it just seems to take forever when you're stuck adding a pile of new component packages to the inventory. Having a newly manufactured machine does help a lot too. Buy something used and you're also stuck with having to R&R plus potentially undo 'creative maintenance' that's been done in the past. can get time consuming and expensive real fast.
A great book that I'd recommend, if you are in a case of swapping all the feeders per assembly, is "The SMED method". Doesn't specifically address electronics assembly but the lessons are still just as applicable. Even if all you take away from the book is the concept of online vs offline, you're already leagues ahead of the game. From experience, once a line is running reliably, get your warehousing under control and be prepared to overstock on parts with high loss rates. Keeping the machine fed properly is going to reduce your biggest potential source for downtime.
-
Dear all,
Welcome to check out the latest video from one of our customers.
He connected 5 NeoDen4, a semi-auto solder printer and a reflow oven to achieve a faster production line.
Hope this could be useful for those who want to start small-medium batch production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iWQTfADIvE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iWQTfADIvE)
-
Received our Neoden4 2 weeks ago (in San Antonio TX). Thanks to all the people on this thread that helped make that decision.
So far we have made 2 designs (about 8 boards total). Keep in mind this is our first go at P&P besides my 10 years or so of experience with previous company who had 3 multi-M$ lines (but I did not run them of course).
Things exceeded my expectations. Here's comments I can think of and really anything negative that comes to mind (everything else is good).
Cons:
1. We were stupid and only bought enough for 10 of each part like we might normally do when hand-placing. Should have at least spent $20-30 for the cheap resistor and capacitor reels. This led to lots of issues with feeders and hassle dealing with the shortcomings of software. Also trying to tape extenders on the peel so that it would reach the peeler (led to even more problems and less parts).
So not completely the machine's fault, but still a pain b/c software doesn't deal well. When a part fails to pick (after 3 retries), there is no "skip" part option. Only option is to try again or stop the build. If this was my software I could fix this in about 15 minutes! So you have to stop the build, and then can set where you will restart, but that's a pain if you're missing multiple parts as we were. Note that you can skip parts, but when you just want to place till they run out, the s/w sucks. So they should add a "skip" option to this prompt, or even better also add a "align" so you can feed a new part in and keep going.
Further we have found that the feeder tape needs to be fed about 2 or 3 inches so the head of the tape starts wrapping down below the machine or else it might snag for a few mm's and then have a mis-pick (and then come the woes I described above).
The "Vision Align" option in the "Mount"/run page is nice! It shows up after you align fiducials and you can hop to each part to visually inspect placement.
Note that to resume from a current part is also very weird. You have top stop the build, select your part, and then click "Save". (Save???). Anyway then it resumes from that part after it realigns. It didn't seem to always work if I tried to do this after aligning so I just got in the habbit of stopping, aligning so I could use the "Vision Align" to find the last unstuffed part, then stop, then click the part and do the save, then run again. Sigh. After a few times of this I realized that when a pick fails and you have to click "Stop" (b/c no "skip"), it will tell you which part is next in the little output window. That helped.
In regards to all this, my advice is that you don't enable the multi-nozzle pick until you are ready to run in high volume and know the feeders and parts are all good to go and not going to run out after a few boards. Reason here is because if you try 3 parts at once (i.e. Line #22, 23, and 24,), then if 22 fails to pick, you can't easily resume. You can abort, then restart on #22, but now you will replace 23 and 24. Note that as a result we had a few 0402s so perfectly placed on top of each other you couldn't tell from the top camera during "Vision Align".
Also, some parts hopped out or flipped sideways. Our machine wobbles b/c we are running it 100% speed (we will sand-bag it later), and the short 2" tapes and hacked up peel might also contribute. Tip: try to pick up very early in the hole to help this out. Wish you could slow the feeders down b/c that might also be the cause (which would suck b/c might be hard to fix).
So in summary, buy a reel or at least 10 spares of everything. Also, run with one nozzle until you build up confidence in the feeders and can run a # of boards in "continuous" mode without babysitting (we haven't really gotten there quite yet b/c we really only bought for 10 of each design). Also we are going to buy some tape extenders... we were using think kapton (sp?) tape and wrapping present ribbon to extend it but those fell off sometimes also adding to problems.
1.5. We spent a lot of time understanding how the fiducials and board alignment worked (as many people mentioned). Largely b/c we wanted to understand it perfectly. I think the real source of the confusion is that the mark setup (bottom left corner of screen) has a visual align option when in "Manual" mode, but it will set machine absolute coordinates when it really wants PCB coordinates. So just manually pull your fiducials coords from your XY data and it will be happier. Then align the panel to your 1st component in the panel setup section (this just helps it get the fiducial somewhere in its field of view during the actual fiducial/board alignment, so doesn't need to be perfect). I made a program to make this easier that will put FID1 first and will auto-load all the fiducial coords. So all you have to do is then go do the panel align to pick FID1 (which is now your first part, instead of picking "the first part in your XY").
2. Our 2 designs had various tightly spaced 0402's, and a 0.4mm QFN, and a 0.5mm QFP as the tightest components. Placement seemed good in all cases, but our new ventures in stencil ordering were the problem. Too thick and didn't window heat pads, so this led to a lot of bridges to be touched up manually. Not the machines problem of course. But my 2 weeks experience would say that the stencil/paste is a very critical aspect. We bought the higher-end manual paste machine from Neoden (about $300-400 IIRC, I don't think its their brand though), but ended up not even doing the framed stencils for these boards. Can anybody recommend a good stencil supplier for the full framed stencils?. We aligned carefully using similar thickness pcbs to sort of "frame" the PCB being pasted b/c our stencil didn't come with a frame. So ultimately our stencil machine was just a nice table-top for this.
3. Feeder count is low. We were thinking "no problem b/c if it works well and we start doing more, its cheap enough to just buy another machine". Problem is that in the meantime you will need to a lot of swaps and it takes a few feeds for things to settle (see #1) and software doesn't really make this job much easier. Would be nice if there was a notion of a part or footprint library that saved settings such as rotation, feeder spacing, pick height, place height, speed, etc. But there's not so you will have to set this up everytime you load a part. I'm sure for the veterans this isn't a big deal to get right the first time, but we spent a lot of time trying to make sense of which direction is clockwise, height, etc and so inevitably the first run or two will be trials where you are hopping back and forth between the "Mount" and the "Feeders" pages, wasting parts on each iteration. Probably not physically possible, but it would be nice to be able to go backwards on the feeders or to be able to pick and put it right back down.
4. I could not figure out the format to load XY data. For some reason everything loaded but the X and the Y. Couldn't find a sample either and didn't bother asking. Instead found their "mount" format which is easy to understand (CSV). It stores feeders, mark settings, and XY data. I made a C# program to convert my XY data and prepare feeders. This makes the alignment problems as described in #1.5 above a non-issue. Also, I added some very basic smarts so we could create a sort of part library that will be auto-loaded into the feeder settings. Also it attempts to preserve or re-use existing re-used components which would sort of be manual with the Neoden software (I suppose you could copy/paste a previous job). My envisioned work-flow was that there would only ever be one Mount job that represents the current settings in the machine. Then to load a new board you save that (thus capturing all current loader feeder/part info), import it in my program, and then load a new XY. It then tells you all new parts to load and assigns them to empty slots first (nothing fancy) so as to try to keep all feeders maxed out at all times (to minimize swaps). We'll see how this goes b/c my first time using it was really a trial and error where I added features as I found issues. But I'm already thinking we will max out our machine now just to save a bit of extra setup time (we plan this for a lot of quick protos initially). I'll try to put this in github for others at some point if someone asks. I'll give a disclaimer that it is a 1 source file total C# hack job.
5. We blew a fuse about 1 week in. Very scary at first b/c I had just crashed their software (with an invalid file format) before needing to power cycle, when it didn't wake back up. They had a spare fuse (where the AC cord comes in), and this immediately blew too. Fortunately I think someone in this forum mentioned this issue which helped calm me down. They ship with a 3A fuse meant for 220V countries, so it needs to be twice that for 110V. We got a 10A fuse and it works (but have some appropriate 5A fuses coming from Amazon).
So in summary, the machine exceeded my expectations. We did the 0201 test boards with all placed accurately but 4 on side (out of about 20) that was presumably same feeder issues from #1 where parts shake out or sideways due to machine running fast and we have a wobble.
I'll give another update once we do more than a handful of protos and actually get appropriate reels.
Did anything more come of the openpnp.org discussions? Seems this thread has died but couldn't find anything anywhere else either. I have a background in CAN (developed http://www.cancapture.com (http://www.cancapture.com)) and reversing CAN protocols so can help with the feeders and provide hardware. I can also provide the RS232 serial logs if that hasn't happened. I would much rather be fixing problems in an open source software suite than trying to write custom C# code to work around neoden's short-comings. So Jason, if you're listening, you have a tester here. I'm afraid the learning curve would be too high for me to port the entire machine, but if you can get something started and partially running, I can definitely help debug and finish off the code. If we could get openpnp running, from what I have seen this machine could be incredible.
-
Dear all,
Welcome to check out the latest video from one of our customers.
...
nice video, but when will people understand to hold the smartphone horizontally instead of vertically to get a full picture instead of only a very small picture in the middle of the scrren.
-
When a part fails to pick (after 3 retries), there is no "skip" part option. Only option is to try again or stop the build.
Staggeringly piss-poor design, but pretty much what we've come to expect from China. No common -sense or imagination.
The whole point about a P&P machine is you can just leave it to get on with the job,
If it has a problem, it should just carry on with the next part and do everything it can, and alert the user only when it can't do any more, so all the issues can be sorted out in one go.
If this was my software I could fix this in about 15 minutes!
This is something that needs to be designed in from day one - the ability to keep track of non-placed parts to sort out later. Not rocket science, but needs some thought to do properly.
Similarly if something hangs/crashes part-way, it should be able to carry on from where it left off.
In regards to all this, my advice is that you don't enable the multi-nozzle pick until you are ready to run in high volume and know the feeders and parts are all good to go and not going to run out after a few boards. Reason here is because if you try 3 parts at once (i.e. Line #22, 23, and 24,), then if 22 fails to pick, you can't easily resume. You can abort, then restart on #22, but now you will replace 23 and 24.
:palm: :palm: :palm: :palm: :palm:
This is the sort of thing (along with the laughable video) that stops companies like Neoden being taken seriously. It's so sad that they just don't understand the issues.
Did anything more come of the openpnp.org discussions? Seems this thread has died but couldn't find anything anywhere else either.
The OpenPnP mailing list at Googlegroups is pretty active, though no recent discussions of N4
Probably worth joining if you want to get involved.
-
this is how the TVM802 handles missing parts, not perfect, but works quite comfortable:
when a part cannot be picked up the machine retries it for 5 times.
If this is unsuccessful it first places the part of the other nozzle (if any is on this nozzle) and
then stops and beeps.
Now I have three alternative choices:
a. correct the problem (i.e. supply new parts, change reel...) and press CONT to continue the job
b. if this is not possible because the PnP head is in the way, then I can stop the job, move the head to its home position,
correct the problem. Then I press START and can choose to continue at the same position where it was interrupted.
c. if I cannot correct the problem (i.e. I don't have spare parts available), before continuing I can mark the bad part with a mouse click and it will be skipped.
The most important thing is that the machine places the good parts from the other nozzle before stopping the job.
-
this is how the TVM802 handles missing parts, not perfect, but works quite comfortable:
when a part cannot be picked up the machine retries it for 5 times.
If this is unsuccessful it first places the part of the other nozzle (if any is on this nozzle) and
then stops and beeps.
Now I have three alternative choices:
a. correct the problem (i.e. supply new parts, change reel...) and press CONT to continue the job
b. if this is not possible because the PnP head is in the way, then I can stop the job, move the head to its home position,
correct the problem. Then I press START and can choose to continue at the same position where it was interrupted.
c. if I cannot correct the problem (i.e. I don't have spare parts available), before continuing I can mark the bad part with a mouse click and it will be skipped.
The most important thing is that the machine places the good parts from the other nozzle before stopping the job.
That seems a bit of a half-assed approach - by far the most likely cause of errors is parts running out or a feeder jam, sp abandoning a nozzle is a pretty stupid approach, though not quite as stupid as just stopping completely.
-
Did anything more come of the openpnp.org discussions? Seems this thread has died but couldn't find anything anywhere else either. I have a background in CAN (developed http://www.cancapture.com (http://www.cancapture.com)) and reversing CAN protocols so can help with the feeders and provide hardware. I can also provide the RS232 serial logs if that hasn't happened. I would much rather be fixing problems in an open source software suite than trying to write custom C# code to work around neoden's short-comings. So Jason, if you're listening, you have a tester here. I'm afraid the learning curve would be too high for me to port the entire machine, but if you can get something started and partially running, I can definitely help debug and finish off the code. If we could get openpnp running, from what I have seen this machine could be incredible.
Nothing has come of it. I'd still very much like to support this machine. There was one person in Seattle who was looking to buy one that I could hack on, but that didn't work out.
First step would be to get some labeled RS-232 logs and then we could go from there. Ideally the logs would have timestamps and you could describe each major action you took with timestamps. I think this would be enough to at least tell me how much work we're looking at and whether I can do this without access to a machine.
Jason
-
We received our Neoden Pick and place machine over a month ago. Despite all the software flaws we are pretty pleased with this machine.
Before the Neoden4 we used an old Siplace F3 full production Pick and Place machine. This machine was a little overkill for us, as we are only assembling prototypes and small batches. So we got rid of the Siemens F3 and bought the Neoden4. I beleive this is the best machine, with respect to price/performance, on the market today (we need to place 0201 also), but I have to admit, the software is not very userfriendly and far from practical.
It would be fantastic if we can get OpenPNP running on the Neoden4. Also I believe Neoden would also benefit if we can get OpenPNP to work on the Neoden4. They will get a beter machine when they combine their hardware with the OpenPNP software. Perhaps Neoden is willing to accommodate in this quest. It can not hurt to ask them anyway, or perhaps they can respond to this thread :).
Jason, I really hope you will receive all the necessary information to get OpenPNP working on the Neoden4.
-
Unfortunately I installed a serial port sniffer and it does not appear to be G-code. Looks like some command protocol where they send a simple command and then a set of data bytes come back. Probably similar to g-code (everything appeared to be TX+RX repeated in order) but definitely not ASCII.
I only spent about 2 minutes after I saw the data was non-ASCII before I had to run for a week long business trip. I will try to look at things a bit more and see if I can make more sense of it. Jason, can you tell me your recommended serial port sniffer s/w? I installed Eltima.
I'll also try to poke into some of their DLLs (they have a lot) to see if there's any good looking functions we can piggy back onto.
Also going to reach out to my contact to see if they can give a response on the subject. I would urge anybody else who has purchased or considering purchasing to do the same. Seems this would only increase their sales for maybe a few hours of effort so not sure why they wouldn't provide any sort of documentation.
-
so not sure why they wouldn't provide any sort of documentation.
Quite possible they don't have any,and if they do it will be in Chinese.
I'd be extremely surprised if anything was forthcoming, but no harm in asking.
The quality of the current software is an indication of how important they consider this sort of thing to be.
-
Unfortunately I installed a serial port sniffer and it does not appear to be G-code. Looks like some command protocol where they send a simple command and then a set of data bytes come back. Probably similar to g-code (everything appeared to be TX+RX repeated in order) but definitely not ASCII.
I only spent about 2 minutes after I saw the data was non-ASCII before I had to run for a week long business trip. I will try to look at things a bit more and see if I can make more sense of it. Jason, can you tell me your recommended serial port sniffer s/w? I installed Eltima.
I'll also try to poke into some of their DLLs (they have a lot) to see if there's any good looking functions we can piggy back onto.
Also going to reach out to my contact to see if they can give a response on the subject. I would urge anybody else who has purchased or considering purchasing to do the same. Seems this would only increase their sales for maybe a few hours of effort so not sure why they wouldn't provide any sort of documentation.
Sorry, I don't have a recommendation on a serial sniffer. I haven't used one in many, many years. It sounds like Eltima is working okay, so I'd say stick with that :)
If you can post what you've gathered so far, I'd be happy to see if it makes sense to me. Protocols are a specialty of mine, and I might be able to make an educated guess about what it is.
Jason
-
Neoden basically replied no on providing any help or protocol info.
I was asking about the serial port logger because the format was a bit weird with that Eltima. I could basically only get about 4 transactions on the screen at once b/c they had so much extra stuff being shown on the screen. Again only spent 2 minutes though... will try again this evening and see if I can get you something. I'll see if I can take some synchronized videos of what's on the screen too and then step through their "manual" control features so you can compare the log to a video. I really don't think it will be too hard. Didn't appear to be encrypted or anything.
-
Neoden basically replied no on providing any help or protocol info.
I was asking about the serial port logger because the format was a bit weird with that Eltima. I could basically only get about 4 transactions on the screen at once b/c they had so much extra stuff being shown on the screen. Again only spent 2 minutes though... will try again this evening and see if I can get you something. I'll see if I can take some synchronized videos of what's on the screen too and then step through their "manual" control features so you can compare the log to a video. I really don't think it will be too hard. Didn't appear to be encrypted or anything.
Sounds good. I'd think that any logger worth it's salt would have a logging feature, where it will write the raw data to a log file. This would be the ideal source of info for me. My plan for this would be to get that log, figure out what format it's in (record length, record order, etc.) and then write a simple little parser just for the log file. Then we can run logging data through it until we identify every record and from there I can write an OpenPnP driver for it.
If you come up with any files you'd like to send me, my email is jason@vonnieda.org.
Jason
-
Hey guys, after reading through all the posts in this thread, I pulled the trigger and bought the NeoDen 4 machine. It arrived last week and I had an exciting weekend learning how to use it. I did a video review of it, which you can find below:
http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/ (http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/)
Overall it seems a pretty decent machine at a very reasonable price.
-
SW looks slightly better than I expected but one noticeable very dumb error - when running at reduced speed, it moves to the pick position at reduced speed as well :palm:
When placing noncritical parts without vision, can it still detect mis-picks using vacuum sensing ? Are there any vacuum sensing parameters in the part definitions?
Can you show the process for defining new parts ? - I'm assuming you define parts rather than having to set parameters for parts in each job or per feeder - is this the case ?
-
I've done two board runs with my machine so far.
The machine moving slow to the target, when it could move fast, is a nice to have however it isn't important. I'd much rather features such as a "soft pickup", where the pickup trajectory is damped. I hate seeing parts bounced unnecessarily.
From what I've observed, the vacuum sensing only seems to detect a mis-pick. But it does not continuously check throughout the rest of the trajectory.
I've had some trouble with tape feeding. Two new reels, a 10nF and LED both 0603. The tape feeders keep failing to feed enough. There is no error detection that the tape hasn't actually been feed. So the pickup attempts just mash the tape and bounce the components out. Becomes a mess, as you get 5 parts loose and jamming. Worse if you have two heads picking from the same tape.
There is an option for "Correct Size". Whatever you do, don't check this. I believe it's vision checking of the parts size. You end up getting a lot of suction errors and good parts dumped for no reason. Wasted sooo much time on this.
The tray pickup is handy, but it's gimped by not saving it's state. If you stop the machine... for example you want adjust the pickup or placement height of something, it's looses it's index. I've been running 8 cut-tapes in the tray position for expensive items for a short run of boards. It's a pain to either hand move parts or have to change the alignment for first component. Works fine if you're placing board after board. However during initial setup, it's frustrating. The tray area also doesn't support auto index on failed pickup. It just tries the same spot 5 times. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
The major frustration is with not being able to make changes without having to go all the way through the nozzle align, board feed, edge align, multiple fidicual matching... then placing. So if you do have an issue with a feeder not aligned or need to adjust something, you loose a couple of minutes going back/forth and starting again. I am SO over this sequence when I just want to tweak something.
You really need to align the heads and the heads with the camera. When I first tried to load boards, I thought there was no chance it could ever place 0402. Must align them yourself. Made a massive difference. There is no password to get into this area, just hit enter. It's shouldn't be labeled password, as it stops people unnecessarily. Aligning the head with the camera is a little more complicated... it needs to press/rotate pickup head 1 into some carbon paper, then inspect with the camera to align.
It's a little annoying that you cannot vision align parts at the back of the machine. The last couple of feeders it out of range for the camera. You have to use a nozzle check to see where it picks up from. Limitation of the design. I've got larger feeders in these positions.
There is a method to check the pickup height. You can test/adjust the height as well as do a pick test with vacuum. But there is no option to stop the pick test... i.e. "dump part" blow it off and stop the vacuum pump.
I can't find any way to test the PCB placement height. In fact if your PCB is loaded in a fixed position, you will have to change all the placement heights in all the feeders to match whatever height you have it set at. The only way I know parts aren't touching the board with enough placement, is they fly off. I don't know I'm pressing too hard, unless I can record some fast footage and slow motion it.
My biggest concern at the moment is that all the pickup heads are not even in height. There is no individual adjustment. I have two that are >0.5mm difference in height. One will bounce the tape and possible scatter parts, while the other may not pick up a part. I've swapped nozzles around to prove the difference is machine side. There is no individual calibration. I haven't pulled apart the head to see if I can manually adjust the gear position on the steppers to match them. But it's really important for pickup/placement success. I use two small pickup nozzles on the best matched heads, which has helped.
The software does have some features to auto assign BOM components to feeders. I've tried it. I find it a lot easier to manage the feeder sheet in Excel and generate the required loadout. That way I can also optimised pickup and placement based on component groups and sort by X/Y coordinates.
Loading tape is almost fast. It's really quick to insert new tape. However I waste so much time trying to get that pull off tape to feed through the gears. Sometimes I poke some sticky tape through from the other side. I'II have to try something like folding or twisting the tape end.
If anyone knows how to do any of the following, I'd love to hear from you :-)
1. Avoid going through head/PCB alignment after making a change to the placement file.
2. Adjust/match nozzle heights.
3. Test part placement height.
4. Overcome feeders being too weak to consistently feed.
I think the feeders indexing mechanism is the weakess mechanical aspect. The software could be more intuitive, although just having more appropriate English terms would help. The software really needs to give more for individual nozzle height adjustment/control, including component placement testing/tuning. This machine is a fraction of the cost of higher end machines. Can't expect the features of a high end machine. Really hope to see some upgrades in the software though. Overall... I'm starting to learn the quirks and hope to get the machine loading boards a bit more consistently.
-
The machine moving slow to the target, when it could move fast, is a nice to have however it isn't important.
[/qupte]
Not a huge deal but is indicative of a lack of thought in the design
From what I've observed, the vacuum sensing only seems to detect a mis-pick. But it does not continuously check throughout the rest of the trajectory.
That's the most important - if placing without vision is viable, then a means of detecing mis-picks is essential. Drops after picking should be pretty rare, though can be catastrophic if a big part gets droppped randomly on a board
There is an option for "Correct Size". Whatever you do, don't check this. I believe it's vision checking of the parts size. You end up getting a lot of suction errors and good parts dumped for no reason. Wasted sooo much time on this.
My machine will detect size, but lets you specify a percentage tolerance. It can be handy to detect things like parts flipping on their side during picking
The tray pickup is handy, but it's gimped by not saving it's state. If you stop the machine... for example you want adjust the pickup or placement height of something, it's looses it's index.
The tray area also doesn't support auto index on failed pickup. It just tries the same spot 5 times. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
The major frustration is with not being able to make changes without having to go all the way through the nozzle align, board feed, edge align, multiple fidicual matching... then placing. So if you do have an issue with a feeder not aligned or need to adjust something, you loose a couple of minutes going back/forth and starting again. I am SO over this sequence when I just want to tweak something.
You really need to align the heads and the heads with the camera. When I first tried to load boards, I thought there was no chance it could ever place 0402. Must align them yourself. Made a massive difference. There is no password to get into this area, just hit enter. It's shouldn't be labeled password, as it stops people unnecessarily. Aligning the head with the camera is a little more complicated... it needs to press/rotate pickup head 1 into some carbon paper, then inspect with the camera to align.
yet you do need a PW to make it speak English :palm:
I can't find any way to test the PCB placement height. In fact if your PCB is loaded in a fixed position, you will have to change all the placement heights in all the feeders to match whatever height you have it set at. The only way I know parts aren't touching the board with enough placement, is they fly off. I don't know I'm pressing too hard, unless I can record some fast footage and slow motion it.
Seriously...? that's just ridiculous - it's essential to be able to set a PCB height, to deal with different thicknesses, jigs etc.
Such a shame that what appears to basically be a good machine ( apart from feeders maybe) is spoilt so badly by poor software design. Considering the machine has been around a while, seems they're not interested in making improvements either.
-
OnE thing we discovered that really helps picking and components popping out of tape is to turn down the peeler strength. The default is 80 but for all 8mm tapes we switches to 40. Really cuts down the noise and vibration and seems the feeder and popped components are much fewer now. I think for all wider tapes and small ICs we turned it up a bit to 50 or 60. And big components left at 80. Basically it's easier to keep this low and turn up if the tape doesn't peel.
Size checking seems to work almost but we have turned off vacuum check completely. For the size check it's good to have it on for small compinents just to check for sideways pick. You have to assign a footprint and create the size of it. We played with the size a lot and ultimately for 0402 we had to do the single component image check rather than the joint 4 at a time. With the 4 at a time, the resolution seemed too low for 0402 and sometimes the detect box was too small or big and got tossed. Still better than a bad pick or place since most 0402s are fractions of a penny. We're averaging 2ish per 100 total components probably 75 being 0402s. Then on 0603 it is works better so good to have on. Hint... look at the blue box it makes. It's too bad the message or output window doesn't give details about the failure... this should be one line of code!!!.
I asked neoden about how the footprint check works and what the tolerance is but got the typical answer that probably means they don't know or simply don't have a good answer. The shame is I really just want about 40% tolerance or so to check for sideways or 90 degree rotated picks... but no setting for it.
Oh and our biggest problem with vision check and alignment has been that two of the small nozzles were black but have worn and now are a metallic or white color in the bottom camera. So now the white metallic look of the nozzle blurs with the pad portion of 0402s and cause rejects. We literally have a black sharpie and paint the nozzle tip before a panel and that helps great until it starts wearing again. Gonna try some gun or metal blacking chemical soon.
Does anyone know the optimal height to pick components and to place? I'd say by far our biggest problem is bad feeds and components coming out or bad picks. The nozzles have a few mm of spring. So should we pick 0.1mm above and rely on suction, try exact, or purposely push down a bit. Same for placement... try for flush on pcb so we smashing paste... or in deeper or less?
We also saw that for sot23s and such it's best to run 50% speed.
On new phone with annoying auto correct keyboard so excuse my grammar and typos...
-
I asked neoden about how the footprint check works and what the tolerance is but got the typical answer that probably means they don't know or simply don't have a good answer.
[//quote]
I suspect that Neoden don't do the SW in-house, and may be buying it per-copy from someone else. This might also explain the password-for-English nonsense.
Does anyone know the optimal height to pick components and to place? I'd say by far our biggest problem is bad feeds and components coming out or bad picks. The nozzles have a few mm of spring. So should we pick 0.1mm above and rely on suction, try exact, or purposely push down a bit. Same for placement... try for flush on pcb so we smashing paste... or in deeper or less?
On my machine, for paper tapes, pick just touching, for plastic, slightly above to suck off, to avoid tape bounce.
For placing you do want it to push it into the paste - PCBs sometimes have some warp and you want to err on the too-hard side, otherwise parts may stick to the nozzle or move too much.
-
Great info jkauf!!! Appreciated.
Currently I've found a height difference between the feeders either side of the camera. The front uses 0.6mm, the rear 1.0mm. Currently using two small nozzles for 0402, 0603, 0805, SOT323, SOT23. Difficult to optimise the pickup/placement height when the nozzles don't match in height. I did loose many SOT323 parts today... not liking some of the trial and error needed to get consistent loading. Several ended up being on the camera, which caused trouble with the vision.
Two of my nozzles weren't returning properly after compression. A little INOX grease has since been working well.
The feeder advancement is a bit of a concern for me. The advancement seems accurate enough, however I noticed with two tapes I couldn't get working that it doesn't appear to put extra effort in to move the correct distance. I've just been thinking about the issue, particularly because I now have a $370 reel of LEDs I can't run on the machine. Could "Feeder Strength" be feeder speed? I pushed both tape and feeder strength it to 100% and still couldn't get the tape feeding properly. Perhaps I should have gone the other way and reduced feeder strength.
Some of the feeders have such a unique sound! I can tell when certain components are being placed while in a different room.
I finished a short run of 22 boards today. Put tape strips on the top of the waffle tray that had the micros. Initially I thought the machine would bump other parts out on pick, however only had this occur on one of the SO8s. More double sided tape to secure the length probably would have fixed it. Apart from the indexing not saving on file exit, it worked quite well. Going to be marvelous to use the machine for building such short-run prototypes on cut tape.
-
http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/ (http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/)
-
Some of the feeders have such a unique sound! I can tell when certain components are being placed while in a different room.
Yes. That ominous, god-awful noise I could hear in the review video. It kind of sounds like the noise you hear in some suspense movie trailers as it switches between scenes. Its from the peelers. For all ours I think this went away when we dropped the peeler stremgtj to 40 instead of 80 strength... and as I mentioned it seems less components were vibrating out as a result too and never had a bad peel on a 8mm wide tape.
I have no idea what feeder strength actually does and have left all these at 80. I suspect it is the drive current to the steppers but not sure. You will hear that with the peelers off, the feeder motors are actually very smooth.
Some other observations:
We saw some weird behavior aligning 0603s and other 4mm spaced components. We would try to align the component to the front of the pick window to decrease chances of components popping out. So to do this we would move 2mm until its there. Then we switch to 4mm and feed, but every time the next component would end up towards the back of the window (i.e. 2mm or 6mm away), and then all subsequent feeds were 4mm so it would stay towards the back. Even tried rebooting after getting it in position. Its like they force the absolute position to be a multiple of 4mm when feeding 4mm, no matter what, and this was always putting the components towards the back of the window. Wasted hundreds of components figuring this out, and then gave up and just picked from the back.
Also our machine just will not feed 6mm (we realized this while trying to align those 4mm spaced 0603s). Not sure but maybe this is never a valid spacing so they just quietly don't allow it. Either way all this leads me to believe there is some custom logic handling the feed spacing.
We have seen on some bigger components or plastic reels an issue where it doesn't feed. I think the tape might get snagged on the way down before it wraps around b/c once it starts working it seems to keep working. Also if a component gets through unpicked (for big stuff) I *think* the radius going to the underside is sharp enough that it could get stuck making the turn down, so you have to manually remove them. Doubt this is the case with your LEDs (I was seeing it on a TSSOP20) but worth mentioning... maybe you're talking about those big/thick 5W LEDs though.
-
http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/ (http://rayshobby.net/review-of-neoden-4-pick-and-place-machine-with-vision-system/)
thanks for the video.
The vision resolution is 100 times better than the picture of the TVM802. Look pretty clear and sharp.
-
Wow, there is suddenly surge of posts. I tried the tip of reducing peeler strength from 80 to 40. Glad to find it worked. At least the peeler noise is much smaller, and it still peels successfully.
Regarding the questions Eclipze asked:
1. Avoid going through head/PCB alignment after making a change to the placement file.
What kind of change do you mean? Generally when I make a change, I place the board at the fixed position (or feed it automatically using the conveyor belt), then you can choose a component and modify it position if I need. The only tricky part is that when using the conveyor belt, it's hard to guarantee the board will be loaded at exactly the same location. What I do is to move the board on the conveyor belt slightly and leverage the fiducials to ensure the board is in the right position, then make changes to components.
2. Adjust/match nozzle heights.
I don't think there is any way to adjust the height physically. But when setting up a feeder you can specify the pick-up height and placing height. The components are not exactly at the same height anyways, so the fact that the nozzles are not the same height doesn't really matter.
3. Test part placement height.
The placement height is determined by the component height. I just measure the component height and use that as placement height.
4. Overcome feeders being too weak to consistently feed.
I haven't encountered this problem so far. One important thing is to make sure the component tape is locked into the gear of the feeder.
One problem I encountered was that I have a 8mm tape of Tantalum capacitors that are quite height (>4mm), and the 8mm feeders can only fit components that are 2mm high. But I discovered that the 8mm feeders have this white plastic support piece which can be easily removed. Once it's removed, the capacitor tape fits in very nicely.
-
1. Examples of changes that currently result in a board re-load cycle...
- Need to adjust pick or placement height.
- Have run out of a part (or the machine is dumping too many) and want to skip it for remaining boards.
- Re-adjust feeder alignment.
- Want to move the head so I can change the reel.
2. The specific issue is that the nozzle aren't at the same height, which causes issue when both nozzles pick from the same feeder. See the picture below. There is currently only one setting for pickup/placement height per feeder. There is no adjustment per nozzle. My expectation is to either adjust the gear position on the steppers to get the heights to match, or possible move their reference. Perhaps there is an opto switch that can be adjusted. Haven't looked yet.
3. But how do you know how high your PCB? Particularly if it isn't on the rails. I have projects that use between 1.0mm and 2.4mm thick PCBs. I think the only way is to use a tray feeder to move the head to the PCB with a component in place, then test as a feeder. Not ideal, but what I was planning to do with the next board run.
-
1. Examples of changes that currently result in a board re-load cycle...
- Need to adjust pick or placement height.
- Have run out of a part (or the machine is dumping too many) and want to skip it for remaining boards.
- Re-adjust feeder alignment.
- Want to move the head so I can change the reel.
2. The specific issue is that the nozzle aren't at the same height, which causes issue when both nozzles pick from the same feeder. See the picture below. There is currently only one setting for pickup/placement height per feeder. There is no adjustment per nozzle. My expectation is to either adjust the gear position on the steppers to get the heights to match, or possible move their reference. Perhaps there is an opto switch that can be adjusted. Haven't looked yet.
3. But how do you know how high your PCB? Particularly if it isn't on the rails. I have projects that use between 1.0mm and 2.4mm thick PCBs. I think the only way is to use a tray feeder to move the head to the PCB with a component in place, then test as a feeder. Not ideal, but what I was planning to do with the next board run.
Guys, for the dollars spent this all sounds like crap. I hope you're all feeding back advice to the manufacturer.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
-
1. Examples of changes that currently result in a board re-load cycle...
- Need to adjust pick or placement height.
- Have run out of a part (or the machine is dumping too many) and want to skip it for remaining boards.
- Re-adjust feeder alignment.
- Want to move the head so I can change the reel.
2. The specific issue is that the nozzle aren't at the same height, which causes issue when both nozzles pick from the same feeder. See the picture below. There is currently only one setting for pickup/placement height per feeder. There is no adjustment per nozzle. My expectation is to either adjust the gear position on the steppers to get the heights to match, or possible move their reference. Perhaps there is an opto switch that can be adjusted. Haven't looked yet.
3. But how do you know how high your PCB? Particularly if it isn't on the rails. I have projects that use between 1.0mm and 2.4mm thick PCBs. I think the only way is to use a tray feeder to move the head to the PCB with a component in place, then test as a feeder. Not ideal, but what I was planning to do with the next board run.
Guys, for the dollars spent this all sounds like crap. I hope you're all feeding back advice to the manufacturer.
You get what you pay for - don't forget that this machine costs maybe a fifth of the nearest equivalent from an established P&P manufacturer.
The frustrating thing is that pretty much all the issues are fixable in software, but it seems the manufacturer has the typical Chinese attitude of "good enough to ship" and isn't interested in fixing it.
Bear in mind most of their market is China, where labour to babysit and set up the machine is cheap.
-
For the dollars spent I couldn't even find a descent second hand machine that here. I remember one quote was $29k for a 26 year old second hand model. I don't have the space, shop air or power to run those. Not interested in a bargin either... they can take several months of tinkering to get working.
You work with the tools that you have and can afford. As an engineer... I apply my skill as best I can to get the most out of it. That means learning the quirks, the workarounds and make any improvements or adjustments I can. I loaded boards this morning full of 0402. In a couple of months, I'II hopefully depend on the machine and it won't take too long to pay it off.
I wouldn't be so quick to label it crap and not worth the money ;-)
Look forward to hearing from others with machines on how they've got smooth loading going.
-
3. But how do you know how high your PCB? Particularly if it isn't on the rails. I have projects that use between 1.0mm and 2.4mm thick PCBs. I think the only way is to use a tray feeder to move the head to the PCB with a component in place, then test as a feeder. Not ideal, but what I was planning to do with the next board run.
Is there no way to manually guide the nozzle down to the board surface and read out the height?
-
Hey All!
I am the proud owner of a NeoDen4 and have been operating it since July. I think I have a pretty good feel for it now (as I can see on this forum, others have gone through the "discovery process" for this machine), and can accurately and consistently place 0402 parts now.
I have one question: I appear to be missing something, because I cannot get the tray feeder to work. After set up, it picks the first part fine and dandy (I am using a 10-paneled board), however for the second panel it just goes to the same spot in the tray feeder for the next part, which by this time is empty. I have the parameters on the feeder panel all set up right, however there does not seem to be a setting for the part spacing, advancing to the next part, etc. All I see is the first part coordinates, the number of rows and columns, and the row/column starting point.
What am I missing here? Any advice would be helpful, thanks!
-
Hey All!
I am the proud owner of a NeoDen4 and have been operating it since July. I think I have a pretty good feel for it now (as I can see on this forum, others have gone through the "discovery process" for this machine), and can accurately and consistently place 0402 parts now.
I have one question: I appear to be missing something, because I cannot get the tray feeder to work. After set up, it picks the first part fine and dandy (I am using a 10-paneled board), however for the second panel it just goes to the same spot in the tray feeder for the next part, which by this time is empty. I have the parameters on the feeder panel all set up right, however there does not seem to be a setting for the part spacing, advancing to the next part, etc. All I see is the first part coordinates, the number of rows and columns, and the row/column starting point.
What am I missing here? Any advice would be helpful, thanks!
With the 'Feeder basis information' you select the first component in the tray feeder and with the 'Tray feeder information' you select the last component in the tray feeder. You fill in the number of rows and colums and the machine calculates all components in between.
Good luck!
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
First floor, west side, visible from the main west entrance, about midway down the west wall of the building.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/22%C2%B032'29.1%22N+114%C2%B005'13.6%22E/@22.5414282,114.0865658,19z/data= (https://www.google.com/maps/place/22%C2%B032'29.1%22N+114%C2%B005'13.6%22E/@22.5414282,114.0865658,19z/data=)!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d22.541427!4d114.087113
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
SEG is just one building. Pretty much everyone offering kit like Neoden has either a shop or a representative with a shop on there. It's maize like quality makes some of them a little hard to find, though.
-
Guys,
Can any of you confirm if the Neoden4 'conveyor rails package' is available as a separate purchase? If so do you have an idea of the cost?
Any other, similar conveyors [for the purpose of transporting PCBs through PnP machines] are also likely going to do the trick, if you know of any I'd appreciate the heads up.
Cheers - Peter
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
SEG is just one building. Pretty much everyone offering kit like Neoden has either a shop or a representative with a shop on there. It's maize like quality makes some of them a little hard to find, though.
For some reason I thought there was a No.2 SEG building but must have mis-remembered something..
The layout can certainly be confusing - so much to see, stuff in the way of sight lines and multiple exits make it hard to keep track of which way you're going.
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
SEG is just one building. Pretty much everyone offering kit like Neoden has either a shop or a representative with a shop on there. It's maize like quality makes some of them a little hard to find, though.
For some reason I thought there was a No.2 SEG building but must have mis-remembered something..
The layout can certainly be confusing - so much to see, stuff in the way of sight lines and multiple exits make it hard to keep track of which way you're going.
There are numerous buildings around Hua Qiang Road which are full of electronics companies, including some which at first sight appear to be apartment blocks - usually because they were built as apartment blocks, but ended up filled with small electronics companies. Most of them aren't amenable to anyone who doesn't know exactly who they are going to visit, though. SEG is the key place for the casual visitor, and most things have some sort of representation there.
-
Good afternoon.
I have changed the interface to Chinese in NeoDen4 software.
Now, I can't change Chinese to English.
I press buttom "English", software restart, and language is Chinese.
Help me please.
My "seting.ini":
[System]
Language=eng
[Serial]
Language=
Thanks.
-
I believe this is a 'design feature' in the SW App and access is limited and controlled by Neoden.
From my knowledge of others who have posted the same issue, you are now required to contact Neoden directly and request an 'unlock key' or 'registration serial number' from them in order to proceed and swap back to the English language version.
I expect that sell this machine much cheaper in mainland China to 'locals', and this is probably their way of 'ring fencing' products delivered into that market vs overseas users. It's frustratingly poor design, I know.
Good luck with that!
Cheers- Peter
Good afternoon.
I have changed the interface to Chinese in NeoDen4 software.
Now, I can't change Chinese to English.
I press buttom "English", software restart, and language is Chinese.
Help me please.
My "seting.ini":
[System]
Language=eng
[Serial]
Language=
Thanks.
-
the neoden store is on the ground floor, and its near one of the front entrances on the left hand side of the building..
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
If you have the opportunity, would you discuss with them if they are willing to work with Openpnp to get there software running on the Neoden4?
I'm sure Neoden would also benefit from it.
-
ISTR someone mentioned Neoden have a booth in one of the SEG buildings in Shenzen - anyone know exactly where?
I'm in Hong Kong again later this month and may get a chance to sneak off for another SZ day trip :)
If you have the opportunity, would you discuss with them if they are willing to work with Openpnp to get there software running on the Neoden4?
I'm sure Neoden would also benefit from it.
I can try, but wouldn't hold your breath - I expect they only have low-level sales people there.
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
Did you compare the Neoden with the other machines you can find around SEG?
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
Auto nozzle changer is a critical necessity for most jobs.
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
Did you compare the Neoden with the other machines you can find around SEG?
Didn't see any others at SEG, there was one of the Charmhigh ones at the tools floor in Duhui 100 but it wasn't running. Neoden did also have a couple of their earlier machines at the back of their booth.
It's possible I may have missed some but I only did a fairly cursory run-around a few places today due to waking up late, delay at Visa office and having to get some sleep before working tonight.
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
What was your immediate gut feeling after seeing it? would you put one in your workshop?
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
Auto nozzle changer is a critical necessity for most jobs.
It would certainly be nice but with the Neoden having 4 heads it isn't a deal breaker I don't think. We leave 3 small nozzles mounted and one larger one. That works for us but each use case is different of course.
-
Auto nozzle changer is a critical necessity for most jobs.
[/quote]
It would certainly be nice but with the Neoden having 4 heads it isn't a deal breaker I don't think. We leave 3 small nozzles mounted and one larger one. That works for us but each use case it different of course.
[/quote]
I totally forgot about the this one having 4 heads....much better and makes a nozzle changer a lot less critical.
-
Saw a machine first hand today at SEG In Shenzen- can't miss them, bang in front of the main entrance.
Bulid quality looks pretty reasonable. Feeder design looks a bit clumsy with the seperate cover tape puller,but $60 for 8mm feeder isn't too bad.
Mentioned the main issues of lack of auto tool change and part height, seems they've had quite a lot of feedback on that, but nothing happenning on those in the immediate future.
What was your immediate gut feeling after seeing it? would you put one in your workshop?
If my machine died terminally ,it would be on the list. I'd need to look closer at the height limitation. The conveyor is a big plus.
-
The 2x2 layout might make a tool-changer more tricky to implement, though a reasonable compromise might be to only have 2 nozzles auto-changeable. The main thing is you want all the nozzles going to do the bulk of the parts quickly ,which will typically be small chips. In most cases, there will be relatively few larger parts, so lower efficiency with those ( by not having all nozzles available) would be less of an issue.
I wonder if, by running with alternate software, it might be possible to add a tool-changer. As far as I could see it doesn't look like it uses Juki nozzles. It would depend on how easily they can come on & off.
-
I think they're using Samsung CP45 style nozzles.
They pop in and out of the holder by just pushing/pulling on them. No retractable retaining ring or anything like that.
-
This is my first placed board on Neoden-4.
https://youtu.be/9ff6kBoWJC8 (https://youtu.be/9ff6kBoWJC8)
-
This is my first placed board on Neoden-4.
It looks like your passives are 0603? Can you say what pitch the chips are? Have you been able to run a significant batch since the video was made?
How often does is mis-pick? How gracefully does it handle that event?
-
Hi,
has anyone been able to change the language of the software back to english? Mine changed to chinese and even though I put the English button and restarted the machine it is still chinese.
Any help on this?
Jan
-
Hi,
has anyone been able to change the language of the software back to english? Mine changed to chinese and even though I put the English button and restarted the machine it is still chinese.
Any help on this?
Jan
ISTR you need a passwordd from the manufacturer to do this
-
Hi,
has anyone been able to change the language of the software back to english? Mine changed to chinese and even though I put the English button and restarted the machine it is still chinese.
Any help on this?
Jan
Mike is correct, you need a password to change the language. I can tell you the password is stored in a file in plain text on the hard drive. Look at the "seting.ini" file in the Neoden4 directory.
Or contact Neoden - they are very helpful and quite responsive.
-
Mike, Steve,
thank you. I did contact them but they seem to be asleep in China right now. I will check the folder for the password and wait for their answer.
-
Thanks to Haimi from Neodentech it is english again.
Another question: the plate for my vibration feeder only supports 8mm sticks (5 times). Does anyone has a different plate like for 10mm or 12mm?
-
Thanks to Haimi from Neodentech it is english again.
Another question: the plate for my vibration feeder only supports 8mm sticks (5 times). Does anyone has a different plate like for 10mm or 12mm?
Ask Neoden you machine you a new plastic insert with the size you require. They made a replacement for us as our machine was one of the originals and the insert didn't fit a wide SOIC tube.
-
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking around here for a while, and this forum thread has helped make the decision tu purchase a N4. Thanks a lot for everyone who provided info here!
We got the machine in early August, with only ~12 feeders initially. Shipping was via DHL, all wend smooth and fast and it was delivered in perfect state.
We didn`t get the stand from Neoden, but instead rolled our own, made out of square steel pipe. Nice & rigid. At around 90% speed setting it rattles a bit, but nothing disturbing. :-+
After the "standard" experience everyone around here reports, including switching to Chinese, fiddling around with the not-so-friendly software, frustration with setting up panels/fiducials, settings for feed/peel strength etc., I was pretty happy with the results, given the price for the machine.
I have 2 notable incidents to report:
- After ~2 months in, the stepper for nozzle #3 rotation was not functioning properly. With some patience and spare time I managed to take it off the machine, take it apart, and it was just one wire of a winding not properly soldered to the small PCB with the connector going outside. Neoden sent 2 replacements for free afterwards, with the next shipment (see next bullet). Kudos to them!
- A little while after the above incident, we went ahead and ordered a full set feeders to fill the machine. To my surprise (#1), customs declared value / invoice the customs had was for a much lower amount, 10% of the total. Was sorted in the end after 3-4 email exchanges. Surprise #2 was the bonus: we received brand-new peel-boxes and used feeders, with obvious usage/scratch/rust marks... Despite anything I said, Neoden sustained their point of view, that the feeders are "new" and those marks are "normal from assembly/testing". In short, the conclusion suggested by them: "the feeders work, what's the big deal?" :-//
Other issues:
- Broken white plastic bit in a feeder. Doesn't really bother us yet.
- Vibratory feeders are a F'ING PAIN to use due to the badly designed plastic part on the machine. I'm thinking of designing and 3D-printing my own part to replace the one on the machine. Anyone else who went this way?
- Any questions about a software update hit a brick wall. Would love to hear if anyone received a software update.
We've run ~600 boards in the meantime, with decent results, and rarely requiring a manual nudge on some components. With the exception of the issues above and keeping in mind the price tag, I'd say I`m pretty satisfied with the equipment.
All the best!
-
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking around here for a while, and this forum thread has helped make the decision tu purchase a N4. Thanks a lot for everyone who provided info here!
Thank you for the report. I am curious if you have calculated the average CPH of the machine while running your programs - including any necessary fiddling with the machine or nudging before reflow.
-
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking around here for a while, and this forum thread has helped make the decision tu purchase a N4. Thanks a lot for everyone who provided info here!
Thank you for the report. I am curious if you have calculated the average CPH of the machine while running your programs - including any necessary fiddling with the machine or nudging before reflow.
Haven't really measured it, but for some panels with ~800 parts we get around 1800cph with 3 nozzles, 50-60% speed, all components placed with vision, feeder positions not optimised (e.g.machine would travel to both feeder banks to pick up 3 parts in the same cycle), and including some time to adjust/fix stuff (e.g.vibra feeder fails/spills) at each panel. Not so great cph but meh... good enough for now.
Regards!
-
I think this is cost effective and even the features are working good. Even it is easily available from the nearest distributor.
-
Now it's time to use Neoden 5.
-
Setting up with fidicuals drives me nuts. I have to offset all the coordinates from placement data so they are positive to get their positions to work, otherwise I go around in circles. I'd love a few refinements in the software. Such as being able to test placement height on a component. I have the feeling it would be better to change my entire component footprint library so the coordinate center is in the center of the part. Some boards where components are at odd angles are a pain to adjust, as I have to edit the pick and place data based on manually picking coordinates from the PCB. Some components, like a QFN32, it just won't place accuracy in position or rotation - have to bump the majority, which results in bridges/re-work. Tiny packages like a SOD323 create a lot of re-work, as they get bounced in the tape and end up on their side or upside down. I care more for accuracy than speed, so individually vision align on most non-jelly bean parts or those they don't place well.
Boards with at least 0603 or greater and non-fine pitch parts it is quite good. It does the job and great to have for small quantity and prototyping. Fine pitch and 0402 boards are the most difficult boards. I tried to use it for a big job (fine pitch, 0402), using every feeder, doubled sided, near 2500 components per panel side. Spent all the time to setup (including a lot tweaking) and ran 8 panels... then unloaded all the reels and sent those out for external PCBA. It just took too much of my time to baby sit for that job, fix panels pre and post reflow.
-
I have the feeling it would be better to change my entire component footprint library so the coordinate center is in the center of the part.
Why would the co-ordinate centre ever NOT be at the centre ? Or was it just a bad library?
-
Never considered there to be a need to have the footprints designed with origin in the center. Any component that is symmetrical I create with the origin at the center as a matter of habit/preference, as I've never liked footprints having pin 1 as the origin. Non-symmetrical components like a DPAK or SON5x6 I tend to use an origin that is convenient given the manufacturers drawing data. Suspect I've missed something obvious all this time :-[
-
Never considered there to be a need to have the footprints designed with origin in the center. Any component that is symmetrical I create with the origin at the center as a matter of habit/preference, as I've never liked footprints having pin 1 as the origin. Non-symmetrical components like a DPAK or SON5x6 I tend to use an origin that is convenient given the manufacturers drawing data. Suspect I've missed something obvious all this time :-[
Apart from pick/place issues, you generally want a part to rotate around its centre when you're juggling stuff around during the initial stages of placement in the design
-
I designed my export script to calculate geometrical center of the component, and output that data, rather than the random origin used in library. You don't need to mess with it...
-
Hello
I have been looking for an automatic pick and place machines (TVM920, Neoden4, M10V...) and because of my budget, existing documentation (videos, reviews, comments...) I think I will go finally for Neoden.
But Finally when I was almost decided, I read about the Neoden5 which will have a new tape feeder, but loosing 10 tape feeder positions because of that; from 48 to 38 positions max.
http://pickandplace-neoden.en.made-in-china.com/product/ReAxBJYkVNGL/China-Neoden-5-Visual-Chip-Mounter.html (http://pickandplace-neoden.en.made-in-china.com/product/ReAxBJYkVNGL/China-Neoden-5-Visual-Chip-Mounter.html)
Does anyone have any additional information about the new upgrade model and what is the difference respect to the existing Neoden4?
I am going to spend quite a lot money on it and if a new revision will be released in few months I prefer wait for it.
Thank you so much to all of your replies :-)
-
I had expected the Mid X, Mid Y, Ref X, Ref Y, Pad X, Pad Y in the placement data would cover the mid point.
-
We're thinking about buying one and have some questions:
1) Is the Neoden 5 available already if not should we wait?
2) Is the height limitation still 5mm on the new one or has it been fixed in the old one or what's the latest on the height limitation? Is there a trick to circumvent it?
3) As anyone used it consistently to place 0201 and QFN?
4) Most of our designs are 0402 with only a few 0201 for TVS devices and some QFN-64, TSSOP-14 and LFCSP-56. Would it work for those?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys can provide,
John.
-
We're thinking about buying one and have some questions:
1) Is the Neoden 5 available already if not should we wait?
2) Is the height limitation still 5mm on the new one or has it been fixed in the old one or what's the latest on the height limitation? Is there a trick to circumvent it?
3) As anyone used it consistently to place 0201 and QFN?
4) Most of our designs are 0402 with only a few 0201 for TVS devices and some QFN-64, TSSOP-14 and LFCSP-56. Would it work for those?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys can provide,
John.
As someone who outsources a good amount of SMT assembly just don't go lower than 0402 / QFN type packages.
It is just asking for trouble. BGA, 0201 and those kind of things the tolerances are much lower thus the machines and
the general quality you need to achieve this whit a somewhat acceptable yield you need a top of the line assembler / machine.
All these hobby kind of machines I would not go smaller than 0402 and QFN period (and 0402 yield might just be 80% with these kind of things).
-
The problem with 0201 is as much feeders as anything else. From what I hear the N4's feeders aren't too great, so 0201 is probably a bit unrealistic
-
I wouldn't try 0201 with the N4 I use. I haven't really looked into the N5 yet as we won't be upgrading. Contact Neoden and ask for the status, they are very responsive.
-
Thank you for the info. I'm not that worried about the 0201 because we only use 4 in a 600 component board. We should probably switch them to 0402 anyway. What about the 5mm height limit has that changed ? BTW the use is for prototyping not production.
Also would you guys recommend a different machine? I'm not that familiar with the latest ad greatest in this area.
-
Just wanted to let you guys know that I contacted NeoDen and asked them about the 5mm height limitation and they explained that if the head's placing route is planned correctly you can place components quite a bit taller without knocking down previously placed components. They sent me this link to a video of the NeoDen 4 placing pretty tall electrolytic capacitor. This took care of my concerns.In case anyone else had the same concerns as me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VKNwo6aCxo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VKNwo6aCxo)
-
Keep in mind, tall components can be difficult to accommodate with the feeders. Hence they have placed them from a generic tray.
I have had problems with some components that fit in the the feeders. I've had to remove the metal leaf spring in a few, otherwise with components ~2.5mm and higher it lifts the tape and the toothed wheel starts skipping on tape feeding.
-
... I've had to remove the metal leaf spring in a few, otherwise with components ~2.5mm and higher it lifts the tape and the toothed wheel starts skipping on tape feeding.
Thanks for the info. I didn't understand this last part. Keep in mind I don't have one or access to one so if you're referring to something only an owner would know I would not understand you. Do you happen to have a picture of what you're referring to?
-
I don't have photos of it. There is a thin stainless sheet that sits under the tape for 12mm feeders, which is spring loaded to hold the tape high in the slot. 8mm feeders don't have it (can't remember if 16/24mm have them). If the components are tall, it exerts more pressure and can push the tape a bit high, such that the wheel feeding the tape skips. I've only had to do this for a couple of the 12mm tapes. Just took the feeders out, undid a little screw and remove that spring leaf.
-
Keep in mind, tall components can be difficult to accommodate with the feeders. Hence they have placed them from a generic tray.
I have had problems with some components that fit in the the feeders. I've had to remove the metal leaf spring in a few, otherwise with components ~2.5mm and higher it lifts the tape and the toothed wheel starts skipping on tape feeding.
That machine likes those capacitors eh? MMmmmm Num Num..... Mmmmm Num Num.
-
OK thanks for the explanation I understand now.
-
Just wanted to let you guys know that I contacted NeoDen and asked them about the 5mm height limitation and they explained that if the head's placing route is planned correctly .
But how well does their software actually support doing this ? If implemented well it could be useable but my suspicion is it's probably a fiddly PITA to do in .
-
I'd concur. I wouldn't bother loading parts like this with the Neoden4 unless you were building a significant number that made it worth it such trouble. In the case of these caps... seems a waste of time. You'd have to unload them off the tape and place them neatly in the pick up tray. Might as well just place them straight on the board ::)
Placing jelly bean parts and chips is where all the time is saved. When I build a short run and have some ICs and bigger parts on cut tape (SIM sockets, inductors, crystals, push buttons etc...), I put a length of double side tape on a flat tray... peel off the cover tape and then pick directly off the indexed tape like the parts were in a tray. Done this with quite a few cut tape strips before. Avoids having to change out feeders to fit larger ones and also great when you have all the feeders loaded with other parts you want to keep loaded. Little cumbersome to reset the index between panels, but for a short run, it's easy. For prototypes, I use the vibration tray landing for a few of the unique parts - it's nice and close and easy to keep loading while the machine is running. Great for some of the IC's where you just want the vision place them neatly, or you only have loose parts.
-
Any one can tell that when N5 will be Available ??
-
Hi all,
we just bought one Neoden4 and it runs well so far but I have to asked some questions from time to time and this blog seems to be the best way with a lot of skills people.
So here comes the first one:
Is there any way to change the crosshairs colour because ours is black and it`s pretty hard to see espacially when the camera is showing a IC. In most of the vedios and manuals it`s blue and much better to see.
Thanks for you help
-
All,
After much research (this thread was great!) I am almost ready to order a N4/N5. I have been talking with NeoDen customer support with my questions, and I have been looking into how to slow down the Z access during a pick and place. They responded that this is already built into the software using the following settings. Since I don't have a NeoDen machine yet, could anyone with the machine confirm the "pick delay" and "place delay" setting do what I want?
Thanks, Peter
-
I believe those delays determine how long the nozzle stays down to pickup the part. It would be nice if they added variable speed for the nozzle travel itself.
-
They adjust the delay, but not the speed. I don't think slowing down the placement head is that important. It has been my experience that getting the pickup and placement height as accurately as possible is more beneficial. Particularly with small parts that tend to bounce in the tape. In some difficult cases, like a SOD323, I have to set those with respect to a specific nozzle, as the nozzle all function at slightly different heights and there is no independent calibration for them.
-
The reason to delay after placing is to allow time for the vacuum to fully dissipate - this can be an issue for large nozzles and lightweight parts. Also for LEDs with silicone surfaces, which can stick to the nozzle as they seal well.
Obviously these settings should be settable per part type, not globally, though from what I've seen of the N4 software, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter.
-
The placement delay is per part.
-
Is it possible to delay the pickup so the vac has time to build on heavier parts?
-
Is it possible to delay the pickup so the vac has time to build on heavier parts?
I'd assume that's the "pick delay" value
-
Pick delay is used to stabilize vacuum on part pickup used for big parts.
Put delay starts after closing vacuum can be used for light parts to prevent not blown away on vacuum close. I don't know if Neoden 4 aplly a pressure push when vacuum closed.
The pressure push needed to separate parts having silicone surface.
I don't understand why there is no nozzle calibration for each nozzle ask Neoden if this is right maybe function covered in a dialog ?
-
I went back an forth with Neoden regarding the high offset between different nozzles. I provided pictures and descriptions. The nozzle are the same length. I can swap the nozzles around and the difference in pick height always remains the same. The machine has the error. I spoke with Haimi last September about the issue. He advised to check the head height, which I did as best I can. Rather difficult to measure this. The 14th email we were back to square one, being asked to try a different nozzle fitted. Gave up.
I think the picture below is evident enough there is a significant height error. I didn't resolve how to adjust this myself. Nozzles 2 and 3 are the closest match and therefore the ones I use the most for volume placed parts. Otherwise, I'm limited to using nozzles 1 and 4 where they are only used on that reel. Bigger parts it's not so much of a problem, as I can overshoot the height without risk of bouncing the tape.
-
All,
Just to follow up, NeoDen did confirm after working through a communication hiccup that as Steve stated, those delays are only milliseconds and there is no way to slow only the Z velocity. I explained how useful having independent control over the Z velocity would be, and they took it down as a possible future improvement. Hopefully, how useful this would be to users translated well.
Peter
-
We have suggested more control of the Z axis as well.
-
We have suggested more control of the Z axis as well.
It is so odd that would not be a very high priority from the very beginning.
-
We have suggested more control of the Z axis as well.
It is so odd that would not be a very high priority from the very beginning.
As well as more fundamental things like that when set to move slowly, it appears to do so even when not carrying parts. Could be that they only have very crude, global control over motor speeds.
-
Just got my Neoden4 and here is my review:
I ordered -
Neoden4 Machine w/ Rails
Solder Paste Stencil "Machine"
Some Extra Feeders
Stand
Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse
After placing the order, it took about 2 weeks to receive the packages. There were 4 packages, DHL brought 3 of them in a van, and the last in a box truck (it was in a big crate).
Everything was packed VERY WELL. The machine was bolted to rubber pads that were bolted to the crate floor. It looked like they put a lot of care in shipping.
Since this thread focuses on the machine, I won't go into the Solder Paste Stencil Thingy-ma-bob.
The Stand -
It is made of thicker steel (like a sheet steel), and bolts together with a zillion allen head bolts. It came with a thick rubber mat that lays on top of the finished stand. Assembly time was pretty quick and went without a hitch. It's not super heavy, but has some weight to it. I can understand when people say you should fill the inside of it with sand bags or concrete It's slightly shaky when you have that machine on top of it swinging the head around...
The Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard -
Typical old school VGA dell monitor (was it 1280x1024 or something like that?). They give you a super long VGA cable which came in handy. The mouse and keyboard were actually really nice. Both wireless and uses a little dongle that you can plug into one of the USB ports around the machine.
The Machine (Neoden4) -
It was well packed, very clean, and very heavy duty. I was very surprised at the quality of the machine. It looks like it has a lot of Steel and Aluminum parts. It fit on the stand with the help of a friend lifting it up and putting the bolts through the tabs. I had to drill out 2 of the holes in the tabs on the stand, they were a bit too small for the bolts that were shipped (no big deal, stepper bit to the rescue).
Before I started up the machine, I went through and removed all of the clips that held the X,Y head in place. I also double checked the feeders to make sure they were tight and plugged in.
Everything looked good, so I fired it up.
The software boots up pretty fast. Before you know it, you're at the main screen which allows you to pick a file. Everything on my machine was in English. It did have a few Chinese PNP files which I assume are for testing?
The software is pretty simple, it doesn't have a ton of menus or config - it gets right to the point.
Since I had a bunch of boards ready to go, I skipped messing around with their test board and went right to my stuff.
The machine came with a little plastic case with a few heads in it. I put the smaller ones in (I don't have the sizes in front of me). I then loaded up a test reel of 10k resistors (nice and cheap!! can waste them all day!). Now I had to add the part to the software - this is pretty easy to do. I will admit I watched the youtube videos about 10 times and had to decipher some of what was going on looking at the videos then back and the screen.
The software can definitely use an "English" overhaul - but if you can get past that, it's pretty straight forward.
Once I had the part in, I fiddled with a few things and tried to do a test pick ONLY. Well, the head just went down and picked up - NOTHING.
ok? so I went over to the system menus and saw that when I put my finger under the head and pressed "SUCK" there was no vacuum.
I realized (after about 30 minutes of futzing around) that the vacuum pumps weren't on. I hit up my representative at NeoDen and filled her in with the problem. In the mean time, I said the hell with it, I'm going to see what's going on... It's in our nature!
I took the gamble of fiddling with the machine - well aware of the consequences... I figured if I break something, I ain't shipping this thing back and I'm sure they're not going to send a repair man from china.
I lugged the machine back off of the stand, and took the panel off of the bottom (thanks to this thread, I know exactly where the guts of the machine were and how to get to them). I looked around, and noticed that the molex plug from the transformer was plugged into the 220v slot. Right above it was a 110v slot. I also measured the voltage on the vacuum pumps. They are 12v pumps (written on the side of the pump) and the voltage going to them was 6v. Well since I'm in the US, we need 110v So I moved the connector to 110v and crossed my fingers, and turned it on.
The vacuum pumps kicked on and the machine booted up.
In about an hour (8am Chinese time), Neoden got back to me. I sent them pictures of the change, and they confirmed that the machine was shipped for 220v and my fix was appropriate. I was surprised at how responsive and helpful they were.
After that minor hiccup, I got the machine back together and started testing some feed, picks, etc. Everything worked great.
I then wrote a program to take my data (from pcbartist) and put it in the proper .csv format for the machine, and got it all imported to do a dry run of the board.
Loading the reels... This was a pain until I got the hang of it. The hardest part is getting the plastic peel through the peel feed slot... If the plastic doesn't have tape on it to help guide it through, it is a f%$#ing pain to maneuver it through that slot.
After getting 12 reels loaded, I started working with the software to set everything up. Like I said earlier, it's not super difficult once you get through the wacky translation issues.
At this point I'm going to jump to the process of board recognition and "Mark Points".
The first thing I did is setup the edge recognition. I put the board in the feeder, and clicked FEED. It feeds the board and attempts to find the edge. It found the edge every time on my boards. At this point you can do some adjustments on the alignment if needed.
The next part was dealing with the "LEFT BOTTOM". I am not using panelized boards, so my rows/cols parameters were 1x1. This is definitely a part where the software could be more clear. The "LEFT BOTTOM" refers to the first part. (I got this from watching the videos). If someone else understands this better than me, please chime in.
What I did -
I created a part in the parts list called "FID1". I picked a fiducial and entered in the coords from the pcb software. I then went to the "LEFT BOTTOM" param and manually aligned in to the FID1 part. It seems like at that point the software can get a relative coord calculation in place.
After doing this I added the 3 "Mark Points" in which I select 3 fiducials.
Now I was ready to go.
I ran the board through - it found the fiducials, and started placing parts... It placed them all over the office Pretty much everywhere except where they were supposed to go!
Not even the double sided tape on the board helped.
I quickly learned that I had to spend some time adjusting the pnp parameters.
After going reel to reel (in the software) setting up "Pick Height, Place Height, and Delays", I got it tuned up and was able to get parts down with no issues.
I then switched of to a pasted board, and had a few problems but did a bit more fine tuning and was able to get a board completely finished.
*NOTES:
I was using 1206 passives, and a few SOT23 parts. I am in the process of making a tray that I'm going to cut out of plexi on the laser cutter to try some IC's. Once I get a tray I will try some of the fine pitch stuff.
I did about 50 components and they laid down very accurately.
Also, I had 3 SOT23 transistors that were going down about .5mm off. After blaming the machine, I realized the part center in the PCB software was off....
Overall - I would say the software is very decent once you get past the translation learning curve, and some of the minor quirks. I think the machine is great for the money spent.
Thanks for reading my long post!
-
I have a Neoden-3 and a TM220A
The Neoden-3 was no faster than the TM220A, because it is larger and heavier.
However I needed the extra tape reel spaces and large-IC placing ability.
These machines have saved me a huge amount of time and money, I've used the TM220A for 3 years, and the Neoden-3 for 1 year.
However I always need to visually check the boards for misplaced or missing components.
A vision system would be awesome and and the Neoden-4 looks great.
The TM220A is for sale.
It works perfectly, however as mentioned I am using the Neoden-3 because it has more reels.
-
Hi Guys!
Could anyone share the last stable firmware for NeoDen?
Is the firware ver. 4.1.1.B7 the last one?
-
Hi Guys!
Could anyone share the last stable firmware for NeoDen?
Is the firware ver. 4.1.1.B7 the last one?
Neoden is always happy to send the latest version, just email them.
-
Thank you TheSteve!
Unfortunately, the NeoDen is forwarding me to the local distributor.
I would like to have free opportunity to change to a new firmware by myself.
For example, I know that Neoden has recently released a new firmware.
My local distributor tells me that it is raw, and that it should not be used.
I would like to be able to decide on my own whether to install or not.
I think (hope) that the new firmware should be free and open without any links with the distributors.
So I hope anyone give me the information about the last version of the firmware and share.
Thank you.
-
Currently I am really pissed off by this device!
Support no longer responds... probably a lawyer will have to take over.
Positioning error on X and Y axis (about >=0.2mm/100mm)...
Feeder positioning error on 0402 components so 0201 is absolutely impossible!!!! (do not believe the described possibilities of their advertising)
Not described Software setting in the operating instructions (size correct???)
-
I don't use the size correct option. It seemed related to vision checking, but I found it just dumps components unnecessarily.
I use 3 fidicuals for alignment, as wide spaced as possible. Also, make sure parts placement is based on the copper. Never use the silkscreen or mask as a reference.
I've place a lot of 0402. You really need to set the pickup height with care, otherwise you'll just bounce them around. I use different height offsets, as the pickups aren't precise enough across the entire machine.
Hope that helps!
-
Yes, I also have misalign of mounting the SMD components.
Here is the pic.
Unfortunately the camera is not good image and the nozzle has NOT symmetrical hole, so I can't get the stable calibration position of the nozzles.
Also I can't achieve a stable capturing of the SDM 0402 by the nozzle XN03. The XN07 is too much.
Eclipze, thank you for share.
I wonder to know what the nozzle type are you using? (XN03, XN07)
-
I'm not sure on the nozzle size names. I use the smallest I have. The next size up is just too big for them.
Sounds like you haven't calibrated the nozzles to the cameras. It's in the manual. Go into the System Configuration. The Config pwd is nothing, just hit enter. You need to do the lens rotation and then adjust the crosshairs on each so the upward camera is aligned with the nozzle. Then there is another process where you align the down camera to the nozzles, where you move location to a PCB and mark it. Need to have something like carbon paper so you can see where it pushes the nozzle. Then you line up where it's marked with the downward camera.
-
I don't use the size correct option. It seemed related to vision checking, but I found it just dumps components unnecessarily.
I also do not use this option because it is not described anywhere.
I've place a lot of 0402. You really need to set the pickup height with care, otherwise you'll just bounce them around. I use different height offsets, as the pickups aren't precise enough across the entire machine.
The pickup heigt has nothing to do with the xy coordinate System. I have placed graph paper on the workbench and did some measurements with the camera. In the X axis I have an accumulating error of >= 0.2mm per 100mm. In the Y axis round about 0.15mm/100mm.
-
Machine is not assembled square maybe ?
Or they use the wrong pulse per step settings / slack in belt / camera is not mounted / calibrated correctly.
-
We use the third generation, how much?
-
Eclipze, thank you very much!
Yes, I did it. But the misalign still is appear.
When I try to calibrate the smallest nozzle (without rotation) the hole has a big displacement from the axis of rotation.
If I aligned after the rotation, the smallest nozzle doesn't able to take the SMD 0402 (2 times missis from 3).
If I aligned the nozzle without the rotation (just at the center of the hole at the current position) then I can take 9 SMD's 0402 from 10. But at the end I get a constant offset.
-
Could anyone tell what the last stable (available) firmware?
-
The lookup camera is central to the four nozzles, so it will not have a perpendicular view at the nozzles.
I don't know the nozzle size I have, but if I know the next largest won't work for 0402.
1. Check the nozzle is clear for good suction. There was one time I had an 0402 stuffed length ways in a nozzle obstructing the air pressure.
2. Check the nozzle end is clean. I clean the tips before every build. Mostly in case any paste/flux residue causes stickyness.
3. Check the accuracy of the tape feeding. If not enough, the tape indexing might have a little bit of variation. I often use a feed strength of 40, as when too high, it causes the parts to bounce out of the pockets.
4. May sure to index twice, then set the pickup alignment for that feeder. Very important... set the alignment target for the pocket square, not the component. Index and double check it's lining up.
-
I don't use the size correct option. It seemed related to vision checking, but I found it just dumps components unnecessarily.
I also do not use this option because it is not described anywhere.
I've place a lot of 0402. You really need to set the pickup height with care, otherwise you'll just bounce them around. I use different height offsets, as the pickups aren't precise enough across the entire machine.
The pickup heigt has nothing to do with the xy coordinate System. I have placed graph paper on the workbench and did some measurements with the camera. In the X axis I have an accumulating error of >= 0.2mm per 100mm. In the Y axis round about 0.15mm/100mm.
I think all NeoDen 4's have travel errors - the only way to help limit it is to use good fiducials on your boards. We did have one nozzle which had to be replaced, during the rotation calibration there was no center hole visible. We don't use anything smaller then 0603 and use the camera for all parts. Keeping the nozzles the clean is important. We have also had parts slide on the nozzles so we slowed things down. Lastly we have had errors in one axis that we can't explain, I think there is a bug in the math calculations somewhere, or rounding error etc, the error typically gets larger the bigger the board is.
-
Lastly we have had errors in one axis that we can't explain, I think there is a bug in the math calculations somewhere, or rounding error etc, the error typically gets larger the bigger the board is.
see attached pics - this is the Y axis while 300mm traveling.
-
I am currently writing my own software to create the file that the NeoDen4 pick & place machine Needs. Every time I go a step further, I encounter a new Problem |O
Now I have successfully compensated the positioning accuracy. At the "Vision Align" (after automaticaly get the fiducial positions) the crosshair of each component is exactly at the middle. But if I start the Job, some components and by the way always the same on all panels, are placed a bit too far to the left. :palm:
-
Your problem looks like a Z height variation.
Maybe bend pcb or nozzle height uneven?
-
Your problem looks like a Z height variation.
Maybe bend pcb or nozzle height uneven?
Always only with the one and always the same component? I do not believe that. The components are all from the same feeder and place height was testet visually.
Placementspeed was reduced to 10 (percent? Apples? Eggs? Milliseconds?)
@neoden
Why do not You update the coordinate list in this form after detecting the fiducials? This would greatly help to determine the error.
-
10% speed, really? I only slow down for parts that have a bit of mass, so they don't slide on the nozzle from rapid movements. Full speed, but use vision to correct for everything.
-
10% speed, really? I only slow down for parts that have a bit of mass, so they don't slide on the nozzle from rapid movements. Full speed, but use vision to correct for everything.
This is for testing only! If I am able to run a full job, I will increase the speed of course ;)
-
Try full speed... if no difference, then speed isn't your problem and you're going slow for no reason. If there is a difference, then speed is a problem, but your running so slow that the error isn't as noticeable.
-
Sometimes 0.1mm Z height change makes the difference!
The problem depends maybe on PCB or PCB holder so this area is a little bit lower than left side.
If you use same head same feeder and same nozzle this will be the most recent point.
Try to reduce the component height setting in steps of 0.05mm and check.
-
Try full speed... if no difference, then speed isn't your problem and you're going slow for no reason. If there is a difference, then speed is a problem, but your running so slow that the error isn't as noticeable.
I have already increased the speed with the slider above the Buttons. This has the consequence that the travel speed has 100% but only the picking and placing process remains at 10%
As I wrote - the reduced speed is only for my tests.
Edit: I changed the Rotation of the misplaced component from -90 to 90. The hell with it, now it fits!!!!
-
Dear Sir,
This is Suntee from NeoDen Tech, thanks so much for your attention and support to us.
Our newest version of NeoDen4 is v4.1.2.3, please kindly email to support@neodentech.com, we will send our upgrade file to solve your problems asap.
Yours sincerely!
Suntee
-
Our newest version of NeoDen4 is v4.1.2.3, please kindly email to support@neodentech.com, we will send our upgrade file to solve your problems asap.
Dear Suntee,
please have a look at the attached Picture ;)
-
@neoden I have a tip for you here.
For example: You are using opencv 2.4.9 in your Software. Why do not use the histogram equalization function at the image that you can see at the section "System setup"/"System configuration"/"Nozzle X individually alignment"?
See attached pictures before and after for reference. This would make it easier to position the nozzle visually. If you would still allow positioning via the keboard while the image is visible, that would be a great relief.
Further suggestions will follow.
-
Would you guys be interested in a dedicated forum/wiki on this machine? I've been thinking to write up some notes on getting started with the machine and it might be a useful to form a dedicated community.
-
1. Check the nozzle is clear for good suction. There was one time I had an 0402 stuffed length ways in a nozzle obstructing the air pressure.
2. Check the nozzle end is clean. I clean the tips before every build. Mostly in case any paste/flux residue causes stickyness.
3. Check the accuracy of the tape feeding. If not enough, the tape indexing might have a little bit of variation. I often use a feed strength of 40, as when too high, it causes the parts to bounce out of the pockets.
4. May sure to index twice, then set the pickup alignment for that feeder. Very important... set the alignment target for the pocket square, not the component. Index and double check it's lining up.
Thank you very much for advices.
I found the Samsung nozzle CN040 which has some bigger central hole than the NeoDen's nozzle.
Unfortunatly for 20 mounted SMD 0402 I losted 7 components (and it's the best result).
Usially I'm losting from 10 to 20 components for 20 mounted with NeoDen's nozzle and from 7 to 15 with the Samsung's. It's very regretfully.
-
That is quite unlike what I've experienced with 0402 placement. I tend to only get missed parts if the nozzle is dirty (component sticking) or the pick height is too low and tape bounce dislodges the part from the tape pocket. I use up facing vision for all parts to get good production placement. Angles in pick and place data area always positive. Avoid negative angles. Avoid negative coordinates too (that's a nightmare).
-
Does anyone know anything about the sequence of the fiducial recognition?
I know so far that they use the first chip position as reference Position to locate the fiducials because when this is changed approximately +/-5mm the machine is not able to find the fiducials.
After the first fiducial has been located, where is the origin of the z-axis? First Chip? First located fiducial?
And when the second fiducial has been located, will the z-axis origin moved to another position or it remains on the last Location?
-
After approximately 20h operating time the first three LEDs of the upward camera are defective |O |O |O |O |O
|O |O |O We should never have bought this machine! |O |O |O
-
Have you bought this machine trough the local distributor ?
If so they should properly support you. If you bought it direct and really hate it you could ask them if you can return it.
You would have to pay the return shipping but at least you get something back ...
-
After approximately 20h operating time the first three LEDs of the upward camera are defective
Not good but also no reason to panic, at least that is something easy to fix and to improve upon.
If the camera or motors start failing that is the time to panic.
-
After approximately 20h operating time the first three LEDs of the upward camera are defective |O |O |O |O |O
|O |O |O We should never have bought this machine! |O |O |O
Hello Sir,
We are regretful for the inconvenience that caused to you. If possible could you please email to the local distributor or NeoDen after-sales team (support@neodentech.com) directly about your operation problems?
We will do our best effort to solve your problems asap.
Suntee
-
Hi,
Anybody knows the resolution and frame rate of the neoden 4 vision system?
Regards,
Mav
-
Hi,
Anybody knows the resolution and frame rate of the neoden 4 vision system?
Regards,
Mav
Why does the framerate matter? The time for the mechanics to stop and start dominate the time to vision parts.
-
Hi,
Anybody knows the resolution and frame rate of the neoden 4 vision system?
Regards,
Mav
Why does the framerate matter? The time for the mechanics to stop and start dominate the time to vision parts.
For the bottom camera it looks like they are taking single pictures.
-
The time for the mechanics to stop and start dominate the time to vision parts.
Yes, in low-end machines but not in high speed machines with fly-over head.
Why does the framerate matter?
High Speed cameras have got faster shutter speed and better electronic in general.
It's more easy to stay in sync with the head if you are using high-speed camera.
You can NOT sync 30FPS camera with moving head. You have to stop the head.
-
The cameras aren't high frame rate or resolution. They are a standard off the shelf USB camera. I had the part # somewhere but can't locate it at the moment. They do the job though which is really what matters. There is no chance of any flying by pictures, they take single images once the head has stopped.
-
Thank You Steve, Do You know the actual resolution?
-
Hello to everyone,
We are planning to buy Neoden4 for a small company in the near future. I read a majority of the comments in the conclusion. Have friends who have problems solved their problems?
We are planning to make 20k PCB per year and to put together 3 million components (resistance, capacitor, led IC, etc.) in total.
Would you recommend this machine? Your comments are valuable to us.
Thank you.
-
Hello
I am fustrated with the machine.
For me, it only works with very basic components, like 0805 resistors
I am trying with 0603 capacitor, and the vision system does not recognize them.
Can anyone help me with this?
The machine picks the capacitor, takes the picture, but it seems to fail detecting the component with the software.
Unfortunately, there is no way to control the contrast or whatever. So, it is pure lottery if the machine detects the component or not.
We use reels from samsung. I guess that they are pretty standard.
I tried different nozzles. I tried selecting the footprint 0603. I tried the "size correct" option. I tried to realign the nozzle. I tried to realign the feeder. Nothing seems to work. Pure lottery.
How can I get the machine to detect components?
Have a nice day
-
Is your upward facing light flashing on when it takes the picture of the part? If not, check the two wires from the LED plate. The wires/connector is thin. Very easy to unscrew this to check.
Size Right: Never use. It fails vision a lot and results in parts being discarded with suction error. It should actually say a part size detection error, not suction error. I haven't needed it though, even for lots of 0402 placement.
-
Does it really make sense to use vision on these discretes? A slight misalignment is usually not a problem, they will move into place during soldering.
I am however not aware if you can disable vision for certain components on a Neoden; I have a different machine.
-
There are two aspects of the vision... alignment and "size correct" verification. The size correct function doesn't work very well for me. Just ends up with a lot of unnecessarily discarded items. But the vision alignment works great and I use it for everything. There is the occasional package like a particular SON5x6 that the vision just can't see (doesn't get contrast). If you want speed, skip vision alignment for res/caps 0805 and greater. For smaller parts, IC's and accuracy, use vision alignment (except without size correct verification).
-
Hello
I found some new things
One is that I can change the brightness of the camera, in system settings. It was very low! now it detects the 0603 very fast
another thing. Use "jointly" to align componets. It will take one pic for all the 4 nozzles. It works better for me.
I received the new firmware today. I will try it and lets see how it works
Yesterday, we did a complete run, much much better than other times.
Have a nice day
-
I received the new firmware today. I will try it and lets see how it works
Hello!
What the last firmware that you recieved?
Is it the v4.1.2.3?
-
I asked Neoden about upgrading firmware...
"About the software,yes,we have a lot upgrade version,but each version is mainly to fix certain bug,if your current version works good,we advice not upgrade.As we have test this version on your machine,it matches good,if use other version,we are not sure can work as good as current one."
-
I asked Neoden about upgrading firmware...
"About the software,yes,we have a lot upgrade version,but each version is mainly to fix certain bug,if your current version works good,we advice not upgrade.As we have test this version on your machine,it matches good,if use other version,we are not sure can work as good as current one."
That is not a response that inspires confidence. They are guessing their way down the road, hacking it all together.
-
I asked Neoden about upgrading firmware...
"About the software,yes,we have a lot upgrade version,but each version is mainly to fix certain bug,if your current version works good,we advice not upgrade.As we have test this version on your machine,it matches good,if use other version,we are not sure can work as good as current one."
That is not a response that inspires confidence. They are guessing their way down the road, hacking it all together.
SOP for Chinese software unfortunately - get it just-about working & ship it. Such a pity - so many potentially reasonable Chinese products are crippled by poor software.
Their laughable sales video just says it all.
-
yep, the 4.1.2 R3
it worked well
-
Hello again :)
I am having a lots of problems placing one TQFP100
I tried everything. I guess that it has to do with place height. I tried to put it up, down... always the same result.
I am using 3 fiducials to align the board. One under the chip. Maybe I shoud use more?
(https://preview.ibb.co/jupu0F/2.jpg) (https://ibb.co/dVjSLF)
(https://preview.ibb.co/iqYbEa/1.jpg) (https://ibb.co/mZJXnv)
free gif upload (https://imgbb.com/)
What are you doing to place chips?
Have a nice day
-
I have enjoyed this thread.....reading about the good and bad.
It regularly reminds me that my much older, but totally professional/commercial Quad machine is a better solution for me. I really want these smaller, newer, and low-cost machines to work, but the limitations in the real world seem like they cost way more than you save on the initial purchase. I now have about $12k in my machine total - but it has very little limitations and it is quite reliable. Tons of feeders, 0201/01005 capable, 100+ parts in the machine, on-the-fly side vision, etc, etc.
The Quads, however, will not last forever. The maintenance effort and costs are on the rise. Just hoping that something like the Neoden will be a suitable replacement.
-
Hey rx8pilot, I started another thread on here about a low volume SMT line. I'm interested in your comments about the Quad. Can you tell me more about your machine? 100 feeders with 0201/01005 placement for $12k sounds pretty incredible. Do you know the max component height and rough CPH offhand?
-
We finally fired up our Neoden4 with rails and 40 feeders this week. (we received in January) We didn't run anything too fine, mainly 0805s and some TQFP.
Did a run of 15 boards. Machine ran straight out of box with no adjustments/tuning.
Only confusing part was realising that even though we didn't run panellsed PCBs we still had to configure the panelisation box.
Manually set up part coordinates, next step will be to take output from DipTrace.
Overall...pretty happy so far. Certainly seems to do the job that we speced it for.
-
yep, the 4.1.2 R3
it worked well
Thank you!
Have you solved the problem with the TQFP100?
-
Hi
planing buy NeoDen4 in near future, my setup is slightly different from standard pick and place machine thats why have few questions :
My setup is simple put 10-20 labels from reel to PCB, but that depend on type board i will present to machine ( that will be part of small line )
1. is there any chance to control NeoDen from outside ( master PC ) serial / tcp / ect, so i can choose right program to place 10, 15 or 20 labels ?
2. is there anywhere copy of software running on NeoDen i can download and try fiddle with it ?
3. do NeoDen Pc have network connection on board ?
4. do neoden sensor signals are available to outside world ( if i want connect additional rail and control that from NeoDen ?
for all info thanks in advance
-
Hi
planing buy NeoDen4 in near future, my setup is slightly different from standard pick and place machine thats why have few questions :
My setup is simple put 10-20 labels from reel to PCB, but that depend on type board i will present to machine ( that will be part of small line )
1. is there any chance to control NeoDen from outside ( master PC ) serial / tcp / ect, so i can choose right program to place 10, 15 or 20 labels ?
2. is there anywhere copy of software running on NeoDen i can download and try fiddle with it ?
3. do NeoDen Pc have network connection on board ?
4. do neoden sensor signals are available to outside world ( if i want connect additional rail and control that from NeoDen ?
for all info thanks in advance
You won't get any docs from Neoden.You'll have to reverse engineer anything you want to control from your own software.
In terms of documentation, I think the TVM820 is the only one that has been documented for control by user software, as there is a module to interface it to OpenPnP.
N4 seems a little over the top for this application - did you choose it because of the conveyor ?
You might do better, certainly cheaper, DIYing it using something like a cheap CNC engraver as the starting point.
-
thanks for reply mikeselectricstuff
i found NeoDen4 over internet and looks like will do what i'm plan to do, there is severe reasons for my choice
1. dont really have time to DIY any thing - equipment need to be off shelf ( reasonable price of course )
2. in case i can't adopt it to my project can always use for developing boards
3. need to be robust as need to place 1000 -2000 labels per week ( might be more in near future )
4. yes i need conveyer as boards will be auto loaded to P&P and auto unloaded to hopper
You right N4 might be overkill for placing labels but that best what i can thing now ( in budged upto $10k)
Q1. is openPNP work with N4? - or need special driver ?
Q2. is there other P&P which can be controlled from external PC on market within my budget you can recommend ?
Q3. can you help with link to TVM820 documentation - cant find anything really related
Q4. there is any copy of N4 software i can download and check how i can interact with it ?
thx
-
Q1. is openPNP work with N4? - or need special driver ?
Q2. is there other P&P which can be controlled from external PC on market within my budget you can recommend ?
Q3. can you help with link to TVM820 documentation - cant find anything really related
Q4. there is any copy of N4 software i can download and check how i can interact with it ?
thx
N4 is not documented and AFAIK nobody is actively working on getting openPnP running on it, though a few are interested so may happen at some point.
There are some N4 users here who may be able to help you with software but it may only run on the N4's embedded PC - see earlier in this thread
For what you want maybe you could modify a feeder to extract a "feed" signal to advance your labels.
TVM802 docs
https://github.com/TVM802/TMV802-Protocol
-
Thats what i though |O
is NeoDen embedded PC equipped with Network card ? or any extension slot ?
do software running on that machine is stored on HDD / SD-card / USB / - or embedded in sort of BIOS
it is standard XP machine ?
I can write quickly local application which will emulate mouse clicks and i can control that via ethernet - that's only solution i can think of to control that remotely, think most of <$10k machines will be same ( or might be im wrong )
separate problem if feeder can feed my labels ( 12mm ribbon contain 6.3 x 6.3mm labels )
Thx for sharing info
-
@TheSteve Do you still use Neoden4 machine?
Any comments?
-
Thats what i though |O
is NeoDen embedded PC equipped with Network card ? or any extension slot ?
do software running on that machine is stored on HDD / SD-card / USB / - or embedded in sort of BIOS
it is standard XP machine ?
I can write quickly local application which will emulate mouse clicks and i can control that via ethernet - that's only solution i can think of to control that remotely, think most of <$10k machines will be same ( or might be im wrong )
separate problem if feeder can feed my labels ( 12mm ribbon contain 6.3 x 6.3mm labels )
Thx for sharing info
You can use USB network card.
How about a VNC remote control?
http://www.tightvnc.com/ (http://www.tightvnc.com/)
-
@TheSteve Do you still use Neoden4 machine?
Any comments?
We still have the Neoden4. It has no external network port but the motherboard inside the unit does - so if you wanted to enable it you likely could. It uses a small flash based drive. I believe there is more detail earlier in this thread on the hardware inside.
-
@TheSteve Are you still satisfied your machine?
-
Good day all!
I too just opened my NEODEN4 and am for the most part...pleased.
Got the whole feederbox ID sorted out...making sure to have at least one "panel" in the list.
I find that when you set up the feeders correctly in your program, if you ensure to detail the footprint, parts place quite nicely...
**however**
If the part is NOT in the footprint library, you can add it...tried that, rejects the parts every time.
Any insights?
-
Hi all,
I own a Neoden 4.
I'm having a few positioning issues with placement of ICs (see attached images)
I'm using the rail system, component positions from CAD, tray loading. The problem exists with all ICs but it's far worse when rotation is required.
Any suggestions from users of the machine?
Also can someone that has the latest firmware email it to me? (or upload here?)
I have version 4.1.0 B4 which i gather from this thread is pretty old (although only a few month since i purchased the machine)
Also has anyone else in Europe trouble contacting printec (the distributor) for assistance?
Thank you very much,
Panagiotis
-
Binderedondat
Try to unclick the size correct option, it doesn't seem to work well.
-
Hello everybody! :)
I'm new here and I also have NeoDen4 aaaand of course I have a problem. :scared:
So... I hope you can help me.
Q1: How to calibrate origin/coordinates? - I export PNP file from Altium Designer 2015 and import it in Neoden4. The problem with origin is that for ex: My component is with coordinats X: 111.4 Y: 192.5, but when I start the mounting process the machine coordinats of X: 111.4 Y: 192.5 is somewhere across the PCB. :-//
Is there anyway to correct it, cuz now I make coordinats manual via camera? (I've watch the NeoDen4 tutorials but there is nothing about my problem)
-
Hello everybody! :)
I'm new here and I also have NeoDen4 aaaand of course I have a problem. :scared:
So... I hope you can help me.
Q1: How to calibrate origin/coordinates? - I export PNP file from Altium Designer 2015 and import it in Neoden4. The problem with origin is that for ex: My component is with coordinats X: 111.4 Y: 192.5, but when I start the mounting process the machine coordinats of X: 111.4 Y: 192.5 is somewhere across the PCB. :-//
Is there anyway to correct it, cuz now I make coordinats manual via camera? (I've watch the NeoDen4 tutorials but there is nothing about my problem)
Hi Tony,
Welcome to the world of Chinese software :)
First of all your origin from the CAD software needs to be on the bottom left side of your board, I usually set as origin the bottom left corner of the board. So make sure when you export your data, you know where the origin is and that it's in metric! not inches.
Now you'll need to add manually a point on your board that is going to be your "fake" component 1. This can be a hole or a fiducial, something you can clearly see in the camera of neoden. The software uses the 1st component on the list as a reference.
So for example say that your fiducial has coordinates 10.00, 10.00. You need to add a component on your csv on the top before the other components with these coordinates. you'll make this a skip component as it's not real.
When you start your setup with the Neoden software you need to feed the board in (if you have rails) and then locate with the camera the most bottom left component, if you've done what i mentioned above that would be your fiducial at 10.00, 10.00 (for example). This will correlate the machines coordinates with the PCB coordinates. Then of course you need to click on the panelize button and then add your PCB marks with the coordinates from you CAD software, then import the file.Tip (don't add more than two pcb marks as the software has trouble calculating the angle of the board)
This is the process i follow, i'm actually setting up board right now so if you need further help give me a shout.
Cheers,
Panagiotis
-
Hi Tony,
Welcome to the world of Chinese software :)
First of all your origin from the CAD software needs to be on the bottom left side of your board, I usually set as origin the bottom left corner of the board. So make sure when you export your data, you know where the origin is and that it's in metric! not inches.
Now you'll need to add manually a point on your board that is going to be your "fake" component 1. This can be a hole or a fiducial, something you can clearly see in the camera of neoden. The software uses the 1st component on the list as a reference.
So for example say that your fiducial has coordinates 10.00, 10.00. You need to add a component on your csv on the top before the other components with these coordinates. you'll make this a skip component as it's not real.
When you start your setup with the Neoden software you need to feed the board in (if you have rails) and then locate with the camera the most bottom left component, if you've done what i mentioned above that would be your fiducial at 10.00, 10.00 (for example). This will correlate the machines coordinates with the PCB coordinates. Then of course you need to click on the panelize button and then add your PCB marks with the coordinates from you CAD software, then import the file.Tip (don't add more than two pcb marks as the software has trouble calculating the angle of the board)
This is the process i follow, i'm actually setting up board right now so if you need further help give me a shout.
Cheers,
Panagiotis
Hi Panagiotis, thank you for fast response. :-+
This is the boards I put. I make manual PNP file for them with help of the tutorials, but I cant everytime for every new board to make manual PNP file.
(https://thumb.ibb.co/cyPicQ/x.jpg) (https://ibb.co/cyPicQ)
Here is where I put my origin, is that a problem? :-\
(https://thumb.ibb.co/i60BWk/origin.png) (https://ibb.co/i60BWk)
The other thing in my mind is: Is there a problem if the board is rotated otherwise. I mean for ex: My origin from CAD is left bottom, but I placed the board rotated so my origin now is top left/right/etc.?
When I put my board in rails and put it forward, as I saw in the tutorials, the machine ask for the edge of the board. (is this that Fake point/component?)
So if I understand you right and this is the fake point/component you're talking about I must add a component with this edge coordinates.
Then for panelized list I need to put rows (1) and columns (2), and it "says" to me wich coordinates I must align to creat it. In my case there are left bottom and right top so I align it.
Make the PCB mark points (I make 2 points). And this correlate the machines coordinates with the PCB coordinates, BUT when I import the CAD file the cordinates in *.csv for all elements are different. (should I ignore them? ) :-//
-
Hello
You have to place the origin point outside and put it down Left
Take note of this picture:
-
Thank you all.
The problem was with coordination of mark points. And still... Now I choose coordinates of that point, but when try to mount I must coordinate the camera to the point (not automatically).
I know it must be a pad but this desing dont have so I use this one.
(https://thumb.ibb.co/jwamgk/origin.png) (https://ibb.co/jwamgk)
-
yep, the 4.1.2 R3
it worked well
Thank you!
Have you solved the problem with the TQFP100?
I mitigated somehow the problem, but still, i am not confident
Now, i dont rotate the part. I place the chip on the tray, using the correct rotation. I think that when the head rotates the part, maybe it get missaligned a bit, but enough to be noticeable, as the chip is big
place height is very important. I am playing with this parameter, but I dont know well if i am doing things right.
Anyone here had success with BGA/TQFP100 components?
-
I don't have it selected, still rejects the part. I use the dimensions that are in the datasheet for the part, but it doesn't seem to like it. I tried changing width for length and vice versa, still no joy. Am I missing something?
-
I mitigated somehow the problem, but still, i am not confident
Now, i dont rotate the part. I place the chip on the tray, using the correct rotation. I think that when the head rotates the part, maybe it get missaligned a bit, but enough to be noticeable, as the chip is big
place height is very important. I am playing with this parameter, but I dont know well if i am doing things right.
Anyone here had success with BGA/TQFP100 components?
Hi derethor
I have the same issues with TQPF components, I've been in contact with Neoden and they have been helpful.
These were their suggestions
1. Don't rotate the part (which you're doing already)
2. Use local (to the component) fiducials,
3. Slow down the speed and add pick and place delay of at least 100ms
4. Use the rubber inserts for the heads this will improve stability. But you have to adjust your place height a little bit.
Now what I've found base on my own experience.
The coordinates coming from the CAD export you'd expect them to be 100% correct, and probably are. However the way the machine recognizes the part might be slightly different. So some manual adjustment of the coordinated might be necessary.
Using local ficucials does make a difference however it's not very practical.
Slowing down the machine does help and the delays are essential.
Now this is very important and no one will tell you about it. When you're doing the calibration of the heads, it's very likely that there is a difference between the simple single photograph or the rotate lens aggregate. When your parts are going to be rotated then you absolutely need to use the rotate lens function during calibration. if however your component is not rotated then the center point is better to be of a single photo and not the center of rotation... it's a headache but you can try it.
Once you get it right (trying with double sided tape) repeatability is very good.
I've managed to place a TQFP100 device several times on the same board quite accurately but it took me about 20 tries to get it right
Having the latest software (as reluctant as they are to give it to you) is very important. There are some bugs with the component geometry recognition on the old versions. It has improved vastly on the new one.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Panagiotis
-
I don't have it selected, still rejects the part. I use the dimensions that are in the datasheet for the part, but it doesn't seem to like it. I tried changing width for length and vice versa, still no joy. Am I missing something?
Binderedondat
can you explain what do you mean it rejects the part?
if you have the size correct unchecked then it doesn't check the size and it can't reject it. Try doing a pick test and see first if the component is picked up correctly.
can you send a screenshot of the feeder configuration as well as the message when it rejects the part.
the footprint library that you are talking about is useless.
also i tried this the other day (with the size correct checked) just to try it out. Remember that the size you need to insert is the TOTAL including the pins, not the body size!
Cheers,
Panagiotis
-
Having the latest software (as reluctant as they are to give it to you) is very important. There are some bugs with the component geometry recognition on the old versions. It has improved vastly on the new one.
Thank you very much for such a detailed description.
Could you share the last firmware (unfortunately the Chines developer is not answering on my letters for the last month).
-
Could you share the last firmware (unfortunately the Chines developer is not answering on my letters for the last month).
Hi there, you'll find it attached. Please use at your own risk! As Neoden is insisting it might not work with your machine well. What I asked them for was to send me a version of the original that was running on my machine as well, which they did, just in case I need to revert to it. It did however work well with mine.
Again Use at your own risk! Also in the documentation it notes that in some cases the language reverts to Chinese, and you need a password to revert it to English, for that you need to contact them as they will require a machine code to generate the key to send you!
Also attaching some other documents that were provided to me by the Chinese and EU support.
Bryan at support@neodentech.com was extremely helpful. Reply time is usually around and after midnight UTC.
-
Thank you very much for information and firmware!!
-
Hello All!
I recently recieved a Neoden 4 at my place of business, and I got it put together and plugged into the computer. First start up, it goes through the boot up, I see the Neo Den Tech logo, then i get a black screen and the screen goes into power save mode. At that point, it doesnt respond to any commands from a keyboard or mouse.
Any idea what Im missing?
Thank You
-
I see the Neo Den Tech logo, then i get a black screen and the screen goes into power save mode. At that point, it doesnt respond to any commands from a keyboard or mouse.
Any idea what Im missing?
Thank You
After Logo you should get the screen with NeoDen software.
It seems that something wrong with the OS (WinXP) or with the hardware.
Any case contact with your local distributor.
-
Hello All!
I recently recieved a Neoden 4 at my place of business, and I got it put together and plugged into the computer. First start up, it goes through the boot up, I see the Neo Den Tech logo, then i get a black screen and the screen goes into power save mode. At that point, it doesnt respond to any commands from a keyboard or mouse.
Any idea what Im missing?
Thank You
Hi,
your problem has been resolved....??
-
Hi, finally our Neoden4 arrived. :)
Using the instruction manual, we have performed settings and some tests.
Now we have a problem: All the components were standard placed (by the machine) with an angle of 45 degree (what’s wrong)
We try to contact Neoden but they are on holiday until 7/10
Is there anyone who knows the solution ?
Thanks
-
Hi jojobrka
The issue you pointed out is not big. need to see the CSV file you made, Maybe some correction factor needed in that.
rgds
George
-
hi
Choose Program Edit >check pcb angle> if '45'there make it to '0'.
choose system settings >check upward photograph angle to '0'
-
Hi George,
Thanks for your answers.
It is a combination of 2 "problems"
1. pickup angle was set incorrectly
2. pcb angle: is not 0, but 29.33 degree / upward photograph is 0.5
1. fixed
2. we can't change the upward photograph and de pcb angle
Solution ??
-
Hi All!
Well I did it! I order not only one Neoden4 but two Neoden4's with the conveyor to link them.
I have a product with 4 boards and with two machines I can load them both with all the needed parts and build any board. So after the country reopens from their week long holiday, I hope to get my shipping info.
I am debating on the monitor/keyboard setup for 2 machines. The conveyor seems to have space for one monitor and i am not sure where to put the first. I will have bench for the stencil printer but it may not be too convenient to program with it there.
I also looked at rolling workstation that can hold 2 monitors. What is everyone opinion? having both monitors in one location or split?
Also, for those who have the Neoden4 what is the best size monitor to see everything onscreen without weird scaling?
Best Regards,
Rob
-
Hi All,
@rjberry,
I have two Neoden4 and one conveyor. I made Neoden4 working table.
Each table has its own monitor holder. The monitor and keyboard arm are movable and can rotate 360 degrees. At the same time it can be folded back and removed from its place. I think it's portable and useful.
The rotating parts were connected with the hinge. Feet adjustable plastic screw.
If you want, I can send you the technical drawing of these work tables.
I built it from 40x40 x 2mm iron profile. The total cost was 100usd.
I am pleased and highly recommended 19inch.
My monitors 19inch Philips. Logitec wireless keyboard and mouse.
-
@mistek
Nice! I like what you did. I bought the neoden4 stands. your setup requires using your design.
Pity as I like what you did. I do have access to welding equipment. trying to think how to adapt your idea with the neoden4 stands....
Also, how do you like your oven? I will be looking for a production one soon. my simply prototype setup wont handle what we are planning.
Best Regards,
Rob
-
HELP!!! :scared:
Did someone have problem with neoden4 start up??
Today, I went to work and try to turn on the machine. It start for about 1-2 sec. and stoped....
I try everything.
1) press and release emergency stop
2)push the emergency stop then turn off by the button -> release emergency stop and turn on by the button
3)turn off by the button press emergency stop -> release emergency stop and turn on by the button
4)disconnect the power cable for 5min then again 1), 2), 3) :palm:
Now the power button dont light up, it light little lower only when the emergency stop is pressed(when it is released the power button dont light up!) :rant:
-
HELP!!! :scared:
Did someone have problem with neoden4 start up??
Today, I went to work and try to turn on the machine. It start for about 1-2 sec. and stoped....
I try everything.
1) press and release emergency stop
2)push the emergency stop then turn off by the button -> release emergency stop and turn on by the button
3)turn off by the button press emergency stop -> release emergency stop and turn on by the button
4)disconnect the power cable for 5min then again 1), 2), 3) :palm:
Now the power button dont light up, it light little lower only when the emergency stop is pressed(when it is released the power button dont light up!) :rant:
Sounds like a power supply problem - check the DC voltages on the output of the PSU
-
Sounds like a power supply problem - check the DC voltages on the output of the PSU
Thanks for fast response. :-+
I was searching for other opinion hopefully to cover mine and i get it. :phew:
I think the same, but I will wait for response by the seller, before disassemble the machine to check voltages.
-
Hi jojobrka.
sorry i couldn't able to attach a pdf doc more than 1Mb , here .
i have the solution with certain pics related to your mentioned issue
rgds
George
-
We have used Neoden 4 with extra feeders and spare parts for sale in Canada ($6,440 USD). More info in buy/sale/wanted.
-
Does anyone have more information about the protocol used on the CAN bus of the feeder?
-
The Neoden4 is working fine now. :)
Only we have a little problem with one item: the tray feeder.
We build our own tray and we have entered the information in the Neoden software.
Columms; 15 Rows: 4 Right top X: 185.67 Right top y: 156.03 (by Align)
Start x: 1 Start y: 1
In the feeder information:
Pick up X : 82.88 Pick up Y: 125.26
We started the file and the nozzle takes the second IC (instead of first) of the 1 row. ROW correct, second IC not.
For the next pcb the nozzle has picked up de 4e IC of the 1 row.
The next 6e IC of the 1 row.
Does anyone know a solution ??
Best Regards
JoJo
-
Start x: 1 Start y: 1
I
We started the file and the nozzle takes the second IC (instead of first) of the 1 row. ROW correct, second IC not.
For the next pcb the nozzle has picked up de 4e IC of the 1 row.
The next 6e IC of the 1 row.
Does anyone know a solution ??
I have a Philips CSM84, after teaching the first chip location in the tray, you set the position to 0 0 ! Then, it picks up the first chip in the first row. So, you might try that, instead of 1 1.
Jon
-
We tried before, it doesn't help
Thanks
-
On the pictures it looks like it skips each other component, is the component dimensions and offset correct ?
-
Hi. I am new to this site and to the Neoden 4 and to pick and place machines.
I have managed to setup the feeders and made the CSV file from CAD. I have 3 components in a tray. And about 28 other components in reels.
What goes well is placement of small passives 0603, 0402 they are perfect.
So far I have experienced several problems:
1. The digi-reels seems to have slightly too wide plastic so they get stuck.
2. Some reels gets pulled up and get stuck
3. Some reels with blister gets deformed by the spring so they cannot be picked up
4. Some reels with blisters - even though I believe they should be okay for placement - they touch a smaller gearwheel and gets pushed up
5. Sometimes the auto-rails stops working and machine has to be rebooted.
6. IC rotation is a problem sometimes - perhaps I will figure out why. Because it looks like the camera and vision sees the angle, but its not corrected 100%.
-
Hello,
Just received my neoden 4 Rev C. Very good mechanical structure, electronics seems very good also (already opened a feeder, there is people inside, CAN bus protocol? I2C?).
The bad: software, WinXP, no internet connexion (with WinXP it's mandatory of course)
What if one create open source software over a linux distro, say Ubuntu for example.
Sniffing the commands/responses from the actual small x86 board is not a problem I presume.
Is there some people here with skills in software? I can start this (long) project alone but it will take me time.
What I've understood so far about the machine interface on the x86 board is:
- 2 CAM (USB?)
- Serial port
Easy, no?
I've to unmount the machine to see what's exactly inside.
Olivier
-
Hello,
Just received my neoden 4 Rev C. Very good mechanical structure, electronics seems very good also (already opened a feeder, there is people inside, CAN bus protocol? I2C?).
The bad: software, WinXP, no internet connexion (with WinXP it's mandatory of course)
What if one create open source software over a linux distro, say Ubuntu for example.
Sniffing the commands/responses from the actual small x86 board is not a problem I presume.
Is there some people here with skills in software? I can start this (long) project alone but it will take me time.
What I've understood so far about the machine interface on the x86 board is:
- 2 CAM (USB?)
- Serial port
Easy, no?
I've to unmount the machine to see what's exactly inside.
Olivier
There already is an open source software project-openpnp. It would just require an interface to the Neoden hardware
-
Hi to all!
Got it, 2 days of hard work to investigate what happens and how stuff works. Many thanks to this thread.
Two problems discovered, both software related:
1) it is not possible to set board offset (origin),
2) some problems related with machine coordinates. Seems that chinese mm != conventional mm. Not sure, but may be 2 options possible - they have their own chinese metre bar or I simply got "hot climate version" which expands in higher temperatures. Because real 300mm are equal to machine travel by 299.57mm causing about 0.4 mm error on larger boards.
0204?
:-DD
Both are previously described in this thread. Both can be solved with 3 lines of code, or a little more...
Anyway, that's what we have. Not so bad overall.
Attached - screenshot from software designed for file import from CAD and description how to proceed.
Free for any eevblog user with N4 in his backyard and significant count of helpful posts here.
For software ask in private. Reason is very simple - once Neoden gets it, we will never receive these 2 bug fixes, they will distribute "corrector" instead.
Any comments and ideas are highly appreciated.
btw: CTRL-ALT-DEL starts task manager, RUN -> explorer.exe and seems that we have access to HDD... Any ideas?
-
I would love a copy of your script. PM sent .
-
Does anyone have more information about the protocol used on the CAN bus of the feeder?
When I'll have time, I will sniff it.
-
Hi,
Having some trouble with installing feeders to Neoden4 and this seems like one of the biggest and most active communities regarding this machine, so I thought I'd try asking for help here.
As I understand, the feeders have individual ID numbers and use some sort of bus network to communicate. They need to be added individually if they have the same ID, which they do if they are new, to avoid collisions. If we connect 1 feeder at a time, then everything seems to work. We can change the ID and test it in manual mode. It even seems to work ok up to 12-14 feeders, but anything more than that and weird things start to happen. Some of the feeders start giving errors, some become very unresponsive needing multiple clicks in manual mode to get any response and some continue working fine. And it doesn't seem to be related to any specific feeders. For example if we connect feeders 1 to 14 everything works, if we add 2 more then problems start occuring and if we disconnect some of the first feeders, it starts working fine again. I know this is most likely not the case, but the best way to describe this is like the machine, or the PC software, has some sort of limit on how many feeders it can handle at once.
Has anybody had any similar issues or maybe have some ideas we could try? We have contacted the manufacturer as well, but since we need to get the machine working asap, asking here couldn't hurt.
Some additional info: the machine is brand new and worked fine with the initial 7 feeders it came with. When we first added new feeders we somehow threw away the instructions stating they needed to be installed one at a time, so we connected all of them at once. Obviously it didn't work like this, but we cannot see any reason why it would have damaged the machine or caused it to behive like this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-
Hello Olivier M.
I don't have answer for you but for your information:
- As you, I connected all my new feeders at once without knowing the adresses story. But after changing addresses one at a time, all worked. Then normally you don't damage any feeder.
- Also if you have two feeders with the same address, both feeders will work but the f*** soft will say that there is a no respond.
- One of my received feeder was almost broken (electronic or firmware, don't know).
I presume that you already have changed/switched feeders during your tests.
I don't know for the moment if the feeder bus is a CAN BUS or not (saw some posts here but no evidence). But if it's a CAN BUS and it begin to be unstable after adding devices, perhaps that the terminal resistor is missing on your bus (unsoldered or whatever).
Olivier
-
How to buy this model without having it shipped from China?
If bought from China...How long did it take? From date you paid for it to date it arrived at port?
-
I look forward to the day that this machine is bundled with OpenPNP or another software option - ready to go.
My current assembly system is working fine, but it is aging. As time marches on, it will become harder and more expensive to keep operational. This Neo4 concept is good (perhaps 2-3 of them ganged together) but I have so little patience for fiddly software.
Every time this thread is updates, I get my hopes up that it is someone offering a packaged and tested hack with all new software.
-
My current assembly system is working fine, but it is aging. As time marches on, it will become harder and more expensive to keep operational.
I don't know. What is the MTBF for this machine vs your quad?
I wonder how sturdy the design is.
Seeing 2nd hand Quads offered for as low as 2k it is more of a question of storage space and preventive maintenance to keep it running.
What happens if the Neoden fails, no service centre , parts need to be shipped from China.
Sure if you have redundant machines you can continue.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Quad-IVC-Pick-and-Place-Machine/152597608544?hash=item238786b860:g:G7oAAOSwTf9ZTXwQ (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Quad-IVC-Pick-and-Place-Machine/152597608544?hash=item238786b860:g:G7oAAOSwTf9ZTXwQ)
-
If someone gave me a Quad IV-C for free - it would still be expensive. Many of the parts are easily sourced, but some very critical ones are not. Side scanning 'Quad Align', the analog NTSC cameras, the capture system, etc....lots of little things that can only be sourced from PPM and they would be very expensive.
If I had the physical room, I would probably buy another machine for spares. My particular setup has the PPM Windows upgrade that includes a PIC chip that handles some sort of authentication, the PC uses an ISA bus for the interface but runs Windows - a unique and hard to find setup.
My fingers are crossed that all keeps working for a 2-3 more years. Just purchased a huge lot of 130+ feeders, have written some custom software to hep me get it programmed quickly, etc....lots of blood sweat and tears.
I have less than $15k in the whole thing - including the latest feeder purchase. So, 230 tape feeders, strip, tube, and trays as well. Not bad until something breaks and PPM wants $4k for a used circuit board. Perhaps an OpenPNP conversion for Quads would be cool. The hardware is rather awesome. The 'Quad Align' is very accurate and aligns every single pick on the fly. The up facing camera is only used for large parts that need critical alignment.
I could not replace this machine for less than $100k if looking at new/typical professional options - even if used. I don't think buying another out-of-production system is a goal of mine.
-
I look forward to the day that this machine is bundled with OpenPNP or another software option - ready to go.
And decent feeders
-
I could not replace this machine for less than $100k if looking at new/typical professional options - even if used. I don't think buying another out-of-production system is a goal of mine.
So what is it, first you state that if the Neoden is fully supported by OpenPNP you would switch , which I doubt since it is not as robust as a professional machine you now have, then you say that only a professional $100k+ machine will be able to replace it. If you have nly look at the feeders the Neoden is in a total different league IMO.
-
So what is it, first you state that if the Neoden is fully supported by OpenPNP you would switch , which I doubt since it is not as robust as a professional machine you now have, then you say that only a professional $100k+ machine will be able to replace it. If you have nly look at the feeders the Neoden is in a total different league IMO.
I should clarify....
I like the commercial elements of my current setup with the Quad. Sturdy and clearly designed for 24/7 use. Nothing to complain about...until I get to the maintenance or replacement part. In general, I cannot afford a $100k replacement but I also hesitant to pay big money to keep an old machine running. I am on the lookout for a fairly low cost replacement and it does not need to be amazing - only better than what I have in terms of maintenance costs.
My usage is infrequent, but when I need PCB's I need them NOW. So, like I said, as time marches on, the challenge of keeping a Quad running will increase. At some point a low-cost replacement will be on my radar. If my little biz grows to needing PCB assembly all the time - a high-end machine may make sense. As I am configured now, I can only consider the low cost options and accept the various limitations that come with that.
I only got into the Quad because it was a low-cost of entry and I have been able to expand over time to increase capability. There was never an option to go with a modern, high-end system.
-
One additional comment....
My Quad took 6 months to make it work at all and roughly 9 months before it was considered part of the process. Most of what you see on eBay is in similar condition and requires considerable elbow grease and additional money. There are no maintenance manuals that I have found so every issue is a learning curve. I had to sort out a huge pile of issues with no documentation to lean on. Mechanical, electrical, and software. I nearly gave up too.
With all the issues of the N4, at least is is most likely going to be assembling PCB's within a few days. The crusty software and fiddly feeders are significant limitations, but it offers more functionality than I had for the 1st 6-9mos of Quad ownership.
In the end, I am happy that I pushed through the challenges with the Quad, but it was not without pain and suffering. I even invented some brand new cuss words to unleash at 2am on a Saturday night.......
-
With all the issues of the N4, at least is is most likely going to be assembling PCB's within a few days. The crusty software and fiddly feeders are significant limitations, but it offers more functionality than I had for the 1st 6-9mos of Quad ownership.
Feeders - not so bad. Really peel box is a pain. Although it is always possible to install something like fishing lure. Like "madell" did a lot of years ago on first versions.
If you are going to produce always the same things and there is no need to change reels, everything is OK.
Larger TQFP's with fine pitch - forget about them. Need to align them manually anyway. For limited quantities that's not a great problem. Largest problem is software.
So... Things that are not so simple to solve or "must know":
1. must add a dummy component and skip it at position where bottom left fiducial is located. Otherwise machine isn't going to find fiducials in automatic mode. Relative coordinates goes negative? Not a big problem, just China.
2. pattern compare by size really sucks. Tolerances aren't described, pattern list updated only on reboot. Must be great to avoid component placement on side... if possible to get it work correctly...
3. Impossible to switch vibro on/off and change it parameters on the fly (when machine already runs). In addition in my case must rise vibrofeeder for about 1mm or more, otherwise nozzle doesn't touch component perfectly even if Z = -1.
4. "jointly" vision fails on components with significant height (like HC-49). Not a big problem.
5. how works "large component" mode - nobody knows. For me it doesn't work at all. Always fail.
6. digi-reel size: yes, true. That fails. Some reels are 3mm larger than commonly used ones. In addition they are made from hard plastic (AVX tantalum capacitors for example). Hard to install.
7. new project = must enter all feeder settings again. There is no separate "default" feeder list. Only XY and feed/peel strength are default. Wish to see Z, orientation and vacuum delays too in default list.
8. tray feeder current position must be updated manually on each project restart. There is no "pause" and request to change tray when last slot processed. Impossible to bypass pick failure and proceed with next "pocket", always tries the same.
9. coordinate list isn't relative but absolute instead. In addition they use chinese metric system. No comments.
10. last 3 feeder positions are hard to align because downlooking camera doesn't move so far.
11. if component lies onto uplooking camera glass, strange things begin to happen. May be some additional checking necessary, not so hard to implement in software. BTW - DIP switches on uplooking camera aren't documented, anybody knows what they do?
12. on "skip" components are blown away from nozzle at actual position instead of trash tray location.
There is no any video on youtube where machine runs with hood closed. No reason to do that because something always goes wrong.
Another thing: nobody knows if there are no additional surprises with software like "switching to chinese language". May be it self-destroys after 1000 runs or something similar. Or is designed for use until 2019. Maybe somebody already tried to forward date?
Opinion - one N4 is not enough to be sure. Must have alternative solutions. OpenPNP - unreasonable if hardware is not "open source" with all schematics and binaries.
-
OpenPNP - unreasonable if hardware is not "open source" with all schematics and binaries.
Not necessarily - shouldn't be hard to reverse-engineer it. Worst-case replace their firmware in feeders etc.
-
What controller is in the feeders?
Short and misplld from my mobile......
-
What controller is in the feeders?
Short and misplld from my mobile......
(http://i.imgur.com/XVQudSA.png]http://i.imgur.com/XVQudSA.png)
STM32
-
The mechanics look dubious for small parts. Hacking the control with custom firmware is not likely a giant project at least. Over the past year, I have prioritized 0402/0201 passives on many of my projects that tend to be sized constrained. Those parts are rather unforgiving when it comes to feeders.
I picked up some parts for my Quad today and the company I got them from had a few Assemblyon(spelling?) machines among others. The Yamaha feeders seem really well considered. These machines, of course, at 10+ years old are still at least 4x the price of an N4.
Part of me thinks that with a good feeder solution, it would be better to have 2-3 N4's (with all the fiddly issues) rather than one baddass commercial machine that is a single point of failure and anytime it breaks it costs a TON to fix them. At least when the N4 broke - I would have 1-2 spares to continue running.
-
The mechanics look dubious for small parts. Hacking the control with custom firmware is not likely a giant project at least. Over the past year, I have prioritized 0402/0201 passives on many of my projects that tend to be sized constrained. Those parts are rather unforgiving when it comes to feeders.
I picked up some parts for my Quad today and the company I got them from had a few Assemblyon(spelling?) machines among others. The Yamaha feeders seem really well considered. These machines, of course, at 10+ years old are still at least 4x the price of an N4.
Part of me thinks that with a good feeder solution, it would be better to have 2-3 N4's (with all the fiddly issues) rather than one baddass commercial machine that is a single point of failure and anytime it breaks it costs a TON to fix them. At least when the N4 broke - I would have 1-2 spares to continue running.
Yes - if/when the Chinese really get their act together, multiple cheap machines would almost certainly be a better solution for low to mid-volume assemblers.
-
Yes - if/when the Chinese really get their act together, multiple cheap machines would almost certainly be a better solution for low to mid-volume assemblers.
Alas, their design philisophy seems to be stuck in 'barely good enough' mode ;)
-
One additional comment....
My Quad took 6 months to make it work at all and roughly 9 months before it was considered part of the process.
Well, maybe I was insanely lucky! (But, then, I seem to be that way in these sorts of deals.) I have never even SEEN a P&P machine before. I did ask a lot of questions and get a lot of advice on SMTNET before committing to a particular machine, over a year period, first. I had my Philips CSM84 doing the most basic stuff in about 3 days! I DID get manuals, although they were for a slightly different version of the machine. But, the setup and software menus were all quite close. This was NOT an eBay purchase, but I think I got connected with the seller through either eBay or SMTNET. Not completely sure, as I was asking a lot of questions of anybody who'd give me some advice.
I have had a few things go wrong on it, and recently a major breakdown, that turned out to be copper dust packing into the commutator of the rotation motor, causing a servo fault.
That one took about 3 months to go from first failure to a reproducible error that I could track down.
OH MY GOD, am I glad I'm not soldering chips on boards by HAND, anymore! (Shudder!)
Jon
-
The mechanics look dubious for small parts. Hacking the control with custom firmware is not likely a giant project at least. Over the past year, I have prioritized 0402/0201 passives on many of my projects that tend to be sized constrained. Those parts are rather unforgiving when it comes to feeders.
I picked up some parts for my Quad today and the company I got them from had a few Assemblyon(spelling?) machines among others. The Yamaha feeders seem really well considered. These machines, of course, at 10+ years old are still at least 4x the price of an N4.
Part of me thinks that with a good feeder solution, it would be better to have 2-3 N4's (with all the fiddly issues) rather than one baddass commercial machine that is a single point of failure and anytime it breaks it costs a TON to fix them. At least when the N4 broke - I would have 1-2 spares to continue running.
Yes, but...
I have a Philips CSM84 (later machines were made under the Assembleon brand) and they are built like a tank! Actually, the plain CSM84 may have been the best one for robustness. The nozzle holders are pretty substantial, the nozzles are pieces of (I think) 6mm steel bar stock turned and machined to the desired tip dimensions. I have no idea how hard the machine was run before I got it (although I think it had fairly low hours) and I've been using it quite lightly for a big production machine. But, I have done well over 1000 boards, and well over 100K components on it. I did make a custom nozzle for mine for large chips like FPGAs. I've been using it for slightly over 10 years now. I do worry about a major breakdown, but have been able to keep it running so far.
Fairly early, I had the conveyor sensor go out, it would intermittently dump completed boards on the ground, instead of waiting for me to pick it off the conveyor. I had to wait for it to get bad enough so I could be sure it was the sensor. I got a part off PLCCenter, a great resource for all sorts of automation components.
The vacuum filters got full of oil, I found an outfit in China that makes replacements. Cost more to ship them to the US than the filters cost.
A few hoses cracked, I bought replacements by the meter on eBay.
Then, the rotation axis started getting faults, took a while to even understand what the error message REALLY meant. Got it fixed for ZERO $, once I finally understood the problem (copper dust in the commutator.)
But, yes, if a servo amp, the main computer board, or the I/O controller goes bad, I will likely have to decide whether to pour serious money into the machine or get another one.
I would like to have a machine with a vision alignment for the higher-density chips. But, as long as this one is still working, I'm not going to make a big move.
Jon
-
Hello friends and NeoDen customers,
Thanks so much for your attention to NeoDen brand and support to us. If any questions during your using our equipment, please feel free to inform us, we will help you and offer our solutions within 24 hours.
If any new inquiry please email to us---neodensales@neodentech.com, we will reply you all the details ASAP.
Thanks again!
-Suntee from NeoDen
-
So I have had the Neoden 4 since the fall of last year.
Its actually not a bad machine for the price and once you figure out its quirks, its not too bad to operate.
By far the biggest problem is that the fiducial system does not work too well. It seems that it is unable to calculate small board rotations, and instead will just scale the X and Y coordinates. The result is that if the board is not perfectly square when its loaded the parts will be offset . This makes the rails system almost useless if you have 0603 parts. I raised this issue with the Neoden CSR and even provided a video example, but so far there has been no real answer. Hopefully they issue a software fix for this in the near future.
-
Hello ascarrul,
Thanks for your message. Whether for small boards or not square boards or normal boards when feed them into NeoDen4 rails, we depend on two diagonal fiducials to calculate all components area and also detect board rotations, after pick components and take photos by NeoDen4 up-looking camera, on the way to place components, it will correct the angle offset automatically.
Now our newest version of NeoDen is v4.1.3.2, you can kindly email to our support to upgrade your NeoDen4.
Thank you!
-Suntee
-
Now our newest version of NeoDen is v4.1.3.2, you can kindly email to our support to upgrade your NeoDen4.
Why not to simply put it on some FTP and post link here?
This topic contains a lot of unanswered questions. Why not to answer them here once and for all?
Or you prefer copy/paste in your mail box? If so - where is a reason?
-
Hello ascarrul,
Thanks for your message. Whether for small boards or not square boards or normal boards when feed them into NeoDen4 rails, we depend on two diagonal fiducials to calculate all components area and also detect board rotations, after pick components and take photos by NeoDen4 up-looking camera, on the way to place components, it will correct the angle offset automatically.
Now our newest version of NeoDen is v4.1.3.2, you can kindly email to our support to upgrade your NeoDen4.
Thank you!
-Suntee
How exactly are we to update our machines? When we email you, do we just receive a download file and we install via the usb ports?
-
Hello ascarrul,
We prefer reply by official emails one reason is for customers record and another reason is we can offer a one-to-one technical support to service them carefully.
We released NeoDen4 in 2015, now it had a little change on its hardware. we first need to know the Version and Series code of machine they are using and then offer the corresponding solutions for upgrade.
Hello girts,
We first will ask the software version and SN code they are using and then offer our upgrade support on software and hardware.
Thanks a lot!
-Suntee
-
Not necessarily - shouldn't be hard to reverse-engineer it. Worst-case replace their firmware in feeders etc.
Not sure, seems that not a simple job. Chinese think different.
There is a strange mix of CAN, LIN and UART running at 500kbs.
SBF + 2x command (some bits seems used as checksum) + 8x data(response) + 1x checksum.
Almost impossible to log line due to lot of noise. Tx Rx on CAN driver works much better.
Anyway, reason to reverse this thing is very questionable. Because it works, and not so bad...
Somebody asked about real placement speed. Average on my designs = 1600...1800 cph.
Thanks so much for your attention to NeoDen brand and support to us. If any questions during your using our equipment, please feel free to inform us, we will help you and offer our solutions within 24 hours.
If any new inquiry please email to us---neodensales@neodentech.com, we will reply you all the details ASAP.
24 hours, you said?
Mail sent 2 days ago, no response. Except delivery notification.
May be too much questions? Or too busy?
Will wait...
-
Somebody asked about real placement speed. Average on my designs = 1600...1800 cph.
What are the smallest parts you use on average? Can you get good reliability with 0402 at that rate?
-
What are the smallest parts you use on average? Can you get good reliability with 0402 at that rate?
Mostly 0805. Seems that there will be no big problems with 0603 too.
0402 - no such projects, I will buy QUAD if any.
:-DD
-
We have no issues with 0603 but would avoid 0402.
-
Hello girts,
Sorry we just back from our weekends today, we noticed all your questions and concerns and will reply you now by email.
Please kindly wait!
-Suntee from NeoDen
-
Thank you, mail and update file received. P&P machine still working in English...
:)
Camera angle checking and adjust - ohhh... simple things, implementation really fails. Why not to place 2 points on screen and ask user to move pp head between them? That's all what's necessary to calculate right angle I think.
In my case angle is about 0.7xxx degree. SW allows to enter -1, 0, 1, 2... and so on in 1 degree steps... Reason why all this floating point mathematics necessary is very questionable.
Anyway, most important questions are still unclear for me and may be for the most of community.
Q: 3) pattern check by dimensions - what are the tolerances?
A: 3.When you set the correct footprint and set the suitable brightness value,normally the component will be recognized by the machine(the correction box encircle the component). So the machine will calculate the offset and place the component to the correct position. There is no tolerance concept in here, the correction box shows correctly, then component will be placed correctly.
there is always some concept... So... going to practical example: if component real size is 2x3 mm, pattern sizes are set to 2.2 x 2.8 - what will happen? May be somebody already performed some experiments?
Q: 4) large component fiducial check - what are requirements? How it works?
A: 4.For the big component fiducials.Using smaller mark points diameter will help increase the accuracy. For the big component mark point selecting, please refer the attached methods summarize. Sometimes,creat two working files, one for the normal component mounting,other for the big component mounting, will help mounting accuracy.
May be wrong question. Actually I asked about feeder settings -> vision type -> possible options: no vision, individual, jointly, large component. "LARGE COMPONENT" - that's what I actually mean...
Q: 5) is there a possibility to switch on / off /adjust vibro feeder parameters "on the fly" - may be there is some hotkey available?
A: 5.In current software, there is not hotkey to control the vibration feeder. The vibration feeder can be switched on in the manual test interface and the mounting interface. The vibration feeder frequency and strength can be set in the system setup interface. The frequency and strength values depends by your tube component type.
May be planned in some future update?
Q: 6) tray feeder current position must be updated manually on each project restart. There is no "pause" and request to change tray when last slot processed. In addition it is impossible to bypass pick failure and proceed with next "pocket", always tries the same. May be there is a simple solution here? How to skip "pocket" and force device to go to next "pocket"? How to force "PAUSE" to change tray?
A: 6.If the tray feeder position is same as before,then there is no need to update it. Only when the tray position has been changed, then need set its pick up position and top right position again.
After the last slot processed, the placement head will go to the first slot to pick up the chip again. You can manually pause this, then change a new tray. Or the machine will fail to pick up, after several pick up fails the machine will stop and pop up an error message, then we can change the tray.
If the pick up failed error message shows, click the "Ignore" button, then will skip this component.
That's clear. Wish to see some additional option like: "GO TO PARKING". Then another message box with "GO BACK"/"RETURN" and 1st message box with options again. Otherwise it's a real pain to change reels. Very simple to implement into software if source code already available, isn't it? Park place location - adjustable in system settings like trash tray location, XY...
Sorry for copy/paste, anyway I think that a lack of good user manual is a real problem for most users. Nothing secret and private copy-pasted, just technical information.
-
Hi guys,
Im working with 2 neoden 4 pick and place machines, and Im having an issue with the nozzle not traveling all the way down to the parts tray to pick parts up, but only when running a pnp file. If i do a pick test while editing the file, it travels the necessary distance and works just fine. Any idea whats going on??
Also, does anyone know why, when i run nozzle 1 or 2, sometimes the other nozzle with click down as well? Its not normally a problem but it is a bit annoying and I dont want the other nozzle to go pushing parts off
-
Hello zwheat,
Thanks for your support to NeoDen brand. Actually we are not always on these blogs, in case of we missed your questions on blogs, we kindly suggest you email to us directly thus we can see it and reply you ASAP.
Thanks so much for your kind understanding.
Suntee from NeoDen
-
Hello zwheat,
Thanks for your support to NeoDen brand. Actually we are not always on these blogs, in case of we missed your questions on blogs, we kindly suggest you email to us directly thus we can see it and reply you ASAP.
Thanks so much for your kind understanding.
Suntee from NeoDen
Building a public community goes a very long way. I would consider participation in forums, public discussions, You Tube, etc. You will learn about your customers and be able to deliver a better product. If you are closed and secretive - it pushes a lot of people away.
You may end up with some 'ambassadors' that push and support your product just because they like it. Treat them well - send them some accessories or upgrades while they build a user community and stimulate sales.
This may fall on deaf ears, but it is worth saying.
-
I've had my NeoDen 4 up and running for about 5 months now with no major issues except a feeder breaking.
I came in to work today planning on assembling some boards, and the NeoDen won't turn on. I have the same issue tony-tid had. The switch lights up (dimly) if I hit the EStop, but nothing if the EStop is released.
I expected some problems with this machine, and I've been pretty happy with the mechanical components. This is frustrating though. How hard is it to get a power supply right?
Waiting for a response from NeoDen, in the meantime, has anyone else seen this problem? I'm hoping it doesn't keep me down too long. I need to get boards out ASAP!
-
hi guys<
Just new in this forum. I want to seek advise on what to do with our neoden 4 pnp. We first encounter vacuum problem and then head xy ordinate. We first reboot but same error occur with xy ordinate then check power supply we found out that theres no 24v coming out from the signal cable of the head.
-
I am looking into buying a NeoDen 4 and will keep watching this thread for information regarding the current status of the software and its limitations.
Neoden, if you are reading this, please note it is very important to participate in the forums, prospective buyers like me look here before buying
-
I am looking into buying a NeoDen 4 and will keep watching this thread for information regarding the current status of the software and its limitations.
Neoden, if you are reading this, please note it is very important to participate in the forums, prospective buyers like me look here before buying
Looking to buy same, whereabouts in the country are you?
I am in Georgetown, ON...that is North West of Toronto.
-
Neoden 4 Part 1
Here are my notes on the Neoden 4
Over 82000 parts placed so far
1) Does a good job with fiducials.
2) Quick and easy to load feeders (2 min) despite clearance issue when inserting reel
3) Programmable feeder pitch. No messing with mechanical setup like on older machines.
4) You can preview part locations with camera, this is useful to verify your x,y data
5) To use xy data I had to copy and paste into their .csv file (comma delimited file) I'm ok with that. The fact that is uses a text file is great. I may automate that process (anybody else is welcome to it)
6) Does not require an air compressor.
7) No fork lift required, fits through a door, two people can move it around.
8) Can place 0603,0805, did not test with 0402
Our Neoden has No rails and have never used vibe feeder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issues
We use fiducials...For proper placement I have to program it my way. Following there instructions doesn't work for me. See my other post with screen shots about that.
Brightness adjustment is global not per part. This a problem..
Top and bottom Vision seems to be pretty smart. Accurately knows where the pins are on the chip, it draws an outline around the pins, you will see this on the screen so you know if its working correctly, we had to reduce flash brightness. Unfortunately brightness adjustment is global and not per part, that’s a problem as some parts may need more brightness or less brightness, that’s a shame because it does work really well when you have the brightness setting right. Right now we get some placement errors sometimes because we have to compromise on brightness, some parts may require 80% and others 60% so we settle for 70% and get a few errors.
Acceleration is too harsh, and may move part on nozzle. look how harsh it moves when it moves over the camera for individual pictures. We had to do a certain part one at a time because of that
Really need to have retries programmable per part by the user. Its a global value set by neoden. You can’t adjust it!!! I have many $3.00 FTDI chips on the floor. (note that my 24mm FTDI feeder works ok now that I have right feed and peel values) I would set retries to 0.
.
You have to adjust column width when entering data, in some cases there is plenty of room to .make them wider. How hard would it be to fix that.
If you want to use a strip of small parts as a tray you need to have it perfectly lined up. No software feature to compensate for poor alignment,
Picking up from tray…
Can't force it to next location on tray during a production run. You will need to exit and fix that.... then restart production where you left off. At least its capable of doing that. Tip: hit save button before exiting, so it remembers where to start in tray next time. Why did they not make it save automatically
Would be nice if you could single step the feeders to correct position, instead of manually moving the tape
Software improvements required
Brightness level for each component
Adjustable acceleration.
Auto adjust pick height
Z height is weird, 0 should equal top of PCB board.
Improve screen layout
-
Hi guys,
Just ordered a N4 + PM3040 printer + T-962C oven, should arrive in 2 weeks.
I've read carefully all your post and I'd like to thank all of you for being so generous sharing your knowledge.
Looking forward to do the same.
I have 2 questions:
1 - Is there a way to import / export the csv files with an USB flash drive ?
2 - One of the board I have to assemble is a 2.4mm thick PCB. I Haven't found a setting for that. Is there one ?
Thanks
-
Hello everyone! :)
I have NeoDen4 with visio system and vibration, so I have two - three questions...
I've watch a video about NeoDen4 with visio that take a picture from all four nozzels at once, not one by one.
1. My NeoDen4 take one by one picture of the nozzels, so is there anyway to make it to take from all nozzels at once? RESOLVED
2. Where I can find a firmware update file (if there is available update)? My current version s v4.1.2 B3 :-//
3. Someone else except me to have problems with placing LTST-G563ZEGBW (SMD RBG LEDS)?? Sometimes the nozzel don't let/place the led ( keep moving with it on it), after trying to place it. RESOLVED
-
Here is the list of bugfix and fitures of NeoDen4 firmwares
v0.9.4.2 19/08/2015 1. Add a mode into head movement window -keyboard control movement
2.Password protection enabled based on Machine code
3. The number failed pickups attempts is 5
4."Angle detection" will be available on panelized board mode
5.Feeder cordinates to be interchangable
6. Revise the issue of setting down-looking camera and nozzle 1 relative postion.
7.Revise the issue of skip placing 1st part on each panel
v0.9.4.3 26/08/2015 1.Optimize fiducials recognition 2.Optimize working speed
v0.9.4.4 28/08/2015 1.Optimize fiducials recognition 2.Optimize accuracy
v0.9.4.5 29/09/2015 1.After click " feeder exchange" feeders' information should be all changed
2. Placement head movement, a fast or continuous click will lower its movement speed
3.Lower the brightness of down-looking camera
4. Precise error reporting on step-out issue on a pop up screen
5.The imported file can't be duplicated with any file that exists
7. Revise the issue of pressing "Esc" accidently, the machine won't stop PnP.
8. Optimize the function of angle detection of board
9.Revise the issue, that the default setting of feeders in file are not aligned with that in system
10.The fiducials can be negative value
11. Camera Zoom Option optimized to accomodate Bigger QFP ICs
v0.9.4.5 23/11/2015 1.Revise of skipping a component during "multi-rails" mode accidently
v4.0.1 B01 01/12/2015 1. Add new function. The initial angle and brightness of up-looking camera can be supported
2.Add new function. coordinate in CAD file could be converted to machine absolute coordinate
3.Can control the brightness of Light source of Down Looking camera for a better fiducial capture
andfiducial point references are now more accurately captured with the user definable size and width
4.Will recognize the issue of part's abnormal condition.
5.Add new function. Larger part is supported. But it should be square or with little circle on each angle.
v4.0.1 B02 02/12/2015 1. Revise the issue of large component can't be seen completely
2. The fiducial brightness could be automatic
v4.0.2 B01 22/12/2015 1. Will blow after three times pickup failure, will throw parts after six times
2. Optimize fiducials recognation
v4.0.2 B02 29/12/2015 1. The flashlight will be inner light source once revising the relative position of down-looking cameraand Nozzle 1
v4.0.2 B03 30/12/2015 1. All the new feeders'ID is 50
v4.0.2 B04 06/01/2016 1. Revise English translation issue
v4.0.2 B05 08/01/2016 1. Revise the issue that feeders won't be available during "Multi rails" mode
v4.0.2 B06 09/01/2016 1.Will throw part after 6 times' failed pickup attempt with vacuum test on,click "Yes"to try again
v4.0.2 B07 12/01/2016 1.Can change the speed of Fiducials test (only applied for internal test)
v4.0.2 B08 18/01/2016 1.Prolong the blow time during throwing large component
2.Add minmum size of fiducials, which will be more recognizable on white board
v4.0.3 B01 01/04/2016 1.The vibration feeder can be turned on mount screen.
2.After converting to absolute coordinate, manual recolonization of fiducials are available.
v4.0.4 B02 01/05/2016 1.Add the mirror function for double sided board
v4.0.4 B05 29/11/2016 1.Add a "Skip" option on the pickup failure screen, rather than only continue or stop.
2. Add the "Feed Test" function on "Feeder Configuration" screen.
v4.1.1 B2 20/02/2017 Increase special feeders to 50
v4.1.1 B3 01/03/2017 Revise translation issue
v4.1.1 B4 04/03/2017 No need to enter password againwhen change language
v4.1.1 B7 20/03/2017 Revise translation issue
v4.1.2 B3 22/05/2017 Revise recognization issue of camera
v4.1.2 B4 28/08/2017 1. Add row skip and column skip functions in edit interface and processing interface (select from thedrop-down box in the component list)
2. Add search function in edit interface (via coordinate search)
v4.1.2 B5 21/09/2017 1.translate some words which is in Chinese
v4.1.2 B6 30/10/2017 Fix the coordinate error bug after click the "to current position" button
v4.1.2 B9 16/11/2017 1. Add the function of measuring the initial angle of the up-looking camera
2. The four nozzle vacuum detection pressure values can set separately.
v4.1.3 B1 01/12/2017 Optimize Chinese and English translation
v4.1.3 B2 05/12/2017 1.Optimize Chinese and English translation2.Optimize UI
-
I have many $3.00 FTDI chips on the floor. (note that my 24mm FTDI feeder works ok now that I have right feed and peel values) I would set retries to 0.
Hundreds of SSOP-30 and thousands of SSOP-20 placed without any problems if picked from tray... Using original SAMSUNG nozzle. Because bigger ones supplied with N4 have issue - they have free play (no centering groove). By the way - small nozzles already have it. May be initial pickup angle (which is more accurate if picked from tray) and "limited alignment try count" is your issue.
problems with placing LTST-G563ZEGBW (SMD RBG LEDS)?? Sometimes the nozzel don't let/place the led ( keep moving with it on it), after trying to place it.
May be wrong pick / place height settings. Or wrong nozzle. Anyway, machine has no option to "blow off" component from nozzle. Only vacuum, so placement of these "sticky" parts most likely is a problem.
-
machine has no option to "blow off" component from nozzle. Only vacuum,
The machine does blow,or at least has the ability to, it has a 220vac aquarium pump inside, but being on 110vac here its not as strong, I was told by Neoden that is fine. You can also test it in diagnostic and get pressure numbers if you plug nozzle hole with your finger.
-
The machine does blow,or at least has the ability to, it has a 220vac aquarium pump inside, but being on 110vac here its not as strong, I was told by Neoden that is fine. You can also test it in diagnostic and get pressure numbers if you plug nozzle hole with your finger.
Are you sure? Vacuum, not pressure.
220 or 110 - doesn't matter, they are 12 or 24v DC driven.
-
The machine does blow,or at least has the ability to, it has a 220vac aquarium pump inside, but being on 110vac here its not as strong, I was told by Neoden that is fine. You can also test it in diagnostic and get pressure numbers if you plug nozzle hole with your finger.
Are you sure? Vacuum, not pressure.
220 or 110 - doesn't matter, they are 12 or 24v DC driven.
100% sure it has a "blow" pump in it. It is nothing more then an aquarium pump as TankSparks said. Our 120 VAC unit included a 220 VAC pump, it still works but has less pressure.
I have many $3.00 FTDI chips on the floor. (note that my 24mm FTDI feeder works ok now that I have right feed and peel values) I would set retries to 0.
Hundreds of SSOP-30 and thousands of SSOP-20 placed without any problems if picked from tray... Using original SAMSUNG nozzle. Because bigger ones supplied with N4 have issue - they have free play (no centering groove). By the way - small nozzles already have it. May be initial pickup angle (which is more accurate if picked from tray) and "limited alignment try count" is your issue.
We're picking the FTDI chips from tape, if they were in a tray it would probably be more reliable.
-
Im having an issue with one of my Neodens, Where, when i try placing a part, the nozzle next to the one that places the part will follow it down right after, and hit the board, potentially sending parts flying and making a mess of my board... |O
Anyone know why it is doing this, and how to stop it??
-
Check to make sure the placement height for the part is not set too low. Both nozzles will come down when one of the nozzle pushes too far down. This happens to me when i am placing a tall part and a forget to change the place height from the default.
-
Neoden4 @ mHUBchicago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=SNt1YKkGBvA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=SNt1YKkGBvA)
-
Good afternoon.
Question to the technical specialist installer components neoden 4.
The installer does not want to give a fee to the conveyor.
Writes "rail busy" after installing all components.
What signal should come to the conveyor connector?
The sensor that was bundled with the NeodDen stands on the left at the entrance of the boards.
Pipeline native, is right at the exit boards.
When measured by the tester on the terminals of the conveyor connector connected to NeoDen , 0 V, when the last sensor is closed on the conveyor 3.3 V.
-
Hello
I'm going to buy this machine, and I have some doubts.
1.- Have you solved in any way, the placement of high components? According to the characteristics, the maximum height would be only 5mm, but this leaves out a good part of electrolytic capacitors, power inductors and others. The manufacturer tells me that they are going to make some personalized nozzles with which I can put components, as long as they do not exceed 10mm, but that still leaves me with a 13mm high capacitor.
2.- How does the machine place the TQFP100 and TQFP144?
3.- What maximum height of component allows you to put in the feeder with reel?, For example to put some electrolytic capacitors that reach 7-8mm high.
4.- For integrated SOIC, of 14/16 pins, which is better, put it on tape/reel or tube on the vibration feeder?
5.- Do the internal rails seem useful or can you do without them and save 1000 USD?
Greetings.
-
to all of you interested in a Neoden machine or if you need support;
please contact Neoden or a Neoden distributor only!
do not ask anybody else for support than the OEM or distributor in order to avoid damage
there are several systems and versions and we are willing and able to help you properly
please visit http://www.printtec.nl/contents/en-uk/d596_NeoDen_pick___place_machines_with_vision.html (http://www.printtec.nl/contents/en-uk/d596_NeoDen_pick___place_machines_with_vision.html)
for Europe, USA or EMEA distribution and support; we stock the product for you!
-
Are you honnestly suggesting peer support is a bad thing?
-
LOL
Hey, can I purchase a conveyor only?
-
dear ROM67
please do not put this kind of info on the web anymore
what happens is that peiople start sharing other versions of software than are possible to use on their version of hardware (machine)
big costs by damage are then the result
you don;t want that to happoen do you?
please understand, that is there is anything you want to ask or need support with, only contact and consult Neoden HQ or us as distributor!
www.neodentech.com (http://www.neodentech.com) / www.neodentech.eu (http://www.neodentech.eu) / www.electronicatools.com (http://www.electronicatools.com)
-
what happens is that peiople start sharing other versions of software than are possible to use on their version of hardware (machine)
big costs by damage are then the result
Which is entirely the fault of a company not digitally signing their firmware so wrong versions will not install on an inappropriate machine.
You can't blame any customer when the manufacturer is clueless about proper software distribution and software lifecycle management.
BTW why did Printtec stop selling the excellent Polish P&P machines?
-
Nice you joined - now how about taking the opportunity and answering the questions right here where anyone interested can read your reply?
-
BTW why did Printtec stop selling the excellent Polish P&P machines?
I think I have answer.
Nobody will buy a 4x slower M10V for a 3x price of N4.
-
dear ROM67
big costs by damage are then the result
That's not a rocket science. It is just PnP machine. CNC with additional functionality.
If somebody wish to make experiments, it is his own problem.
What's wrong if somebody publishes bug fix list?
If I see that there are only some translation errors fixed in latest FW, and I already have previous one, not a big reason to disturb you for individual updates, right?
About peer to peer support - got only formal answers and outdated manuals. Nothing useful. That's not what we need.
-
BTW why did Printtec stop selling the excellent Polish P&P machines?
I think I have answer.
Nobody will buy a 4x slower M10V for a 3x price of N4.
Are you trying to say that the N4 is a better product than M10V based on just price and datasheet speeds?
Have you ask yourself why there is no one asking questions around the web how to operate theirs M10V, how to fix various issues, or people just complaining about it, and in this forum alone there are 54 pages pretty much about issues with N4?
M10V costs more, but it works out of the box and it has excellent support if you ever need such, not to mention it will place larger variety of parts and has much better software. You say speed - I wonder how well N4 works at 100% speed with various parts?
The main reason people are buying N4s and all other similar alternatives is because they do not have the money to put towards a better system and willing to live/work around with its faults - nothing too wrong with all this,we all need to start from somewhere. Printtec are just a distributor and all they would care is to have a product that would sell so they can make profit at the end of the day.
Do not get me wrong, I hope Neoden can improve their products in the future and still keep the low cost so that more people can have the opportunity to have access to such equipment, but I also hope western manufacturers can also keep out with this competition, if not in price at least on quality and features provided.
-
Are you trying to say that the N4 is a better product than M10V based on just price and datasheet speeds?
Have you ask yourself why there is no one asking questions around the web how to operate theirs M10V, how to fix various issues, or people just complaining about it, and in this forum alone there are 54 pages pretty much about issues with N4?
For me - yes. I don't need to place parts higher than 5 mm and I don't need loose components tray. Both machines are limited to 0603. Because for 0402 some machine weight is necessary.
Feeder bank ideology (M10V) if there is no "hot swap" option is useless.
Nozzle changer on M10V compared with 4 nozzles always mounted on N4 heads is not a bonus.
54 pages - really useful and helpful are may be 2 or 3.
All issues are software related, mostly caused by outdated manuals and "chinese think different".
Another reason - it is very simple to find 10 N4 users, but hard to find people with M10V. And, of course, there are mostly individuals communicating on forum boards, not employees of larger companies.
M10V costs more, but it works out of the box and it has excellent support if you ever need such, not to mention it will place larger variety of parts and has much better software. You say speed - I wonder how well N4 works at 100% speed with various parts?
May be. I really communicated with Mechatronika. Can't say they are friendly and open for communication. Even to get price list taked one week of intensive communication via e-mail.
About N4 placement speed - that's unbelievable, but it works fine at 100% except for some heavy parts.
The main reason people are buying N4s and all other similar alternatives is because they do not have the money to put towards a better system and willing to live/work around with its faults - nothing too wrong with all this,we all need to start from somewhere. Printtec are just a distributor and all they would care is to have a product that would sell so they can make profit at the end of the day.
10k and 30k eur.... if one for 10k does all you need 4x faster... reason to spend 30k for may be better software is very questionable.
M10V I think is stuck in 2010 - there was no so much alternatives to buy in 2010.
Do not get me wrong, I hope Neoden can improve their products in the future and still keep the low cost so that more people can have the opportunity to have access to such equipment, but I also hope western manufacturers can also keep out with this competition, if not in price at least on quality and features provided.
Really I don't like to support China and their "good enough to sell" ideology. But... I think European / American manufacturers must be more flexible. They are stuck in 90's with all their "corporative games". Worst thing is that Neoden tries to play according to their rules, which are incompatible with selling for masses what they try to do.
OK, that's just a lyrics...
-
I am looking into buying a NeoDen 4 and will keep watching this thread for information regarding the current status of the software and its limitations.
Neoden, if you are reading this, please note it is very important to participate in the forums, prospective buyers like me look here before buying
Hello uski, I'm Zoe from NeoDen Tech. It's nice to know you. My colleague told me this forum today. I think you are right. We will participate more in this forums in the future. Thanks for your advise. Really helpful!
-
Thank you for sharing your neoden 4 desk/design
-
anyone managed to get PCB rotation working on the 4? i did all the detect angle. but even if i make it crazy at 10 degrees nothing rotates when i mount it, the rotation is in the csv as well.
going back and forth with their support team who are repsonsive, but language barrier seems to be kicking in, since i want whole board rotation to account for mounting errors and not individual part rotation.
-
Can the maschine change nozzle automatically on head for different size of component?
-
Can the maschine change nozzle automatically on head for different size of component?
The machine has 4 nozzles on the head, no need for a nozzle change system, it is better and faster, unless you need to use more than 4 different models of nozzles on the same PCB.
For me it is perfect the head of four nozzles of the N4, I have this machine and I am very satisfied.
-
Can the maschine change nozzle automatically on head for different size of component?
The machine has 4 nozzles on the head, no need for a nozzle change system, it is better and faster, unless you need to use more than 4 different models of nozzles on the same PCB.
For me it is perfect the head of four nozzles of the N4, I have this machine and I am very satisfied.
It's not ideal for throughput but would probably be OK for most applications. Pity they didn't build in tool-change though as it's not that hard to do and gives a lot more flexibility. They'd have to improve their software to make good use of it though.
-
Hi.
Does anyone know how to add a new component to the footprint library?
I only see the text options, with name, width, length and thickness, but there is no option to add the image of the component for recognition with the video camera.
I have looked at the videos and manuals, and nothing is explained. I have consulted the support of Neoden, but what I have answered for now, does not clarify anything, they tell me the same thing that it says in the manual.
Surely my concept of what it is to add a component to the footprint library, does not match the way to configure the software, but in that case I do not understand how the machine will recognize a new component if it is not previously captured with the video camera to be able to recognize it and position it in its correct position.
I am also now working with Eagle ULP to export the list of components to Neoden4, I still do not understand why the ULP requests the position of the first component. All my PCBs include two fiducials, so the idea is for Neoden4 to detect the fiducials and automatically calculate the actual position of all the components on the PCB.
At this moment there are two things I do not like of Neoden4, they are based on the very old Windows XP and besides in chinese language. And to turn off the machine, there is a button in the software that shutdown the Windows, but it restart again and again, from Neoden support they say that as soon as I see black screen I put to OFF position the switch of machine, a bit sloppy.
-
Hi.
Does anyone know how to add a new component to the footprint library?
I only see the text options, with name, width, length and thickness, but there is no option to add the image of the component for recognition with the video camera.
I have looked at the videos and manuals, and nothing is explained. I have consulted the support of Neoden, but what I have answered for now, does not clarify anything, they tell me the same thing that it says in the manual.
Surely my concept of what it is to add a component to the footprint library, does not match the way to configure the software, but in that case I do not understand how the machine will recognize a new component if it is not previously captured with the video camera to be able to recognize it and position it in its correct position.
Not familiar with the N4 SW but all it should need is the part length,width and height number of feeder indexes,plus some threshold adjustments if necessary for reliable vision.
-
Not familiar with the N4 SW but all it should need is the part length,width and height number of feeder indexes,plus some threshold adjustments if necessary for reliable vision.
Yes it is. I thought that the machine had to capture an image of the component with the video camera, and those images were saved in the footprint library.
Much simpler than I thought, right now my question is how to define the components that do not have square or rectangular shapes. For example I have a socket for micro SD cards, which is not rectangular, has a small highlight on one side, which matches the shape of the SD card. I have also seen some SMD inductors of round or octagonal shapes. And another thing that I do not know, is if when entering the dimensions of a chip, these should take into account the pins, or simply the encapsulation.
I have ask all questions to Bryan of Neoden, I hope he will reply to me on Monday, and practically Im ready to do my first test.
-
i don't believe there is way, it does not appear to use template/image matching, builds a box, finds the centre, calcs rotation/offset.
for the ulp you're using (i'm guessing ray's) what he is doing is moving all the components to the physical location of them on the machine, so its 1:1 that doesn't work super well if you move the pcb or use the conveyor
so what i did was add all the components in the ulp, choose rail or fixed, if rail then set the distance of detect Y to make the machine 's head can reach the far side of the board.
then for the first component to match the location in left bottom, detect the angle with pcb angle, then add one panel with create panelised list. then add three fiducials, i used corners , neoden says use two which likely means the software can't correct for shear or contraction/expansion. the order of them, does matter, they either have to be clockwise or anticlockwise (don't recall off hand) but if you do them out of order it'll position the computed board into outer space.
once you've done that and fiducials are aligned use mark align after positioning of fiducials, all your other components should be right. you can reload the pcb and test it with the move to current position button thats on the right side (and not documented anywhere i've seen ) the machine will then go look at the fiducials and do any corrections if the fiducials are out of the camera viewpoint entirely, it won't find them.
initially i punched in the coordinates of the fiducials from my board ulp since if you mark them by hand they'd be offset from the rest of the board
i've been updating the dp tm220 script for eagle for the neoden4, its getting close.
-
Expressing interest in this Eagle script for Neoden!
I actually have the Neoden 3V advanced (44 feeders) and I've been using the neoden4-mount.ulp from rays hobby.
It works, but the rotations are often wrong, so I have to make a throwaway board on two sided tape and tweak before it's ready to go.
I suspect it has to do with differences between the tape feeder locations of the 3 and 4, and also because my 3V has feeder banks on the side and the back which have different feed orientations. However the rotation mistakes don't always seem predictable, so it might be something I don't quite understand yet.
I would be available to run tests on the script with the 3V and see if it can be tweaked to do both reliably. This script looks like it can help matching new boards to the existing stacks in the machine, which is great. Part of the reason I sprung for all the feeders is to be able to leave all the cheap and common passives in the feeders forever. Buy $20 worth of 1k/10k/100k 1% 0805 resistors and leave them spooled on for months.
Cheers.
-
yeah i had the same problem with rays script on the N4 too also not double sided, and there are a lot of GUI annoyances in the neoden software so trying to move as much of it as possible to the PC side.
you can configure the number of reels in the code of the script too. and then have a DB of different stacks that you can save/load (which is all in the original DP tm220 scripts i'm just doing the "98" reels and extra settings)
i will try to extend it to autofill similar to how the n4 software does it too.
hopefully i'll have a test version ready to play with soon.
-
Today I tried to start with the first test and to my surprise when I tried everything in the test menu, the main camera did not work.
I contacted Bryan of Neoden, and he had me dismantle all the feeders on the side of the camera, plus several screws to access the camera to check the wiring. It was already late, and he stayed to continue tomorrow.
I kept trying things, until it occurred to me that they could be my USB connections, which were affecting the camera. To not have duplicate mouse, keyboard and monitor, I share those of my PC computer, I have connected a VGA to HDMI converter, and with a 5-meter HDMI cable to my PC monitor, and for the keyboard-mouse, I connected a USB cable 5 meters that reaches my table, and there I have a HUB with keyboard, mouse, USB pendrive and other devices. When I want to use keyboard and mouse with the Neoden4, I disconnect the HUB cable from my PC, and connect it to the USB cable that comes from the Neoden4.
On the Neoden4, the USB cable had it connected to the back of the machine. It has been to change it to one of the USB connectors on the right side of the machine, and the camera already works. I do not know the reason for this problem, but it works for me that it was important.
(https://i.imgur.com/EOyg0nv.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/XkDeArQ.jpg)
Another problem I have had is with the chip feeder by vibrator. It seems that they have changed the design of this piece, and I have not been able to place the 5 tubes for SOIC chips of 14/16 pins. Finally, they have sent me a piece of the old design that they still had in stock, I hope it will help me and I can finally use the 5 tubes of SOIC chips that I need.
(https://i.imgur.com/57XuJd9.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FQHpWsj.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ebQpmMg.jpg)
At this moment, my only question is how the nozzles are placed on the head. Are they going to pressure, I have to dismantle something, do I need a tool ...?
I want put these nozzles:
CN750 --> for TQFP100 / TQFP144 and some SMD power inductors for switched supply with XL4015/XL4016
CN220 --> for SOIC chips (74LS123, CD4050), LD1117, SK86 diode, XL4015, SD card socket, etc...
CN100 or CN140 --> for 1206, some small aluminun capacitors, BAT60 diode...
Custom nozzle --> I have four custom nozzles (CN400/750), these are shorter (-3 or 4mm), I want to try it with high aluminum capacitors, from 8 to 10 mm in height.
(https://i.imgur.com/EAYdN7T.jpg)
-
they just push in/pull out and click in , no tools needed.
-
I don't use the size correct option. It seemed related to vision checking, but I found it just dumps components unnecessarily.
I also do not use this option because it is not described anywhere.
I've place a lot of 0402. You really need to set the pickup height with care, otherwise you'll just bounce them around. I use different height offsets, as the pickups aren't precise enough across the entire machine.
The pickup heigt has nothing to do with the xy coordinate System. I have placed graph paper on the workbench and did some measurements with the camera. In the X axis I have an accumulating error of >= 0.2mm per 100mm. In the Y axis round about 0.15mm/100mm.
We're facing the same problem as LittlePCB.
X and Y axis have an accumulating error.
Is this error linear? creating a script, will it work?
We need to mount most 0402 and fine pitch=0.5 (but 0201 and BGA too), with these error is impossible to mount it.
Thanks!
-
So we recently had a power supply go bad and it is suspected we had a bad feeder. Does anyone know how the feeders electrically work. We would like to build a tester to test each feeder before we connect it back into the system. We know the 2 outer pins are for power, but what do the 2 inner pins do and how to electrically interface to them. Thanks in advance.
-
If a feeder can kill a PSU, that's a piss-poor PSU design
-
If a feeder can kill a PSU, that's a piss-poor PSU design
No kidding -
you should be able to dead short it, pulse it, etc without smoke. Especially in a system where modules (feeders) are constantly being hot-swapped.
-
Guys, what is the last firmware for NeoDen4?
It seems the Chinese developers has stopped supporting the NeoDen.
There are no new firmwares for a 7 monthes.. (by Bryan from NeoDen).
-
Guys, what is the last firmware for NeoDen4?
It seems the Chinese developers has stopped supporting the NeoDen.
There are no new firmwares for a 7 monthes.. (by Bryan from NeoDen).
This weekend I have to work with mine, I'll check it.
In any case, have you asked Elli, of Neoden, about this?, I sent her a Skype message to see what she says.
I do not know if it is necessary or they should give frequent firmware updates, either to correct bugs, if there are any, or to offer new features, if they are needed.
-
Hello Rom67,
This is Ellie from NeoDen.
The most using firmware version that sending to customer is Version v4.1.3 B2(Issued on Dec 5th, 2017). But don't worry we are still keep doing update and improvement always.
The latest one V4.1.3 B8 was lanuched on May,2018, need 1-2 months to testing on the machine.
Now this latest version already issued in August, if any one need this version or any support, pls contact with Bryan(support@neodentech.con) or Me(Ellie: sales4@neodentech.com).
Thanks for your support always. :) :)
Best Regard
Ellie Wang
-
Ellie, luiHS thank you very much!
I've wrote every month to the Bryan about new updates. The last answer from Bryan at May, 5.
He said that there are no new firmwares. It's very strange!!
-
Hi all,
Hoping you can help me solve some confusion. In setting up our Neoden machines for a new build coming up, we are rearranging some feeders back to where they were after this current project. The problem I have run into, is that I have 5 or so feeders that wont run with any of the feed box commands. Ive been through 48 of them, backward and forward, and these 5 will not run, no matter what number comes up. Any ideas whats going on?
I even tried moving one or two to the other machine to see if anything changes and those still wont run on command. Not sure what we are missing.
-
Ellie, what has been updated in latest version?
-
Ellie has disappeared after single answer...
-
Ellie has disappeared after single answer...
Ellie no longer works at Neoden, you'll have to contact Bryan or Steven.
-
luiHS thank you!
PS: By the way Ellie has changed hers last answer at the forum. She deleted any information about issued firmwares. Is it so secret information?
Hope the post here did not cause the dissmisal.
-
luiHS thank you!
PS: By the way Ellie has changed hers last answer at the forum. She deleted any information about issued firmwares. Is it so secret information?
Hope the post here did not cause the dissmisal.
{speculation mode on} perhaps disclosing this information on a public forum is why she does not work there anymore ? {speculation mode off}
-
luiHS thank you!
PS: By the way Ellie has changed hers last answer at the forum. She deleted any information about issued firmwares. Is it so secret information?
Hope the post here did not cause the dissmisal.
{speculation mode on} perhaps disclosing this information on a public forum is why she does not work there anymore ? {speculation mode off}
Either way......
1. Lack of information is crap
2. Lack of development is crap
3. Changing your post is crap
4. Leaving everyone to wonder and speculate is crap
-
luiHS thank you!
PS: By the way Ellie has changed hers last answer at the forum. She deleted any information about issued firmwares. Is it so secret information?
Hope the post here did not cause the dissmisal.
Hi Dear Rom,
Nice to know you here,this is Haimi from NeoDen.
Ellie not work in NeoDen,she back to hometown,get married and work there now.
I work in NeoDen since 2014,and I am the Senior sales representative.
About the software,our latest version is V4.1.3 B8 launched in May,2018.Until now,no update version.
We will let you know once we have.
Really appreciate your support on NeoDen and choose our machine.
As we not visit this forum frequently,we advice all of you write to us by email if need any support or have any question.
Thanks and best regards
Haimi
Email:haimi@neodentech.com
Skype:haimi2008
-
Hi Zwheat,
How are you?
Did you fix your problem?
May we have your SN code?We advice you write to us by email ,our engineer Bryan will help you on this.
My email:haimi@neodentech.com
Engineer Bryan:support@neodentech.com
We not visit this forum frequently,if need any support,write to us directly will be more efficient. :) :)
Thanks and best regards
Haimi
-
Hi eevblog forumers :)
I'm new here and basically just signed up to write a review on Neoden, in order to say "thank-you" to them for excellent service received. I have not read through the previous ~55 pages of this thread.
We purchased a Neoden4 around 4 months ago. The machine has been running well since then, and I think we've pushed around 300 x ~65 component boards through it so far (with another 170 going through at the moment). At this stage we are placing 0805s up to largeish modules (15x30mm), finest pitch 0.5mm. In that time we have had a few support queries with Neoden, and the response has always been fast and accurate; where they have even suspected that there might be something wrong with the machine (turned out not to be the case, just an incorrect setting in the software) they have immediately offered to send replacement parts (for free).
"Issues" we have had so far are:
Placement Accuracy
Neoden sent us a detailed document regarding recommended methods to improve placement accuracy. We littered a few more fiducials around our boards (especially around the fine-pitch components) and this helped a lot. Overall, for a belt drive machine, the accuracy is not bad. We do go over the boards as they come out the machine, and tweak placement slightly if necessary (we wouldn't take them straight out the machine and into the oven without checking them at this stage), but once again if you want super-accuracy then you probably need to be spending $$$ - the machine has very good value considering it's price point.
Feeder Not Feeding Correctly
Turned out to be an incorrect feed value setting (must be a multiple of 4[mm], and we somehow got it set to 6 - granted 6 should not really be a selectable value in the software if it's not valid, but really not serious). In this case Neoden immediately offered to ship us a replacement feeder, and there was actually nothing wrong with the feeder (software issue, as mentioned).
Blown Fuse
Main fuse on the machine blew, probably due to a bad plug-point connection on our side, and we initially missed the location of the fuse (built into the IEC connector at the back) due to having the machine packed into a tight space and being decoyed by a different fuse elsewhere on the machine.
Nozzles 1 & 2 Not Travelling Fully
Turned out to be two grub screws on the nozzle 1 & 2 rocker arm which had come loose - quick and easy fix. After explaining the symptoms Neoden quickly identified the exact cause of the issue and sent us a document with pictures explaining how to fix it.
Of all of the above cases, only the nozzle travel one was actually an issue with the machine itself, and this was once again a simple fix (tighten two grub screws).
The main point of this review is that Neoden's support (in our experience so far) is excellent, which I think makes a big difference versus buying a machine and then being completely stuck and on your own if something goes wrong with it.
In terms of review of the actual machine itself, and besides for what has already been mentioned; we do not have a huge amount of experience in the SMT industry and so can't "compare" that much, but overall are (again, as mentioned) very happy with the value of the machine. I will try to provide some further review of the machine itself below:
We have built up from scratch, assembling our first boards by hand and "reflowing" them on a stovetop. From there we got a LitePlacer and pizza/toaster oven, and from there the Neoden4 and a desktop automated batch oven. Compared to assembling by hand, the Neoden4 is obviously a huge improvement :).
Speed
The machine is more than fast enough for what we need, and it stands waiting for us to complete pasting / reflow / etc (rather than the other processes waiting for it).
Vision
The vision is overall very good, and does not need tweaking / calibration for different light conditions - it "just works" out of the box.
Feeders
Having feeders makes a huge difference, compared to working with strips. It seems like the feeders might not always get the component to exactly the same position for pickup, requiring a re-alignment, but this might be something to do with us (further investigation necessary). We do waste some components due to mis-pick, but I think that is standard in the industry (especially at this price level). The feeders are not particularly difficult to load. In terms of trays; there is space for 1 JEDEC tray, but we just chop our trays up if we need to fit more than one in - we actually have a few strips (e.g. 48mm) in the tray area as well (for e.g. wide FPC connectors).
Accuracy
As mentioned above, considering belt-drive / open-loop / not-$$$-servos, the accuracy seems very good for the price point of the machine.
Overall Build
Overall build-quality is good / sturdy, and the machine is nice and compact. It can go on a benchtop, or on the Neoden stand (we currently have ours on the stand). Having all the pumps etc built-in is nice - just hook up a screen / keyboard / mouse and it's good to go.
Neoden have targeted a specific market with this machine, and for us the machine is a good fit - we do not currently have the volumes or $$$ to justify a machine from Essemtec/Samsung/Europlacer/Mycronic/etc/etc, so it is just what we needed.
Cheers
Dane
-
.
Hi.
Does anyone know if I can put electrolytic capacitors on a reel? The ones I try to use have a height of 5 and 6mm.
As you can see the photos, in the feeders of this width, there is like a metal sheet that presses against the component, and in this case that sheet does not leave enough space to put the tape with this capacitor. In addition where the tape would leave once the component was removed, there is very little space left for it to come out.
May I have to remove those metal sheets, to leave enough space for the capacitors? If so, I do not know how to remove them.
On the other hand, I am also having another general problem with reel feeders, this is seen in the last photo. The tapes that come out after peeling tend to move and leave the groove that acts as a guide. I suspect that I may have feeders somewhat displaced with respect to the mechanisms that pull the tape to remove it, but I am not sure if that is the problem.
.
-
First off a disclaimer, this advice is based only on experience and not reflects manufactures recommendation.
I found that the springs in the 12mm feeders are too strong and cause more harm than good, however i used SMC diodes and not electrolytes. To remove the spring you have to take out the feeder from the machine to access the screws holding it in place. Simply remove and keep them if a slim component needs the lower support.
As of the 8mm feeders i would recommend to route the foil all the way to the front, not trough the hole.
-
ok, thanks pakakezu for your suggestions.
I will try to remove the metal sheet and change the foil of the tape.
I also sent a message via Skype to Neoden, and they answered that they were on holidays, and that tomorrow they will answer me the technical service.
I hope to be able to use electrolytic capacitors on a reel with the 12mm feeders, I do not see any reason for not being able to use them. The alternative would be to put them on a tray, but I expected at least the smaller ones like these 5 and 6mm if they could be used on a reel. On other 12mm reels, I have diodes and LD1117 chips and they enter without problems, although I am still in tests with the machine, calibrating and configuring everything.
One more question, if someone knows. I have imported the list of components with their coordinates, using a ULP that there is for Eagle.
I have already configured a few things, but it is not clear to me how to define the fiducials and in the definition to use the motorized lanes of non-panelized plates, it seems that it asks for the coordinates of the first component. I do not understand what the first component refers to and how to assign it from the configuration options, nor how to define the coordinates of the fiducials.
In the list of components that I have imported, fiducials appear with their relative coordinates on the board, now I do not know if I have to put those coordinates, if I have to locate them with the video camera of the machine, or if I have to modify the coordinates in relation to the first component.
-
I found that the springs in the 12mm feeders are too strong and cause more harm than good, however i used SMC diodes and not electrolytes. To remove the spring you have to take out the feeder from the machine to access the screws holding it in place. Simply remove and keep them if a slim component needs the lower support.
I am not sure now if it refers to removing the spring I see in your image, or removing the sheet metal that see in my image, or both.
I do not know if really the spring of his image is a problem, but surely the metal sheet of my image does not allow to correctly place the electrolytic capacitors in a reel with the 12 mm feeder. Or I might have to eliminate both.
-
I have checked your image again, could it be that you refer to removing the two screws to be able to remove the metal sheet to which I have referred, not to the spring of your image?
-
By spring i meant the metal sheet, the other spring is essential to hold the tape.
As for the fiducials. The coordinates for the fiducials can be obtained from the component list, you have to set them to do not mount or skip. Best is to move the fiducials to the top of the list.
The "first component" on the panel setting refers to the location of the first component from the component list on the PCB, can be a fiducial too. You have to align with the camera on the pcb, from there the software will calculate the component offsets. Also if the board is panalized calculates the board locations.
For fiducial locations (bottom left corner of screen) enter manually the coordinates from the component list of the fiducials, keep in mind depending on the layer you may need to mirror the import.
If proper fiducials are missing from the board you can use trough holes, but you have to add them to the component list.
I attach an example because it is a bit convoluted.
-
As for the fiducials. The coordinates for the fiducials can be obtained from the component list, you have to set them to do not mount or skip. Best is to move the fiducials to the top of the list.
The "first component" on the panel setting refers to the location of the first component from the component list on the PCB, can be a fiducial too. You have to align with the camera on the pcb, from there the software will calculate the component offsets. Also if the board is panalized calculates the board locations.
For fiducial locations (bottom left corner of screen) enter manually the coordinates from the component list of the fiducials, keep in mind depending on the layer you may need to mirror the import.
If proper fiducials are missing from the board you can use trough holes, but you have to add them to the component list.
I attach an example because it is a bit convoluted.
Ok, thank you very much, now I understand perfectly.
The only problem is locating the first component with the camera, some of my current boards are large PCBs, 380 x 130 mm. Then try to physically locate the first component by moving the camera will not be easy, because the area that views the camera is very small, the software should have a focus with less zoom to have a view of a larger area, then go to the component and apply higher zoom to go to detail.
There are several levels of zoom, but even the smallest, it is too wide and in a very small area of the board. I will try to locate it by looking at the board, and where is the head and I will move it with the option that allows a location without camera, but with rapid movements.
-
One more question, please.
My Neoden4 has motorized rails, I understand that I have to place the PCB on the entrance to the rails and press the buttons backward and forward to place the PCB in the center of the work area of the machine approximately, although this is not indicated (I suppose).
What I do not understand is what the alignment task consists of, by pressing the Align button. The camera comes out with the image of the board, and there I do not know what to do, with which I have to align on the board. It seems that with the edge of the board, but I do not have it clear, and if so, with what edge, left, right, up, down?
-
To find the first component you can select the Overall workbench option first, than where you click on the screen the camera will move to the approximate location on the work-space. It is much faster to get to anything. Than switch back to visual alignment.
Setting up the rails is fairly simple. Pressing forward and backward you have to adjust the rails for the PCB to run smooth but not too loose. You may check if the right rail was installed parallel to the Y axes,
you can use the down facing camera to find the rail edge and take note of the displayed coordinates. One time task and worth checking.
Detect location is the global coordinate where the camera will wait to see the edge of the PCB, If the board is too large you will have to move back a bit, otherwise on the front the edge of the board will be outside the work area. For smaller boards the closer is the pcb to the camera the better the placement speed.
Pressing feed fill feed the board until the pcb edge is detected. With align you have to select the board Edge (ScreenHunter_035.jpg Rigth), but i have no idea what purpose has.
The feed dose not need to be to precise, the proper alignment is done by the fidutials, but helps if the board is not rotated by a lot.
-
.
OK, thak you ver much.
From Neoden also confirm that I must remove the metal piece in the 12mm feeder to put the electrolityc capacitors.
And the tape peel, I had it wrong, so it tended to get out of his place.
About the fiducials coordinates, I understand I must enter manually with values from the imported component list, and align with camera the first component of the list. Then the accurary is mainly dependent of the fiducials, not of the manually align of first component ?
-
edit: Oh sh.... I pressed the wrong button. English is not my mother language and I read allocate as assign. :palm:
Hi completely new on this forum, but i'm following this thread already for quite some time.
At work I have a Neoden 4 and with the help of this forum I could use it quite well, but still learning all the quirks.
Now I have a new problem I never encountered ever before and haven't read about yet.
I just opened a project from a few weeks ago and changed some speed settings.
After pressing "Allocate chip to feeders", no pop-up came up (I thought to remember the machine will give a "succesfull" of something). When switching to the "PCB information" tab and back all my feeder settings were sort of reseted and all placed one after another starting from 1, even my special feeder was moved to a normal one.
I replaced the file on the Neoden with my backup, but the problem still persist.
This isn't a immediate problem, since I don't have to change anything and can always do everything on the computer, but it could be a problem in the future. Has somebody had the same problem before?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi.
I have problems when I run the Mount process on the Neoden4. Attached screenshot of errors showing the program, something about the coordinates of the components (out of boundary).
I have done all these steps to configure everything:
1.- I generate the list of components to import in Eagle with the ULP of rayshobby. I write 0,0 for the XY coordinates of the first component that the ULP requests. This may be the problem, but I do not know what the first component is and what coordinates to enter.
2.- Import in the Neoden4, the CSV list of components generated in the previous step.
3.- Configure all the feeders.
4.- Align the top edge of the board, with the camera of the machine.
5.- Align the first component of the list with the camera.
6.- I write the coordinates of the two fiducials, which are in the imported list.
7.- Run the option Mount. Then the software of the machine shows two errors, the first related to the incorrect coordinates (out of boundary), and the second related to the location of the Marks (I suppose the fiducials). I understand that the second error, simply derives from the first, which is the real error.
I suspect that the problem is the XY that the ULP requests for the first component, to generate the coordinates of all the components of the list, but I do not know what the first component is and how to obtain its coordinates.
In any case, I think it is very strange that the machine can not correctly calculate the real coordinates of all the components, with the imported list and the real coordinates of the first component that I align in the machine using the camera.
Can someone help me with this problem?
PS: I asked Neoden Support, but it really seems that they do not know how to properly import from Eagle to Neoden. Now they are testing, it is strange that they can not provide all the details to work with Neoden4 and Eagle. In the instructions they only give instructions to import from Altium, nothing for Eagle, they refer me to the website where is the ULP created by rayshobby, but that is the same one that I used from the beginning to import the list of components.
-
(I'm away from my machine for a week so this is from memory, but I have a 3V and use the Rayshobby script. The software is nearly the same.)
You are correct that 0,0 is not the correct coordinates for the first component. If the first component in your parts list on the Neoden is say, R1, then enter it's coordinates which will be beside it if imported properly from Rayshobby script. If needed, it should be the same as the XY of that part in Eagle or whatever. It uses that to offset the rest of the parts.
Then you need to set the fiducials right, which is straightforward.
In my case, the fiducials are imported properly as "parts" from the rayshobby script, but they default to "skip". That's great. Scribble their X, Y locations on a piece of paper so you know then when you switch screens. They will also match the X Y locations in your Eagle or whatever.
On the PCB page in UI where you set up panels and so on, there will be a section near the bottom for alignment marks, enter two fiducials with their XY coordinates that you scribbled down. Set them to AUTO ALIGN. Then click "ALIGN" and use the UI to move the camera to wherever the fiducial is when the PCB is mounted. Do that for both fiducials. That tells the Neoden where the fiducial is on it's work surface is, and the XY coordinates of the fid are then used to know all the other part locations on the work surface.
Then when you MOUNT, since you selected auto align, it should zoom to the first FID, take 2-3 pictures to center it, then zoom to the second FID, center it, then get to work. Obviously you probably want to use STEP mounting for the first attempt but that's the just of it.
-
You are correct that 0,0 is not the correct coordinates for the first component. If the first component in your parts list on the Neoden is say, R1, then enter it's coordinates which will be beside it if imported properly from Rayshobby script. If needed, it should be the same as the XY of that part in Eagle or whatever. It uses that to offset the rest of the parts.
What is the first component and what are its XY coordinates?.
The coordinates in the import list, are not real coordinates, but relative coordinates. I configure and align with camera the first component and save it, but coordinates of this component are not same that coordinates in imported list. I understand that as soon as the first component is aligned, the software calculate automatically the real coordinates for all the components, also the real coordinates of the fiducials.
On the PCB page in UI where you set up panels and so on, there will be a section near the bottom for alignment marks, enter two fiducials with their XY coordinates that you scribbled down. Set them to AUTO ALIGN. Then click "ALIGN" and use the UI to move the camera to wherever the fiducial is when the PCB is mounted. Do that for both fiducials. That tells the Neoden where the fiducial is on it's work surface is, and the XY coordinates of the fid are then used to know all the other part locations on the work surface.
Instructions from Neoden support were, simply write the fiducials coordinates in the Mark List, those that were imported in the component list (are relative coordinates not real coordinates). I do not understand why I need align manually if I have already input the fiducials coordinates, then its not useful type anything, simply align manually with camera.
The correct one, if the Neoden software is correctly developed, is to import the list of components with RELATIVE coordinates of each component. In the Neoden software, import the list of components, align the top edge of the PCB with the camera, align the FIRST component of the imported list with the camera to get the REAL coordinates. Then I guess the software can calculate the REAL coordinates of the other components. But obviously this does not happen.
I suspect that all the coordinates in the imported list must be REAL, not RELATIVE coordinates, so when I run the ULP and it requests the XY of the first component, I must write the REAL coordinates of the first component, so I will need to get it from the Neoden software with the option to manually align. Then, if in the ULP I enter the real coordinates of the first component, the ULP will calculate the REAL coordinates for all the components in the import list, also for the fiducials. If this is so, then I do not understand why the Neoden program requires manually aligning the first component, if all the coordinates are already in the imported list. It's a pretty bad software, and I've already found a couple of bugs. Also officially Neoden does not give instructions to import from Eagle, only from Altium.
-
The first component is whatever comes out first in Rays script, for me it's usually R1 or C1. So in Eagle i find R1 or C1 click info, and that's the first component coordinate. You can run the script twice if you need to run it once just to see which component comes out first.
Anyways, i don't know what to tell you, follow the steps and it all works fine. Every coordinate in the neoden UI is board coordinate which should match Eagle for the same component.
The two fiducials just tell the machine where the PCB is on the bed and everything is computed from there. It also computes panels this way for all boards in a panel.
The magic Align lines in the Neoden UI just basically say "this fiducial is exactly XY on the PCB, and your camera will find it near X2Y2 on your work surface. Once you find the FId on the board, that's XY and place the rest of the components with that in mind".
As an aside, i recommend always using a fiducial not a board edge. From my experience the accuracy of board edge milling isn't nearly to the same level as the rest of the process.
-
The first component is whatever comes out first in Rays script, for me it's usually R1 or C1. So in Eagle i find R1 or C1 click info, and that's the first component coordinate. You can run the script twice if you need to run it once just to see which component comes out first.
Yes, I did it to know which is the first component in the ULP. The issue was to know what coordinates to type in the XY values that the ULP requests for the first component.
I suspect, but I must to test it yet, and now from Neoden support they suggest same, that the XY coordinates of the first component, must to be the REAL coordinates of that component in Neoden, whe align the board and then align the first component with the camera.
Its a very strange way to do, because then align the first component is not useful for the software, do not apply any Offset to the rest of component coordinates to get the real coordinates.
If I put i the ULP the real coordinates XY of the first component, then the ULP will calculate the real coordinates of all components, included the fiducials. So that's why it has no sense, type by hand in Neoden the coordinates of the fiducials and align manually the first component, the software do not use it to calculate the real coordinates of the rest of components (apply some Offset)
Anyways, i don't know what to tell you, follow the steps and it all works fine. Every coordinate in the neoden UI is board coordinate which should match Eagle for the same component.
I see, I think I'm beginning to understand how to import the works, just import all the components with real coordinates. The ULP simply request for real coordinates of the first component, and apply offset to calculate the rest of components.
As an aside, i recommend always using a fiducial not a board edge. From my experience the accuracy of board edge milling isn't nearly to the same level as the rest of the process.
I place two fiducials on all my boards, for the highest accuracy.
-
The best way would be if the N4 software would recognise "fid" components in your p&p data, and automatically derive all offsets, so you only need to tell it where the PCB is on the bed.
But we're talking Chinese software so can't expect them to have thought about useability.
-
Normal machine behaviour in this case would be:
1) home the machine 0,0,0 coordinates (machine coodinates)
2) go to pcb read fiducials to deduce : pcb 0,0,0 coordinates (workpiece coordinates) and rotation.
3) The components should be defined in offset in relation to the workpiece coordinates, software should compensate for the rotation.
-
With all love to "ray" or whoever wrote the script on Rayshobby, I'm not exactly sure why the ULP asks for that information. I'm sure it's a use case I've just never ran into.
For my work I've always just put the same information in that the ULP could have read itself, the XY of the first component.
My 3V has the fixed bed not the conveyor, so I can put the board anywhere to optimize for shortest head movement. (generally upper left unless I'm feeding from vibration feeder or trays)
However if I run the same mount script that I haven't ran in a while, I have to fix the align points based on wherever I randomly place the board magnets that day.
-
Regarding manually entering coordinates into the Neoden software.
If you mirror the layer during the import you can no longer enter the coordinates manually because during the mirroring everything was flipped.
Anyway your first component should be a fidutial, and because you manually show the machine where it is, should always recognize. The second one if not found is a mirroring problem.
In my version of the neoden after the fidutials are recognized in the mount screen, you can use the vision align if i remember correctly to see with the camera where a component would be placed.
-
Has anyone documented the N4's native file format, to allow creation of its files directly?
-
I think it is at least being looked at for PCBSynergy.
Not sure how it works on the Neoden, but I get the impression it can require more data than most CAD packages have to output native format files directly for many machines depending on what they build into them. So for the two machines I have actually worked on (Versatronics & Essemtec) and know well the "native" format I might attempt to create is basically the same as the data you would expect a cad package to export just formatted differently. In both cases the machines software handled the next steps such as feeder allocation at run time,others need telling everything ,you could probably automate that too but that would only be a useful thing to do if it was a good match for how you work. Other bits of data like pick heights, package sizes, nozzles to use etc are stored separately from the individual board file.
In my experience CAD data usually exports a "package" but that is almost always really a footprint (not really the same thing) so you do need to be careful if you use this column in a script.
-
yeah i did, i modded the dp-tm220 ulp for eagle to generate them, i 'm almost done , got busy with work, hoping to make it work this weekend.
-
With all love to "ray" or whoever wrote the script on Rayshobby, I'm not exactly sure why the ULP asks for that information. I'm sure it's a use case I've just never ran into.
the way he does is it to basically map the eagle coordinates to fixed physical coordinates on the board, versus relative. so you figure out where the first component would exist on the machine then punch that in, and it offsets them all
oddly i saw mikes comment on youtube earlier today, but you can use the fiducials to set the positions of the board, you just add them to the fiducial list , move the camera to the first fiducial location on the machine with pcb loaded, hit cancel, then use the "change to current position" to relocate the board, it does this when its in rail mode anyway since when it autoloads the board is slightly off.
-
Hi.
Somebody know how can I remove this part of 2mm of this CN750 customized nozzle ??, what tool can I use to cut this 2mm part of the nozzle.
This was made for me, to can pick high electrolityc capacitors and big inductors. Work fine with big inductors, but yet its not enough short to can install 10mm height capacitors.
So, I want try to remove the 2mm part of the nozzle, then will be perfect to pick and place high electrolityc capacitors, 2000uF 6.3v in my boards.
-
I doubt the cutting has to be military-precise, a little vacuum leaking is acceptable and inevitable.
Of note though, AFAIK the software does not support nozzle routing while carrying taller devices. I have cheated here as well and done larger capacitors, but it takes a bit of experimentation and luck.
In basic terms, the nozzle that carries your tall capacitor might smash right across the board and knock over a few other tall components while enroute to being photographed or placed.
I have gotten it working in some cases by choosing the order of placement carefully and a bit of trial and error. My boards usually finish with a few tall caps fed from a tray.
-
I doubt the cutting has to be military-precise, a little vacuum leaking is acceptable and inevitable.
Of note though, AFAIK the software does not support nozzle routing while carrying taller devices. I have cheated here as well and done larger capacitors, but it takes a bit of experimentation and luck.
In basic terms, the nozzle that carries your tall capacitor might smash right across the board and knock over a few other tall components while enroute to being photographed or placed.
I have gotten it working in some cases by choosing the order of placement carefully and a bit of trial and error. My boards usually finish with a few tall caps fed from a tray.
Finally, in Neoden they are going to make the shorter nozzles, they tell me they can reduce it by 2mm more.
I also thought about the collision between components when moving them for positioning, and it also occurred to me to configure the order of placement to avoid that problem, leaving the highest components at the end of the list.
-
I added lighting with LED strips to my Neoden4. As soon as I received the machine, I realized how dark the work area is, it is not at all comfortable to work in maintenance tasks, adding and configuring feeders or components in the trays.
That's why I added in the interior of my Neoden4, adhesive Led strips of white color, in total for now I have put 4 double strips, and I can add two more. The lighting is not permanent, I have connected a small adhesive switch on one side of the machine to turn on and off this interior lighting.
Now, I find it much more comfortable to work with the machine.
-
Hi.
Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9SEEiMeMT4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9SEEiMeMT4)
-
Well, first, the cover tape is not threaded through the slot to the left of the component opening. The feeder below it is properly threaded.
As for the pulling of the tape, I think that is a problem all P&P users have seen. The pull strength of the cover tape glue varies, sometimes cyclically every foot or so of tape, causing some parts of the tape to be nearly ready to just fall off, and other parts a foot down the tape to be so strong that the feeders can't pull it off.
One of the tricks I have used is to clamp a small C-clamp onto the component tape or the cover tape to increase the pull. My Yamaha feeders have toothed wheels that mesh like gears, and there is a spring that causes the wheels to "bite". Sometimes, I have to "choke up" on the spring to get the wheels to grip the tape more strongly.
Jon
-
Random update that I'll be running my 3V tomorrow to do 40 boards or so. If anybody has specific questions on setup I'll try to take the right pictures as I go.
-
Hi.
Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9SEEiMeMT4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9SEEiMeMT4)
Is there a way for the peeling mechanism to be tighten? I think their older drag feeder machine allows you to tighten it so it pulls harder.
-
i just usually add weight too, there is no adjustment that i know of. the old one did you let you tighten it a bit but this one works in a different way.
-
I have trouble placing a micro SD card socket. This does not have a perfectly rectangular shape, but an irregular shape, as you can see in the attached image. I do not know if this is the problem, and how it could be solved. Just in case, I have asked TME several models of micro SD sockets, these with rectangular shapes, if they work, I will have to modify the design of the PCB to use another micro SD socket.
I also see many limitations to the height of the components in the reel feeders. For example, I have an electrolytic capacitor of 5.4 mm in height, no problem, it fits perfectly. But I have another height of 6.2 mm, and this is not placed well, the feeder is stuck when the tape comes out through the hole that ejects it, once the nozzle has captured the component. This limits the maximum height of the reel component to approximately 5.5 mm, and can not be resolved with customized short nozzles, because the problem is the poor design of the feeder that does not allow ejection of the tape by limiting the feeder gap for the output of the tape.
And one more problem, I modified the order of some components, one of them manually modified the positioning coordinates, in addition to this component was not positioned well (is the micro SD card socket), affected the positioning of the next component that I have not modified their coordinates.
-
I have trouble placing a micro SD card socket.
If you try to pick up the part from its centroid, you will have the nozzle on the fins between the contacts. You need to pick it up over to the right (as picture is presented) where it is flat plastic.
But, that will then be picking the part off-center, and you'd have to compensate the placement location to get it correctly placed on the board.
Jon
-
I have trouble placing a micro SD card socket.
If you try to pick up the part from its centroid, you will have the nozzle on the fins between the contacts. You need to pick it up over to the right (as picture is presented) where it is flat plastic.
But, that will then be picking the part off-center, and you'd have to compensate the placement location to get it correctly placed on the board.
Jon
Doesn't the Neoden software have a simple "Pick offset" facility to deal with parts like this without having to dick about with the P&P data? What if you had an awkward part that needed a pick offset, and you wanted to place, say, a radial ring of 12 of them...
Offsetting the placement position is NOT a sensible way to do it.
-
I have trouble placing a micro SD card socket.
If you try to pick up the part from its centroid, you will have the nozzle on the fins between the contacts. You need to pick it up over to the right (as picture is presented) where it is flat plastic.
But, that will then be picking the part off-center, and you'd have to compensate the placement location to get it correctly placed on the board.
Jon
Yes, I have already configured the alignment of the component in the tray, so that the nozzle takes the component of the flat part where there are plastics. That way the mouthpiece takes the component perfectly, now the problem is how to make it place it in its correct location.
I have been trying to manually modify the coordinates of location, but I do it by trial and error, and in this way it is very complicated, because in addition to testing on a plate without solder paste, the component moves from the site by the vibrations of the motors, and it is even more complicated to find out what the new location coordinates should be.
And I think, even, that the recognition with the camera is not correct and it varies, because sometimes it seems that it aligns the component with a width and other times with a different width, as if it could not correctly recognize the irregular shape of the socket, so will be impossible place correctly the component if coordinates are different each time.
It seems to me that the best thing will be to change the socket model to one with a rectangular shape, and the totally smooth capture surface, although this will force me to change the design of the PCB and also to have to ask for new trays to place the component.
-
I have been trying to manually modify the coordinates of location, but I do it by trial and error, and in this way it is very complicated, because in addition to testing on a plate without solder paste, the component moves from the site by the vibrations of the motors, and it is even more complicated to find out what the new location coordinates should be.
Use low-tack translucent double-sided adhesive tape when doing test placements. tape used for carpet fitting can be good but check how well it peels off the PCB before using it.
-
I just discovered an annoying bug. On version 4.1.3 B8.
PCB rotation in panel is not working. At the setup checks out properly, but at mounting somewhere a negative sign is lost :palm:
Fortunately in this case i can reverse the panel and mount the other two boards. Can anyone confirm this?
I`m using the magnetic fixture if matters.
https://youtu.be/oIbonmip8I0
-
i posted a
very very alpha build of the modded script for eagle. still have some stuff to fix/add but i did make a working csv at least once.. ;D
https://github.com/charlie-x/neoden4
-
made a "quick" video of how to set the position of the components after the initial export.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF4B8zPS2p8&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF4B8zPS2p8&feature=youtu.be)
smoothed out some of the bugs, so it should be completely functional now, added an offset output so you don't have to move the board in eagle(though you do have to rotate it, i'll add that)
it scans for parts with FID in the name or value which it will assume are fiducials and add them to the fiducial/mark list.
make sure you check for the latest version, i have been changing it a lot. i'm using V4.1.3 B9 of the neoden software.
-
Little by little I am solving problems, but it is complicated because Neoden's assistance service seems to be unaware of certain problems and their solution, or that the technician who is currently helping is quite new and does not know many things.
Finally I am having to solve some problems myself. For example, I had problems correctly positioning LQFP144 chips, they came out slightly misaligned. I consulted Neoden and they did not know how to give me a solution.
After doing my tests, I discover that when the chip is in the IC Tray at an angle different from that of the chip on the PCB, the machine does not place it correctly. The solution was simple, I put the chip in the IC Tray in the same position angle as the chip in the PCB, I edit the list of components and I put the angle to 0. So the nozzle pick the chip and does not have to turn it, this way is placed perfectly.
I had another problem with an SD socket, and I think it could be the same, in that case the SD socket is 180 degrees, which can even be worse, it is also placed on the top edge of the board. Very rare things happened when trying to place this socket, positioning it very displaced, and also affecting the components after it. I bought another type of SD socket, with a more rectangular shape, and more surface so that the nozzle can pick it in the center. I also think that I will have to modify the angle, although in this case, the new SD socket goes on a reel, and I will not be able to modify the angle unless I put it on a tray.
The machine works well when everything is correctly configured, but there are things that are not said in the manuals, and even the Technical Service does not know.
The only thing that for now I can not find a solution would be, is the lack of strength of the peeler on the 24mm reels of some components. The only solution I get in Neoden, is to put some weight on the tape, which does not seem serious on a machine of this price.
-
That is not a solution, it is a work around.
-
Finally I am having to solve some problems myself. For example, I had problems correctly positioning LQFP144 chips, they came out slightly misaligned. I consulted Neoden and they did not know how to give me a solution.
After doing my tests, I discover that when the chip is in the IC Tray at an angle different from that of the chip on the PCB, the machine does not place it correctly. The solution was simple, I put the chip in the IC Tray in the same position angle as the chip in the PCB, I edit the list of components and I put the angle to 0. So the nozzle pick the chip and does not have to turn it, this way is placed perfectly.
I can think of four causes why the big LQFP ends up misaligned:
- Lack of theta rotational resolution on the Z-axis.
- Lack of suction power or suitable nozzle for this big part.
- Lack of control over rotational movement (acceleration/deceleration too abrupt).
- Control software bugs, not unlikely for these machines.
When you attempted to find the cause, did you find evidence for any?
-
i placed the esp32 wroom packages which are pretty large, dropped the speed down and that fixed issues with rotation.
i don't think you're going to get a better solution than weights for helping the tape peelers, unless you make it or modify the peel itself
i used my phones higher speed capture rate to watch for what was happening , that helped to diagnose it.
-
Finally I am having to solve some problems myself. For example, I had problems correctly positioning LQFP144 chips, they came out slightly misaligned. I consulted Neoden and they did not know how to give me a solution.
After doing my tests, I discover that when the chip is in the IC Tray at an angle different from that of the chip on the PCB, the machine does not place it correctly. The solution was simple, I put the chip in the IC Tray in the same position angle as the chip in the PCB, I edit the list of components and I put the angle to 0. So the nozzle pick the chip and does not have to turn it, this way is placed perfectly.
I can think of four causes why the big LQFP ends up misaligned:
- Lack of theta rotational resolution on the Z-axis.
- Lack of suction power or suitable nozzle for this big part.
- Lack of control over rotational movement (acceleration/deceleration too abrupt).
- Control software bugs, not unlikely for these machines.
When you attempted to find the cause, did you find evidence for any?
Tested with low speed 10 to 30, and delay pick and place 200 to 300. The problem is the same with the 4 nozzles. The nozzle I use is the CN750, the correct one for the LQFP144 chips.
I'm sure it's a software problem, Neoden already told me that with the angle at 180 I may have some problems to align correctly, but according to my own experience, even with 90 degrees already misaligns for fine pitch chips, such as LQFP100 and LQFP14.
In any case, the solution is easy, place the chip in the IC tray in the same position angle as in the PCB, and modify the angle in the list of components to 0 degrees, so the nozzle does not need to rotate the component and then place it perfectly..
The strange thing is that in Neoden, they do not know how to respond and solve the problem, I myself had to find out based on my tests. In general, the technician who attends now, although he has very good will, it is clear that he has very little experience and knows little about the product. For other consultations that I have done, I have quickly reached that conclusion, when someone does not know a matter, it is quickly evident.
Currently the Neoden Technical Service is quite deficient, with few or no solutions for most problems. In the end, I have to find the solution to almost all the problems and doubts that arise.
As I said, the machine is going pretty well, when everything is adjusted and configured correctly, but it costs for the little information and poor Technical Assistance Service.
Now I'm waiting (with a lot of delay), that they send me some customized shorter nozzles to be able to place electrolytic capacitors of 10mm of height, and some new customized trays for big inductors and other components.
In any case I still think that Neoden4 is a good machine, and with these features/price, there is no other alternative in the market. Cheaper products are toys, and products with better performance are much more expensive, and main problem is that all are big and heavy machines (Qihe TVM920, TVM925).
-
which version are you running ? i'd be happy to test the same setup on mine see if it is the same
-
i placed the esp32 wroom packages which are pretty large, dropped the speed down and that fixed issues with rotation.
i don't think you're going to get a better solution than weights for helping the tape peelers, unless you make it or modify the peel itself
i used my phones higher speed capture rate to watch for what was happening , that helped to diagnose it.
Do you know what weight should I put so that the tape can be peeled?
I have ordered some 1kg weights and some 0.5kg weight iron discs, I hope that is enough. I also have 2kg weights, but these already seem too heavy, I think the tape will be broken, if I put them on.
-
which version are you running ? i'd be happy to test the same setup on mine see if it is the same
I'll check it the next time I start the machine.
In my software, I have detected some minor bugs, for example when I add a footprint and return to the feeder configuration to add it, it does not appear in the footprints drop-down, I have to go to the main menu and re-enter so that the new footprint appear Errors of this type I have detected several.
-
i honestly just use whatever i have lying around since i always have offcut from cncing, the abuse of tool plate around here is terrible.
one pick and place manufacturer we went to see used fishing weights. as long as it doesnt break the tape or or pull it when its not moving, you should be good.
you can edit the footprint library in notepad as well, its in text, but it means `popping explorer open
-
i honestly just use whatever i have lying around since i always have offcut from cncing, the abuse of tool plate around here is terrible.
one pick and place manufacturer we went to see used fishing weights. as long as it doesnt break the tape or or pull it when its not moving, you should be good.
you can edit the footprint library in notepad as well, its in text, but it means `popping explorer open
Neoden suggests a weight of 0.5kg to solve the 24mm peel problem, I will try it with 0.5kg and 1kg.
About the footprints file, there is no backup option to make a backup, I asked Neoden, and they told me that it can not be saved. Finally I simply took a picture with my cell phone camera of the footprint data that I added, so at least if the machine ever breaks and all the data is lost, at least I can add them again manually.
Strange, that the software does not allow to store all the data that the user enters. In general the software is very improvable, it has a few bugs when entering data and it does not manage well positioning when it has to rotate a fine-step component, such as LQFP100, 144 and other chips.
For now the problems are not serious, although it is annoying that a machine of this price, which is not cheap, is not able to properly peel the 24mm tapes (because of a bad design), can not place components higher than 5mm (without special customized nozzles), and that has important bugs such as the correct positioning of fine pitch components that need to be rotated. And the worst of all is that Neoden does not seem to have much interest in solving those problems, as I said, in general the Neoden Assistance Service is bad enough, they seem more interested in selling than in customer service when there are problems.
Here my Neoden4 working. In general it goes well, except for the indicated problems, lack of strength to peel 24mm reels, poor positioning of fine pitch chips when they have to be rotated, some minor bugs in the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fhh8h6aPFw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fhh8h6aPFw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GerZRNyVz74 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GerZRNyVz74)
-
Do you know what weight should I put so that the tape can be peeled?
I have ordered some 1kg weights and some 0.5kg weight iron discs, I hope that is enough. I also have 2kg weights, but these already seem too heavy, I think the tape will be broken, if I put them on.
i use some C-clamps I have around the shop. I'm guessing they are about 1/4 kg? One whole kg will likely break the tape off.
Generally, I put the weight on the empty component tape, as on my feeders, the tape advance is driven by the return spring in the feeder.
The problem is the tape does not advance after the component is picked, and the extra pull on the component tape helps with that.
Sometimes, though, the component tape advances but the cover tape does not peel, and so some extra weight pulling on the cover tape would help.
Jon
-
About the footprints file, there is no backup option to make a backup, I asked Neoden, and they told me that it can not be saved. Finally I simply took a picture with my cell phone camera of the footprint data that I added, so at least if the machine ever breaks and all the data is lost, at least I can add them again manually.
they are correct in that the gui doesn't , but if you open it in explorer (ctrl alt delete, choose task manager (middle button bottom row) explorer.exe (task manger, file menu , select run) , browse to D:\neoden4\config\ it contains pkg.csv which is a CSV (comma separated values) text file which lists all the packages. d:\neoden4\Proc contains all your pnp csv files.
if you use eagle, try my ULP i posted earlier, once its all setup you do very little in the neoden4 software. pretty much just import and check fiducials etc.
-
The problem is the tape does not advance after the component is picked, and the extra pull on the component tape helps with that.
Sometimes, though, the component tape advances but the cover tape does not peel, and so some extra weight pulling on the cover tape would help.
I only had problems with the peeling of the 24 mm tapes, never with the advance of the tape.
In any case the feeders are very poorly designed, in particular the 24 and 16mm. In the 16mm I could put electrolytic capacitors higher than 5mm and use custom nozzles, which I have already done to place capacitors and other components up to a height of 10mm.
The problem with these feeders, is that the hole through which the tape is ejected is very narrow and clogs if the component has a height greater than 5mm. So finally, I have to put on a tray any component that has a height greater than 5mm, which are basically most of electrolytic capacitors and some power inductors.
-
About the footprints file, there is no backup option to make a backup, I asked Neoden, and they told me that it can not be saved. Finally I simply took a picture with my cell phone camera of the footprint data that I added, so at least if the machine ever breaks and all the data is lost, at least I can add them again manually.
if you use eagle, try my ULP i posted earlier, once its all setup you do very little in the neoden4 software. pretty much just import and check fiducials etc.
I want to test your ULP as soon as I can. What I do not have clear is where the configuration data of the feeders are saved, if you have to write the data by hand editing the ULP file or if they are somehow saved in a file as a database.
I've been watching the video, and it seems that when you start the ULP, a complete environment appears to configure the feeders and generate the file for the Neoden4. Where are the configuration data of the feeders stored, within the ULP itself or is there an additional file with this data?
-
Been working with the Neoden4 now for about half a year. Since we keep producing I don't have a lot of time to search for solutions of my problems and this forum helped me immensely.
I've attached some pictures to show my progress this far. We work a lot with 0201 and small pitch components.
At this moment i'm happy with 0402, with use of the vision system I trow away all wrong picked components and with playing with the correct picking and placing heights I'm quite happy with the results (seen on the sides at the picaso and tps60250 pictures). The precise placing height settings are still to be tried with the 0201. I hope this might make enough of a difference. The current results still let's me fix about everything by hand.
My main problems are, as example, the tps60250. The vision system won't see the outline of the component. It just takes a square somewhere it wants and places it according to this place/rotation. This happens with a lot components with greyish flat pads. The system just doesn't see it correctly. I haven't yet read of somebody with the same problem.
Second problem is the large chips. Almost all come placed a little bit turned, always the same way for the same component. I suspect that the abrupt moving and turning is the cause of this problem. Still have to dive deeper into this problem. This problem is also the reason why I don't place any ICs with the machine. All are still done by hand.
-
The precise placing height settings are still to be tried with the 0201. I hope this might make enough of a difference. The current results still let's me fix about everything by hand.
According to your pictures, there is a large amount of solder paste in your PCB, which can produce a lot of short circuits. In addition, the solder paste is not properly aligned on the component pads.
Check my solution for the best and fastest alignment of the stencil with PCB, it is perfect and fast.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/i-bought-a-neoden4-my-experiences/msg1520128/#msg1520128 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/i-bought-a-neoden4-my-experiences/msg1520128/#msg1520128)
My main problems are, as example, the tps60250. The vision system won't see the outline of the component. It just takes a square somewhere it wants and places it according to this place/rotation. This happens with a lot components with greyish flat pads. The system just doesn't see it correctly. I haven't yet read of somebody with the same problem.
The only component I have with a metal pad on the bottom is the XL4015, and the machine puts it correctly. I had problems with a micro SD socket, which had an irregular shape, I replaced it with another one that has a rectangular shape and now place it perfectly.
Second problem is the large chips. Almost all come placed a little bit turned, always the same way for the same component. I suspect that the abrupt moving and turning is the cause of this problem. Still have to dive deeper into this problem. This problem is also the reason why I don't place any ICs with the machine. All are still done by hand.
As for the large chips, for example, LQFP144, the same thing happened to me, the chip was placed somewhat rotated. I solved it by simply putting the chip on the IC Tray in the same position angle as the chip on the PCB. This way the nozzle does not have to rotate the component and it place perfect. Test it and you will see how the problem is solved, in the list of components change the angle to 0 degrees.
Today I received some new customized CN750 nozzles, very short, to be able to place 10mm high electrolytic capacitors and power inductors. I also want to try to put a 0.5kg weight on the 24mm feeder peeler tape, because one of them fails me, and gets stuck by not properly peeling the tape. If all this work, I will have solved all my problems.
-
About the footprints file, there is no backup option to make a backup, I asked Neoden, and they told me that it can not be saved. Finally I simply took a picture with my cell phone camera of the footprint data that I added, so at least if the machine ever breaks and all the data is lost, at least I can add them again manually.
if you use eagle, try my ULP i posted earlier, once its all setup you do very little in the neoden4 software. pretty much just import and check fiducials etc.
I want to test your ULP as soon as I can. What I do not have clear is where the configuration data of the feeders are saved, if you have to write the data by hand editing the ULP file or if they are somehow saved in a file as a database.
I've been watching the video, and it seems that when you start the ULP, a complete environment appears to configure the feeders and generate the file for the Neoden4. Where are the configuration data of the feeders stored, within the ULP itself or is there an additional file with this data?
there is a pre loaded stack in the ulp, which is what is on our machine at the moment. But if you export a working project from the neoden you can copy and paste your stack into it.
in the ulp around line 130, partial
// 1..98, order doesn't matter, can skip
string NSL_partList[] = {
//stack 1,isn't here, starts from 1.
"stack,2,0,123,409.87,101.73,90.00,0805,2.2nF,0.50,0,0.50,0,No,-40,1,30,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,",
"stack,3,0,1,409.85,115.04,90.00,0805,10uF,0.50,0,1.00,0,No,-40,1,30,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,",
"stack,4,0,1,409.95,128.58,90.00,0805,1.0uF,0.50,0,1.00,0,No,-40,1,30,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,",
"stack,98,1,1,92.27,226.88,0.00,0805,couple pf -DNP,-1.00,0,0.00,0,No,-40,1,30,1,1,80.00,1.00,1,1,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,"
note the last line has no comma at the end
in a neoden CSV, partial.
stack,2,0,1,409.87,101.73,90.00,0805,2.2nF,0.50,0,0.50,0,No,-40,1,50,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,
stack,3,0,1,409.85,115.04,90.00,0805,10uF,0.50,0,1.00,0,No,-40,1,50,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,
stack,4,0,1,409.95,128.58,90.00,0805,1.0uF,0.50,0,1.00,0,No,-40,1,50,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,
stack,5,0,1,409.58,142.01,90.00,0805, ,0.50,0,0.00,0,No,-40,1,50,4,50,80,No,No,-40,-40,-40,-40,
so all you have to do is surround it with quotes " ", and on the last line just " " with no comma
or if you arent comfortable with that, just run the ulp and then for the first time setup all the stacks the way you need and click save, then you can load them later into any project. its stored as a .uss file on disk
or you can create one in the ulp and then save it , then reload it later in the ulp for new projects.
I pulled out all the defaults for my machine so a new run will appear with close defaults.
-
My main problems are, as example, the tps60250. The vision system won't see the outline of the component. It just takes a square somewhere it wants and places it according to this place/rotation. This happens with a lot components with greyish flat pads. The system just doesn't see it correctly. I haven't yet read of somebody with the same problem.
Second problem is the large chips. Almost all come placed a little bit turned, always the same way for the same component. I suspect that the abrupt moving and turning is the cause of this problem. Still have to dive deeper into this problem. This problem is also the reason why I don't place any ICs with the machine. All are still done by hand.
try running everything slower, if it works better then its likely shaking it about. make sure your pickup is as good as it can be and nozzle size matches, slow it down for large IC's
the vision system is affected by external light, a lot of people mod the machine with lights inside it, that can be a bad idea if it affects the vision, same goes for the environment try it with different lighting conditions, watch the photos it takes.
check the cameras calibration in the config, make sure its not too bright.
way too much paste :) also possibly too warm?
-
Yesterday I tried some new custom nozzles that I ordered, very short, to put 10mm high capacitors, and it has worked very well for me. It requires a bit of study, design the PCB properly and order the positioning of the components, all to avoid collisions between high components, even other nozzles with high components already positioned on the PCB, because the Z axis only moves 10mm.
I thought I would have problems and it would not be possible, but no, it worked for me, I'm very happy. I already have several PCB that now with these very short nozzles, I can mount 100% of the components with the Neoden4.
I just need to try to add a 0.5kg weight to the 24mm feeder peeler to see if I solve the problem of peeling the tape, and all my problems will be solved. It is hard to start this machine, that everything works well and can put all or almost all the components, but it seems that in the end the problems are solved.
The great design error of this machine, is that the Z axis only moves 10mm, if it moved 15mm, the machine would be perfect and could put all kinds of components without problems. Also some feeders are very badly designed, the peeler of the 24mm feeders has very little strength, and the 16mm feeder has a hole for the outlet of the tape too narrow that prevents using some components.
Some small bugs in the program should also be solved, and one that is quite serious, although it has a solution, is the misalignment of fine pitch chips (LQFP100, LQFP144, etc...), when the nozzle has to rotate them to position them on the PCB.
-
where'd you order the nozzles?
-
where'd you order the nozzles?
Neoden made them for me, also the custom IC trays.
-
ahh ok, i'm going to order some off aliexpress and mod them
-
ahh ok, i'm going to order some off aliexpress and mod them
You have ideas how to proceed with ceramics?
-
I solved the problem with the XL4015 component on a reel, in a 24mm feeder, I put a 0.5kg weight on the tape and it peels perfectly.
I still have problems placing a micro SD card socket, placed in a 24mm feeder, with the component in a reel. This same component put on the IC Tray, the machine picks and places it perfectly.
As seen in the video, when it is on a reel, the nozzle loses the component. I suspect again of a bad design of the 24mm feeder, the hole through which the nozzle picks the component is too narrow. This SD card socket has 4 small metal tabs, 2 on each side, I think they rub against the sides of the hole and that's why the nozzle loses the component. The only solution I see is to make that feeder part, customized, with which the hole was 2 mm wider, I think the component would pass without problems and the problem would be solved. I have asked Neoden to make that modification and send me the customized piece to replace it, I do not think it costs much, they just have to file the sides to make the hole wider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOaq3PN80ro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOaq3PN80ro)
-
Yup, if the component scrapes against the side of the pocket, it doesn't take much of a touch to break the vacuum and have it drop the part. I've had to file the cover blade on a few of my Philips feeders so that some of the largest parts don't touch parts of the feeder on the way out of the pocket.
Jon
-
It has taken me a while to convince Neoden, but finally they are going to make me some custom pieces for the 24mm feeders, with the hole 4mm wider, so I can use the micro SD sockets that I have. These are not for free, but are not expensive.
-
ahh ok, i'm going to order some off aliexpress and mod them
You have ideas how to proceed with ceramics?
grinder attachment
-
Yup, if the component scrapes against the side of the pocket, it doesn't take much of a touch to break the vacuum and have it drop the part. I've had to file the cover blade on a few of my Philips feeders so that some of the largest parts don't touch parts of the feeder on the way out of the pocket.
Jon
When using the biggest nozzle on my machine I really have to pull the get the component off the nozzle, and does so with an audible *plop*.
Is this the difference between a light vacuum pump (Neoden) and 6 bar vacuum venturi or difference in nozzle design? Perhaps the head does not stay down long enough to build a good vacuum before lifting the component, can this be confgured in the Neoden software (with the 20 year old Dima software you can)?
-
Perhaps the head does not stay down long enough to build a good vacuum before lifting the component, can this be confgured in the Neoden software (with the 20 year old Dima software you can)?
Neoden4 allows you to configure two delays, one after Picks the component and another after Placing the component. For sensitive components such as fine pitch chips, I set both delays to 300, and for the rest of the components to 100. This is fine for positioning components accurately, without affecting the vibrations of the motors.
I also recently discovered that the Peeler can be configured, with values for the Feed Speed, regardless of the Feeding Speed of the Feeder. My machine, installed at the factory, a 24 mm feeder, which was set at a Peeler feed speed of 48, and the feed rate of the Feeder to 16 for Crystal components. When I added a new 24 mm feeder, I only set the Feed Speed for the Feeder and the value for Peeler was by default at a low value, I think at 16, maybe that's why it did not peel the tape correctly Although now it is corrected by adding a weight of 0.5kg, I also changed this value to 48, maybe the error was corrected by the configuration change and not by the weight, or both helped. I want to try to remove the weight, and leave only the Peeler Feeding Speed to 48, maybe that's enough.
-
yeah wrong torque setting will definitely fail to peel, its sensitive
-
Hello!
To quickly get to the point: I want to get rid of that Neoden4 software.
I have owned a neoden for a year or so now and it is not bad (for the money). Mechanics is ok in my opinion. However, the software is driving me nuts. Besides I want to learn more about machine control etc. and want a project to work a bit on...
I see here: https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Neoden-4 there is some effort done to use it with OpenPnP.
They seem however to rely on the neoden control board. I am thinking about making my own board and figuring out how the sensors, pumps, etc works instead of trying to undersand their protocol. Steppers has their stand alone drivers so no problem to use those (seems like there is some kind of feedback though...)...
Does anyone know if there is anyone that are actively working on replacing the "control system" or that has succeeded in getting rid of the software in any way?
Best regards Kammlake
-
If you really want to replace the control board, why do you want to make your own? Isn't any of the existing generic control boards suitable, e.g. TinyG, Mach3, Smoothstepper, Microstepper, Pololu, Smoothieboard etc.?
-
i pulled apart and recreated the checksum (crc16 poly 0x1021 low byte) routines, and some of the control stuff, rewrote some of the neoden UI that i found annoying (and they weren't interested in my feedback so i just changed it myself), updated the qt dlls, rewrote the serial mostly for snoop) and camera drivers ( added support for usb cameras in case i feel like changing it out), and put together windows 7 drivers for the neoden cameras so i don't have to use win xp and cam run it off my desktop. only thing i was thinking about next was updating opencv
their board goes from serial to CAN bus for some of the controls.
i dunno if its worth replacing the controller with a smoothie since its a pretty basic serial control, so usb->serial with the cameras being fed in to an app seems better to me, sure there might end up being some great unknown but it seems pretty simple overall.
i have my own pnp software that i did a long time ago, and have toyed with the idea of implementing it for the n4 but so far i've managed to get their software to do everything i've needed, mostly moving all the setup work to the eagle ulp i shared.
-
Hi!
Ok, sounds like there has been some work done by several people on the neoden4. Some investigation before diving in myself should pay off...
I din't really mean that I would make everything my own when I wrote that I am thinking about making a new control board. What I meant was to get open source stuff to work to drive it (and supposed some addes stuff that now is on the neoden control board would be needed). I was thinking taking the guesswork out by not relying on the neoden firmware (using open source or making a new converter and making it open source). There are probably many options to consider.
Actually I haven't really started to dig. I have the machine loaded with a job and don't want to touch it right now. When the machine is available I will have a look.
/Kammlake
-
Today I received from Neoden, a custom-made piece, to replace it in the 24mm feeder. The hole in this piece is 3mm longer and it already allows me to install micro SD sockets on a reel using the 24mm feeder.
Right now, I no longer have any major problem to solve, the machine works quite well. I only need a few trays as I ordered, but I will have to wait for the Chinese to finish their New Year holidays, in the middle of February.
-
Hello there! I use NeoDen4 for about 2 year, and still have problem with FID marks/points. I'm using through hole for fid mark....
I will upload pictures of my settings, and the position of the nozzle head.
So...
1. I upload my CSV file genereted from Altium Designer to the NeoDen4.
2. Create two "ghost" components which I use for fid points, and write their coоrdinates to fid settings.
3. Start the mounting process -> PCB goes forward, the cam recognise the edge of the PCB and then move to FID points - but as you can see from the photos-> the head is on different position. :-// If I do the manual positioning - NeoDen4 do his job.
Is this because of the origin that I set in Altium Designer?
Any ideas?
EDIT:
1. I know that my current version is old ( 4.1.2 B3 )
2. I have one PCB with manual written components. ( for every component i move the head to the position and save it ) Same with FID points, and when I start mounting on it - Dont have any problems.
Thank you and Have a nice day! :-+
-
For those of you in the UK I see the Neoden 4 will be at Southern Manufacturing next week for people to gawp at and ask the sales peeps annoying questions.
-
For those of you in the UK I see the Neoden 4 will be at Southern Manufacturing next week for people to gawp at and ask the sales peeps annoying questions.
Who's showing it - Neoden or a distributor?
-
AMS the distributor.
-
Hello there! I use NeoDen4 for about 2 year, and still have problem with FID marks/points. I'm using through hole for fid mark....
I will upload pictures of my settings, and the position of the nozzle head.
So...
1. I upload my CSV file genereted from Altium Designer to the NeoDen4.
2. Create two "ghost" components which I use for fid points, and write their coоrdinates to fid settings.
3. Start the mounting process -> PCB goes forward, the cam recognise the edge of the PCB and then move to FID points - but as you can see from the photos-> the head is on different position. :-// If I do the manual positioning - NeoDen4 do his job.
Is this because of the origin that I set in Altium Designer?
Any ideas?
EDIT:
1. I know that my current version is old ( 4.1.2 B3 )
2. I have one PCB with manual written components. ( for every component i move the head to the position and save it ) Same with FID points, and when I start mounting on it - Dont have any problems.
Thank you and Have a nice day! :-+
Why do not you place the two fiducials with standard 1mm copper round marks on your PCB? Using a THT component hole is not as accurate as using a 1mm round copper fiducial.
In your list of components, the first component is also one of the fiducials, this may not work correctly. Move, at the beginning of the list of components, a real component, for example a resistor, then align the first component again.
It is important that the two fiducials are in the design of the PCB (in your Altium project), so that their coordinates are imported correctly, with respect to the rest of the components of the board. Add them later in the Neoden software, will not recalculate the actual location of the other components.
All the coordinates, in the list of components, and the fiducials, must be real coordinates. I do not know how you import your list of components, I work with Eagle and with a ULP that calculates the real coordinates of all the components and fiducials when I input the real coordinates of the first component of the list.
-
there are a couple of things to be aware with the way the software works
1. design tool coordinate space
2. machine coordinate space
when you create the components list in the tool the XY position is relative to whatever the coordinate system is , usually lower/left 0,0 but you can put your board anywhere.
when you import into the neoden software the same XY coordinates, it is still relative to the design tools space. So it needs to be translated to the physical coordinates of the machine
the eagle script luiHS mentioned does this by taking the first component in the list and calling that the origin, then it adds on a fixed XY translation that it adds to all the components.
This translation is the difference between the origin on the design tool software, and the origin of the machine.
In the image the green rectangle is the altium work area, the green fid is where it is relative to the altium coordinate space, the blue rectangle is the physical neoden machine, and the red rectangle is the PCB you wish to place on, the red fid would be where the fidicual would be found by the camera
depending on how you generate your coordinates from alitum, and if they are translated or not depends on how you add those ghost fids, if they are in altium coordinate space, you have to add them in altium space.
so where they would be relative to the green rectangle
if you translated the coordinates as luiHS script does. Then you have to add them in the red rectangle space, where the lower left of the rectangle is 0,0 or whatever the origin was in altium
once you've added the coordinates in the right space. make sure they are all listed in the panel, and fiduciary lists in the same coordinate system, either all relative to the green box, or all relative to the red one. Then you can select the location of the first fid listed on the list , move the machines camera to the physical location of that fid press cancel and use the move everything yours says (to current po) button which is the lowest button on the right of that group. The machine should then translate everything to the right place.
That is the procedure the machine uses with the rails or when its in automatic mode, so when you do a test load with the rails use the "to current po" to test it all works before feeding it, then when you feed it should work the same.
if you create the ghost fid's relative to the red box and the rest of the components are relative to the green box or vice versa, the head will go to the totally wrong place and should be offset by the difference of the orange line.
also you should definitely update the software.
-
i've been writing up my neoden4 stuff, haven't finished yet but looks like I am going out of town unexpectedly so figured i'd post what i had so far and finish up when i get back
https://charliex2.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/neoden-4-pick-and-place/
-
i've been writing up my neoden4 stuff, haven't finished yet but looks like I am going out of town unexpectedly so figured i'd post what i had so far and finish up when i get back
https://charliex2.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/neoden-4-pick-and-place/
Impressive work!
-
i've been writing up my neoden4 stuff, haven't finished yet but looks like I am going out of town unexpectedly so figured i'd post what i had so far and finish up when i get back
https://charliex2.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/neoden-4-pick-and-place/
Great work! I've slowly been working on an OpenPnP driver for the NeoDen 4 and this answers a lot of open questions. Thank you for taking the time to write it all up!
Jason
-
i've been writing up my neoden4 stuff, haven't finished yet but looks like I am going out of town unexpectedly so figured i'd post what i had so far and finish up when i get back
https://charliex2.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/neoden-4-pick-and-place/
Excellent stuff. I see you mentioned some units using an older camera - I believe the machine I use has older cams and as far as I know the current firmware no longer supports our machine.
-
Jason, no problem, i'll finish up the camera driver and you guys can adapt it to libusb if you don't get to it before i do.
Steve ,the current software does still load the CGUSB2.dll i noticed, but doesn't seem to use it since i removed it as it was causing a shutdown crash in the software for me.
I betcha you could generate a wrapper with NeodenCamera.dll to use the older cameras. those CGUSB2 type cameras are pretty common and i believe they are cypress fx2 driven.
-
Thank you for fast response! :-+
Why do not you place the two fiducials with standard 1mm copper round marks on your PCB? Using a THT component hole is not as accurate as using a 1mm round copper fiducial.
In your list of components, the first component is also one of the fiducials, this may not work correctly. Move, at the beginning of the list of components, a real component, for example a resistor, then align the first component again.
It is important that the two fiducials are in the design of the PCB (in your Altium project), so that their coordinates are imported correctly, with respect to the rest of the components of the board. Add them later in the Neoden software, will not recalculate the actual location of the other components.
All the coordinates, in the list of components, and the fiducials, must be real coordinates. I do not know how you import your list of components, I work with Eagle and with a ULP that calculates the real coordinates of all the components and fiducials when I input the real coordinates of the first component of the list.
Before NeoDen4, I solder the components by hand, thats why the pcb design is doesnt have fid points.
The two TH wich I use for fiducials are in the design of the PCB. They are used for mounting the pcb in case, and I get their cordinates from the project.
Adding the list of components is via " File Import " button in NeoNen4 software, and the exctraction of the cordinates is from Altium. I can generate CSV file with the cordinates for the components, but dont think there are cordinates for these points.
there are a couple of things to be aware with the way the software works
1. design tool coordinate space
2. machine coordinate space
when you create the components list in the tool the XY position is relative to whatever the coordinate system is , usually lower/left 0,0 but you can put your board anywhere.
when you import into the neoden software the same XY coordinates, it is still relative to the design tools space. So it needs to be translated to the physical coordinates of the machine
the eagle script luiHS mentioned does this by taking the first component in the list and calling that the origin, then it adds on a fixed XY translation that it adds to all the components.
This translation is the difference between the origin on the design tool software, and the origin of the machine.
In the image the green rectangle is the altium work area, the green fid is where it is relative to the altium coordinate space, the blue rectangle is the physical neoden machine, and the red rectangle is the PCB you wish to place on, the red fid would be where the fidicual would be found by the camera
depending on how you generate your coordinates from alitum, and if they are translated or not depends on how you add those ghost fids, if they are in altium coordinate space, you have to add them in altium space.
so where they would be relative to the green rectangle
if you translated the coordinates as luiHS script does. Then you have to add them in the red rectangle space, where the lower left of the rectangle is 0,0 or whatever the origin was in altium
once you've added the coordinates in the right space. make sure they are all listed in the panel, and fiduciary lists in the same coordinate system, either all relative to the green box, or all relative to the red one. Then you can select the location of the first fid listed on the list , move the machines camera to the physical location of that fid press cancel and use the move everything yours says (to current po) button which is the lowest button on the right of that group. The machine should then translate everything to the right place.
That is the procedure the machine uses with the rails or when its in automatic mode, so when you do a test load with the rails use the "to current po" to test it all works before feeding it, then when you feed it should work the same.
if you create the ghost fid's relative to the red box and the rest of the components are relative to the green box or vice versa, the head will go to the totally wrong place and should be offset by the difference of the orange line.
also you should definitely update the software.
I will try as you describe and will write.
Than you for the response and information. :-+
-
Hello Toni,
I have the same problem as the did cad data did not fit the machine. I have tried many things, but I have come to no useful success. I also tried it with the software from charliex (the software looks very good) and that did not help either. have written to joyce of neoden a week ago, but have not received a response yet.
My current firmware is: V4.1.4 B2 >:( |O
I would also like to use the firmware of charliex, but my soft and hardware skills are so bad that I do not trust me there. I follow the topic but excited.
Greetings Gunnar
-
have written to joyce of neoden a week ago, but have not received a response yet.
It's Chinese New Year - China is closed for a while.
-
try support@neoden.com instead, they replied to me during the holidays.
-
Yesterday I tried some new custom nozzles that I ordered, very short, to put 10mm high capacitors, and it has worked very well for me. It requires a bit of study, design the PCB properly and order the positioning of the components, all to avoid collisions between high components, even other nozzles with high components already positioned on the PCB, because the Z axis only moves 10mm.
I tried to get some custom nozzles to mount higher components but our supplier said there are none. Can you please provide a picture of your custom nozzle and the dimensions?
We are using the Neoden 4 for some weeks and are quite happy with the result, considering the price of the machine. But the biggest handicap is the 5mm limit on component height. If we can go up to 7mm almost all of our problems would be solved.
-
Yesterday I tried some new custom nozzles that I ordered, very short, to put 10mm high capacitors, and it has worked very well for me. It requires a bit of study, design the PCB properly and order the positioning of the components, all to avoid collisions between high components, even other nozzles with high components already positioned on the PCB, because the Z axis only moves 10mm.
I tried to get some custom nozzles to mount higher components but our supplier said there are none. Can you please provide a picture of your custom nozzle and the dimensions?
We are using the Neoden 4 for some weeks and are quite happy with the result, considering the price of the machine. But the biggest handicap is the 5mm limit on component height. If we can go up to 7mm almost all of our problems would be solved.
The customized nozzles, they were made to me in Neoden directly, they have also made customized trays for me. These nozzles are shorter versions of the CN750, with these I can put 10mm high electrolytic capacitors and power inductors.
What also needs to be considered is the design of the location of the components in the PCB, so that the higher ones do not collide with each other when the Neoden places them.
With the shorter nozzle, since it has less suction surface, it is necessary to configure the positioning speed so that it is slow, or the component falls out of the nozzle, I set them to the minimum, to 10.
Attached picture, with the Standard CN750 nozzle, and the customized short and shorter nozzles.
-
A technical question:
The camera that is on the right side of the machine has a board with 24 LEDs, 6 per side in square shape. I have noticed that when the head goes to the camera with the component, of these 24 LEDs only 8 LEDs light up, 2 on each side. Is this correct, that only 8 of the 24 LEDs light up?
-
The number of LEDs can be changed with the dipswitch on the led panel. When all the LEDs lit up may be too bright in some cases. Only for a BGA bluetooth module I needed them all on because the edges were not recognized clearly.
But in manual this info is missing...
-
Hi,
I've been following this thread a while because we are planning to buy a neoden4 with conveyor belt. whats still unclear apart from the questionable software is how exactly would we change the Feeders during operation? For example if a pcb needs more components than available feeder slots. Is it somehow practically possible to change the feeders for a "second run" with a different set? Since it doesnt have a changeable feeder tray/cart? If you dont want to buy a second machine on the line immediately.
Thanks!
-
I don't see how would be practical to change out the setup during assembly. Mostly because the paste has a dry out time.
Simplest is to swap out tray-s and run a different program or make a custom tray, and fit everything there.
Its more practical to leave out the oddball components and place them manually. No confusion and continuous production also lowers the risk for the operator to swipe off the parts between runs,
mess up the component change.
-
OK I don't have one.. but I have watched the videos and I do run a decent machine. The short answer is no, it not practical, its not really all that practical on a good machine but on the Neoden its really not practical because of the way the feeders attach and are configured. In fact even a different feeder configuration for different jobs looks like a total chore.
Instead you should be looking at one of the machines on this list https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-with-conveyor-0201-cl-feeders/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/pick-place-with-conveyor-0201-cl-feeders/) where the feeders are at least easily swappable, frankly the software also looks slightly less insane and least on the YX ones. Then what you would do is run the job with the machine fully loaded with small(short) stuff, rack it up before it gets to reflow, reload the machine with the parts for the second pass, reset all the pick heights for the new parts (plus whatever otyher silly processes chinese software engineers decided to make you do at this step), place those and then reflow.
On my Essemtec or say a Mycronic machine you could have more feeders than you have slots on the machine to load them onto, and swap feeders in and out on a per PCB/Panel basis. This is possible because they use intelligent feeders, the location pick height and other parameters are stored against the feeder ID & component package as appropriate, NOT against a slot number.
As soon as you get into 2 Chinese machines tho' you are dangerously close to 2nd user/refurb build like a tank machines from conventional makers, while some of those are also limited on feeder space, MyData&Europlacer can have lots of slots in one machine and our Essemtec can have up to 240 without a conveyor.
-
Hallo Max,
Falls ihr Infos bräucht über Neoden4, dann schicke mir bitte eine Email;
Wir sind der Distributor in der EU!
rjoosten@printtec.nl
-
I've been following this thread a while because we are planning to buy a neoden4 with conveyor belt. whats still unclear apart from the questionable software is how exactly would we change the Feeders during operation? For example if a pcb needs more components than available feeder slots. Is it somehow practically possible to change the feeders for a "second run" with a different set? Since it doesnt have a changeable feeder tray/cart? If you dont want to buy a second machine on the line immediately.
If you need more feeders, than those that the Neoden4 has, and you need to be able to change them quickly to make other boards, then the Neoden4 is not your machine.
In that case look for machines that use Yamaha feeders, for example the Qihe TVM920 and 925. Even the new Neoden7, although this machine is already a large and heavy machine.
-
Hi I have been using a neoden4 for four months. Built over 1000 boards big and small with 0402 to QFNs. After the machine is dialed in it works very well.
I would like to thank everyone here who posted very helpful hints to over come the same problems I initially ran into.
Today things went bad, after two hours into my latest build I notices black shaving on the bed, so I shut down the machine to inspect the issue. It seemed to shut down just fine, I unscrewed the side panel and the belt has the outside rubber worn down to the threads in a line, but no tear yet. So I thought that is ok for now and will get a replacement from support. So I turned on the machine, and that is when the bad stuff happened.
Not sure if its related but want to post the symptoms to see if any else had this issue.
It boots, but when homing its off and starts to shudder as it gets close to 0,0. Then it goes back to the rest area, like normal boot up, but really never gets to the far side (exit side).
So I know something is wrong with homing, when I try to mount a program it say x/y need initialization. Would have been nice for it to say at boot time initialization failed.
So if anyone has had an experience with this failure mode, please comment. I am contacting support which is good, but sometimes the solution is very long in coming due to time shift and bringing them up to speed. This forum solved all my past issues that are closed now, still have a few, but working around hem just to get things done. An open s/w running on this machine would be terrific.
Thanks
Mick
-
Hi Mick,
Glad to hear your machine problem had been solved with the help from our technical support colleague.
Thank you for choosing NeoDen products.Any more using problems,feel free contact to us,we will do our best to support you.
Tonny-Neoden
-
Yes Tonny, the problem was correctly diagnosis and resolved quickly and was up the next day. Support is sending spare parts if it happens again.
Also the documentation the support team sent was very helpful on how to adjust and re-calibrate if needed.
Thanks to the support team's quick response and resolution of the problem.
Mick
-
I am hoping to use the Neoden 4 feeders in a multi-tool 3dprinting system, but I am having trouble sniffing the bus. Would someone who owns a Neoden 4 system be willing to sniff the bus to find the commands and protocols associated with it?
Dylan
-
Hi,
does anyone who owns a Neoden4 with rails want to sell a machine (maybe someone who grew a business and bought a bigger machine)?
-
Can anyone make some measurements for me?
I am interested in dimensions of linear rails and head.
Are they 20mm and 16mm rods? how long are they?
And what are dimensions of whole head assembly?
-
Hello.
We've been using Neoden4 for 2 years and recently some feeders give us error as in attachment.
Header just go over certain feeder, it stops, does nothing (doesn't try to pick up part or move/peel tape) and immediately after that we get error.
Did anyone happen to have such issue and managed to fix it?
-
Hello.
We've been using Neoden4 for 2 years and recently some feeders give us error as in attachment.
Header just go over certain feeder, it stops, does nothing (doesn't try to pick up part or move/peel tape) and immediately after that we get error.
Did anyone happen to have such issue and managed to fix it?
OK it turned out that white cable was broken inside the feeder. After resoldering everything came back to normal.
-
Yes, just move the power cable feeders.
In 1 year of use I stopped working 3 feeders
-
Does any one know if the two Neoden eBay accounts - 'neoden' and 'neodentech' are both legit> I think I have seen the 'neoden' account from before, but now there seems to be also a 'neodentech'...
Thanks
-
Does anyone have NeoDen's stated part placement accuracy? is it around 80 microns?
I have the X/Y positioning as 5 microns just don't see a placement figure. thanks
-
Hello Pete_flex,
Positioning resolution is not exactly what you need.
XY-repeatability +/-0,02mm
We place 0402 with the machine during demonstration. And show the result under the microscope.
0201 is also possible when fine tuning the placement and pickup height.
Regards,
Gerard
-
Need advice to solve the below problem:
Neoden 4 shown Attention message: Photography failed! try again.
Thank you
CS Chew
-
Need advice to solve the below problem:
Neoden 4 shown Attention message: Photography failed! try again.
Thank you
CS Chew
I am having the same problem, and that is a failure of the camera or the cable that connects to the camera. I am waiting for a camera replacement to be sent to me from China on the 9th.
The complicated thing is to access the camera to replace it, you have to remove all the feeders on that side, and move the rail that hides 3 screws.
-
Hello LuiHS,
We have spare parts stock for N4 ,IN6 and S1 in the Netherlands.
If under warranty we could have sent it to you.
-
Hello LuiHS,
We have spare parts stock for N4 ,IN6 and S1 in the Netherlands.
If under warranty we could have sent it to you.
Hello.
Yes, my Neoden4 is under warranty.
How can I get the camera and the cable?
Can you provide complete instructions or a video where I see exactly how to replace the camera? The document I have does not show it in detail, it only reaches the step of removing the 3 screws from the photo.
regards
-
Posting this here, hope it is allowed.
There is a Neoden 4 for sale here in Ottawa, Canada. I know the seller and have seen the machine. Basically new.
No financial interest, etc. etc. Just pointing this out in case somebody wants a machine that is already in North America.
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-other-business-industrial/ottawa/new-neoden4-pick-and-place-machine-smt-for-sale/1478950574 (https://www.kijiji.ca/v-other-business-industrial/ottawa/new-neoden4-pick-and-place-machine-smt-for-sale/1478950574)
(Price is in Canadian Dollars)
-
Hi guys,
do you have please someone experience, how to solve following vision problem?
We have problem with vision recognition of following chip (image attached). We also tried increase light, but still Neoden doesn't see this type of smd parts..
Others are working fine.. Do you know, how can we fix it?
Thank you
-
I don't have a neoden but...
How about cleaning the dirty nozzle and adjusting the camera settings (contrast, brightness) contrast up / brightness down.
You need to remove all the dust from the picture for the optical recognition...
-
I suppose the Problem is the inner circle from nozzle. The intensity is similar as the component. Four additional TH LEDs at the correct angle should resolve the problem. For that component just one single led is probably enough but four for not influencing negatively other component recognitions.
-
Hello,
thank you for help. Additional side LED light solve it and vision recognized it correctly. We will try develop some extra light for this type of components.
Thank you,
Jan
-
We had this. The positioning of the cable meant that it would hit something every time it started up. Eventually, it cut through some of the conductors inside it.
I asked them for a replacement then realised what a massive pain it would be to swap it as it's connected to an internal USB. They said you could just plug it in to an external USB on the machine but instead I just soldered the broken wires back together and relocated the cable. It's never been any trouble since.
There was another annoying problem where the end stop photo sensor was misaligned and the x-axis used to crash into the end.
These two problem spoilt was is otherwise a really good and reliable little machine. Since I fixed them it's been great.
-
Hello guys,
Can someone send me the latest update for NeoDen4?
I have some issues and I hope this update to fix them.
-
Hello @tony-tid
What problem do you have and what is your current software version?
-
Hello GerardG
My current version is the oldest one: 4.1.2 B3 ( the machine came with that version )
I have some problems from long time ago but still can't fix them.
1. It's hard to set the Fid. points.
- when I set the fid points, the head is moved close to them( thats ok not really big problem ),but sometimes not "see" them, so choose other more circular point.
- when the FIDs are set ( by hand or automaticaly ) the head pick the element but place it in coordinates for the machine, not the PCB.
///
ex 1 When the machine head goes close to the fid : the head is moved close to the fid points I choose them by hand ( cuz I use header vias ), the head pick the element and place it to this coordinates but not in the PCB area - in the machine area.
ex 2 When the machine head doesnt go close to the fid: The head goes somewhere around the machine area, so I move it to the fid points. Everything else is perfect.
2. The nozzle don't pick the element, but goes to the PCB and do the "place" move.
3. Sometimes while PNP, start to initialize the XY coordinates.
-
Hello Tony,
Looks like a coordinate problem.
You have a stable software version. I will PM you on this.
Best regards,
Gerard
-
Hi.
I am having trouble with the cameras. It started with intermittent failures in one of the cameras, turning the machine on and off again worked for a while and randomly failed again.
Yesterday the thing was worse, because when starting the machine it gave a new error, and this time the two cameras failed. This message is given when starting Windows XP, and although it continues, the error is no longer resolved by turning the machine off and on.
The camera that was initially failing has already been replaced, so it seems that it is not a problem of the cameras, I think it may be a problem of corrupted software drivers or hardware failure of the motherboard.
Neoden gives me instructions to reinstall the camera drivers, first by running the KYSYSProtectApp program, and then reinstalling drivers.
Has anyone else had these problems, were they reinstalled by reinstalling the drivers or is it a hardware problem and requires replacing the motherboard?
Regards
-
Hello @luiHS,
I had the same problem on another machine.
Reinstalling the driver did the trick.
Also when placing the new camera, you need to guide the cable along the same path it has been before.
-
The function "Angle correction of up-looking camera" is not included in the user manual. What is it for? How to use it?
-
The uplooking camera, on the right of the machine, always has a very small rotation.
When all components seem to have the same rotation, then you can change this value to compensate.
As it is set in the factory you would never need to correct it, only when you change something to the camera.
-
You write about setting - Upward photograph angle. There are no questions about her.
I am interested in the bottom line - Angle correction of up-looking camera. What is this parameter for?
[attach=1]
-
The bottom line is a tool to determine the angle that can be filled in the top field.
-
Hi.
Could someone tell me a utility to generate the files with Altium?
I found these two utilities, one with Python and one in Java, but neither of them works, both give errors.
https://github.com/michaelmoskie/Neoden4-Altium
https://github.com/Mishcatt/Neoden4-Altium-CSV-Converter
Regards
-
Hello luiHS,
I have a video about it.
Will PM you.
-
Hello luiHS,
I have a video about it.
Will PM you.
OK, thanks.
I replied by PM.
Regards
-
Hello,
does anybody know what is status of support of Neoden4 in OpenPnP project.
I have searched internet and there is very little information about this topic.
In OpenPnP repo there is driver for Neoden4. It seems fully operational, but there is
no instruction how to connect PC to Neoden's control board.
It seems that using OpenPnP to control Neoden will solve lot of software related
problems.
Regards,
Mateusz
-
Hi guys,
I am working with a Neoden4 and I used the wrong nozzle (XN07) to pick up a 0201 component. Now the component is stuck inside the nozzle :palm:
Does anyone know a good way of getting the component out without damaging the nozzle?
Regards,
Andi
-
Perhaps reverse air pressure blowing it out, don't use too much or you might damage the nozzle, 1.2-1.5 bar would suffice
-
I still don't know how to proceed to import an Altium project to Neoden4. I found two projects on the internet, but both fail, one with Python and the other with Java.
On the other hand, the document they send me from Neoden, I find it confusing. According to his instructions, it would not be necessary to recalculate the coordinates of all the components to put the real coordinates, but it would be enough to put only the real coordinates of the first component of the list and the fiducials.
Does anyone have experience with Altium?
I normally work with Eagle, and for that I have a ULP that converts the PCB coordinates to real coordinates for all the components, so that the file that I import to the Neoden project already has all the components with real coordinates, that's what I am looking for Altium, but for now I can't.
-
...I don't know what Neoden expect but this maybe help:
in Altium pcb editor choose edit/origin/set origin, and choose point for origin. Later, when you use file/assembly outputs/generates pick and place files for make p&p file, component coordinates will be calculated with respect to this point. By the wise choice of this point maybe You can solve some of problems.
-
...I don't know what Neoden expect but this maybe help:
in Altium pcb editor choose edit/origin/set origin, and choose point for origin. Later, when you use file/assembly outputs/generates pick and place files for make p&p file, component coordinates will be calculated with respect to this point. By the wise choice of this point maybe You can solve some of problems.
Thanks
And what are the coordinates of the point of origin?
-
I don't have one, but I would guess there are a couple of options of what might need to happen.
Often the pick data output from your cad package has an origin nowhere near the PCB or in the center of it. It is quite possible Neodens software would prefer the origin 0,0 to represent a corner of the PCB, on many machines this would be front left but I do know some machines work from a different corner and the translation/import software would therefore need to shift the co-ordinates and also possibly flip them. You should be able to work this out by comparing a manually created file with one from Altium, but equally looking at what the programs you says don't work do or one of the eagle plugins people have made you should be able to work it out from there.
-
Thanks
And what are the coordinates of the point of origin?
Hi,
I currently use circuit studio, which is pretty much a stripped altium, and before that, protel99se for years.
With altium you can set the orgin wherever you want it to be. I usually put it to lower left corner of pcb, so I have positive coordinates. Origin is 0,0, obviously.
When generate pick and place files, protel/circuitstudio outputs text/spreadsheet files with 3 sets of x/y coordinates. mid x/y are coordinates of the middle of the component, I use these as pick and place source data. Ref x/y are origin coordinates of the component, as defined in library, usually pin 1. Padx/y I'm not sure, never used them.
Beside that, you need component rotation, it's there, and also layer indication, top/bottom. The top coordinates can be used as is, but the bottom coordinates must be mirrored, I think the pick and place machine software should do this if it knows board dimensions. Bottom components coordinates from altium are seen from top, through the board.
-
...sorry for late answer, other members already say , coordinate of origin is 0,0. Be aware that depend on component definition (which you create in Altium) refernce point of component can be pin 1 or center (or any point which you decide) but p&p machine except (geometrical) center of component.
-
Looking for hints on how to setup the Neoden 4.
I have done over 200 boards so far. I get a lot of miss picked parts.
-
We had no problems with the sot23 transistors.
Feeder strength 50, peel strength 80,
pick delay 30 and place delay 30, it appears to be milliseconds. I set it to 500 for testing and looked like 1/2 a second.
This is what I was looking for!
I will try these numbers on my next build.
-
OnE thing we discovered that really helps picking and components popping out of tape is to turn down the peeler strength. The default is 80 but for all 8mm tapes we switches to 40. Really cuts down the noise and vibration and seems the feeder and popped components are much fewer now. I think for all wider tapes and small ICs we turned it up a bit to 50 or 60. And big components left at 80. Basically it's easier to keep this low and turn up if the tape doesn't peel.
Size checking seems to work almost but we have turned off vacuum check completely. For the size check it's good to have it on for small compinents just to check for sideways pick. You have to assign a footprint and create the size of it. We played with the size a lot and ultimately for 0402 we had to do the single component image check rather than the joint 4 at a time. With the 4 at a time, the resolution seemed too low for 0402 and sometimes the detect box was too small or big and got tossed. Still better than a bad pick or place since most 0402s are fractions of a penny. We're averaging 2ish per 100 total components probably 75 being 0402s. Then on 0603 it is works better so good to have on. Hint... look at the blue box it makes. It's too bad the message or output window doesn't give details about the failure... this should be one line of code!!!.
I asked neoden about how the footprint check works and what the tolerance is but got the typical answer that probably means they don't know or simply don't have a good answer. The shame is I really just want about 40% tolerance or so to check for sideways or 90 degree rotated picks... but no setting for it.
Oh and our biggest problem with vision check and alignment has been that two of the small nozzles were black but have worn and now are a metallic or white color in the bottom camera. So now the white metallic look of the nozzle blurs with the pad portion of 0402s and cause rejects. We literally have a black sharpie and paint the nozzle tip before a panel and that helps great until it starts wearing again. Gonna try some gun or metal blacking chemical soon.
Does anyone know the optimal height to pick components and to place? I'd say by far our biggest problem is bad feeds and components coming out or bad picks. The nozzles have a few mm of spring. So should we pick 0.1mm above and rely on suction, try exact, or purposely push down a bit. Same for placement... try for flush on pcb so we smashing paste... or in deeper or less?
We also saw that for sot23s and such it's best to run 50% speed.
On new phone with annoying auto correct keyboard so excuse my grammar and typos...
Big thanks for this post!
-
I've owned Neoden since Jan 2016, I'm not impressed Mr Neoden
Software improvements required
Retries stuck at 5 for all parts. So now if the tape doesn't peel properly on the reel it will proceed to spit out $3 ICs onto the floor 5 times in a row.
This happens a lot. I have requested them to adjust this 4 years ago. They don’t care about their software.
Camera Brightness level is global and not for each component. Some parts may require 50% brightness, some parts may require 70%. This will make you curse for sure. Also requested this fix 4 years ago.
Acceleration and rotation are too harsh, moving parts on the nozzle. Actually it really needs more suction
Auto adjust pick height. Not sure why they can't make that automatic, they have a vacuum sensor
Z height is weird, 0 should equal top of PCB board.
Not enough suction. Can’t pick heavy parts. like a TO-250
In the end you end up with a lot parts on the floor and having to readjust parts on the board, doing nothing smaller than a 0603
-
The brightness isn't too big of a deal for me, however there a few parts that I can't PNP because of what you described.
You can lower the speed which in my case solves any acceleration issues.
Pick height: It should be automatic. I've just given up and eyeballed the numbers. I don't see any real difference in properly calibrated numbers and guesses.
I don't have too much issue with Z height. Is should be global, not just per board.
I just made 20 or so board that each have a couple hundred 0402 caps and resistors. I don't know the failure rate (nor do I care at the price of those parts), but I can't imagine it is very high.
I do have a bit of a graveyard in the carpet, under the machine though.
Every single issue we have described can be fixed in software. I'm waiting for openPNP.
-
Good afternoon. Faced with such a problem. When programming a new board on the machine, the reference points are lost. Going to the board settings, everything is fine, but when you start the feeder on goes to the coordinates of the reference points.. who knows how to beat this problem!?
-
Hello.
I have already had the machine for two years, and the truth is I am not very satisfied with certain problems that the Neoden4 has. I do not think it is a failure of my machine but the normal operation of the machine.
I am referring in particular to the poor precision that feeders have when used with small components, for example 0402, 0603 resistors or capacitors.
I have found that a lot of components are lost because the feeders are not feeding the reel of components correctly and accurately. This often means that the component is not positioned in the feeder and when the nozzle goes to look for it when it cannot find it, the spool advances one step and the component is lost. I notice that this happens very frequently, and it is not a specific failure of a feeder, I have many 8mm feeders and I notice the same in practically all of them.
What experience do you have in this regard, your Neoden4 also lacks precision in 8mm feeders with small components?
Other than that, the machine also doesn't have the precision needed to place fine pitch chips, like LQFP144 and with some QFNs.
There are other deficiencies that I discovered some time ago, such as not being able to put components higher than 5mm, this eliminates the possibility of putting most electrolytic capacitors.
-
So after a couple of years with our Neoden 4 the Y axis linear bearing wear reached a concerning level. No big deal, order new bearings, linear rails, replace parts, good for a couple of years.
But after reassembly things did not add up, X Y perpendicularity was bad, after a some head scratching turned into swearing.
The problem: the aluminum bearing housing is defective? from the factory. The main bearing hole is bored in an angle, creating a non 90degree alignment, adding extra tension in the system.
Visible to the naked eye, measurements confirm the suspicion.
Now i'm left with 3 options:
- Assemble as is, dealing with premature wear and placement errors
- Trying to get somebody to replicate the component / fix this one
- Trying to get Neoden to send a replacement part, but given the software support in the last year or so i'm pessimistic about that.
Pictures with the problem and measurements.
Yes i'm a bit disappointed, wanted to went a bit.
-
Hi,
Just joined this forum, I am looking to sell our Neoden4 system and oven, we have 2 and only need 1.
Can anyone recommend where to list it?
Thanks, Tom
-
Does anyone have experience with Altium?
I use Protel 99, which it the earlier version of Altium, I think the P&P file is similar.
First, depending on the P&P's coordinate system, set the origin to the correct corner of the board.
When you generate the P&P file, everything will be referenced to that corner.
Make sure your import program uses the column for the centroid of the part, not the pin 1 coordinate.
Rotations are not standard. My Philips machine would take -90, +90 and if you specifiec 270 it would spin the part 270 degrees, even though -90 was a lot shorter. My Quad (Samsung) only takes 270 when you want -90, negative numbers drive it crazy. All the fields in the P&P file should be pretty self-explanatory. Part designator, package, position, part number, etc.
Jon
-
Hello all,
we have made big progress with OpenPnP and Neoden4.
Here is video where we place 0201 and 01005
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2gCo6_mSY4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2gCo6_mSY4)
More info:
https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/issues/1063 (https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/issues/1063)
Regards
Mateusz
-
Very impressive!
-
Hi All
I am new to this forum, we have recently purchased the Neoden 4 and are using it for a small production.
We are having some issues with QFTP components and i am wondering if anyone else has had some similar issue and if there is away to solve it.
I have panel with 4 PCB, which are configured as 2 x 2.
A certain PCB is causing a slight issue, where the component is slight off angle.
Please see my images below:
[attachimg=1]
[attachimg=2]
[attachimg=3]
[attachimg=4]
-
Hi all,
We just purchased a NeoDen4 which arrived on Monday.
I have been setting the machine up and initially it worked well, but we have started to notice some errors in its operation. All the problems are with the head operation.
1) Sometimes the downwards facing camera takes a “black” photo (i.e. no image).
2) Sometimes the pick nozzle does not respond. It sometimes is held down and can only be released by turning off the machine. Other times, it does not drop down even when using the manual test mode.
3) Sometimes the downward facing camera flash does not turn off. The flash remains on continually.
The other parts of the machine (feeders, peelers, XY movement, rail control, upwards facing camera) all work without issue.
Any ideas? It feels like a software/driver bug because sometimes the test buttons in the “manual test“ tab work then just randomly stop working.
UPDATE: I think I have fixed the issue. Initially I was using a standard screen LCD (4:3), but changed to wide screen (16:9) LCD to make programming the machine easier. I only started having/noticing issues after changing to the wide screen. I changed back to the standard screen and the issues went away. Fingers crossed.
-
HI Philby
Where about are your based? Are you in the UK?
I managed to solve my issue, by calibrating my nozzles and then using the fiducial on each PCB, rather then just the panel?
-
We just purchased a NeoDen4 which arrived on Monday.
I have been setting the machine up and initially it worked well, but we have started to notice some errors in its operation.
Any ideas?
You buy a brand new machine. Contact the distributor!
-
HI Philby
Where about are your based? Are you in the UK?
I managed to solve my issue, by calibrating my nozzles and then using the fiducial on each PCB, rather then just the panel?
I am located in Australia.
I have calibrated my nozzels and using the fiducials.
I had another play with it this morning. I tried plugging the keyboard and mouse into different USB ports. It's difficult to tell for sure, but it seemed to help reduce the number of errors I am getting, but errors are still too frequent to be practical. It definitely feels like a software/driver issue rather than an issue with the hardware.
You buy a brand new machine. Contact the distributor!
Thank you. I have already done this, but in the spirit of resolving the issue quickly I was hoping someone else may have had this issue before and have a quick fix they could suggest.
-
Hi all,
We just purchased a NeoDen4 which arrived on Monday.
I have been setting the machine up and initially it worked well, but we have started to notice some errors in its operation. All the problems are with the head operation.
1) Sometimes the downwards facing camera takes a “black” photo (i.e. no image).
2) Sometimes the pick nozzle does not respond. It sometimes is held down and can only be released by turning off the machine. Other times, it does not drop down even when using the manual test mode.
3) Sometimes the downward facing camera flash does not turn off. The flash remains on continually.
The other parts of the machine (feeders, peelers, XY movement, rail control, upwards facing camera) all work without issue.
Any ideas? It feels like a software/driver bug because sometimes the test buttons in the “manual test“ tab work then just randomly stop working.
I think I have fixed the issue. Initially I was using a standard screen LCD (4:3), but changed to wide screen (16:9) LCD to make programming the machine easier. I only started having/noticing issues after changing to the wide screen. I changed back to the standard screen and the issues went away. Fingers crossed.
-
Anyone worked with Cadence Allegro PCB/OrCAD board parts placement files exported to Neoden 4 or S1?
Looking for a possible options to get SMT assembly and trying to see what issues might be ahead.
-
Anyone worked with Cadence Allegro PCB/OrCAD board parts placement files exported to Neoden 4 or S1?
Looking for a possible options to get SMT assembly and trying to see what issues might be ahead.
Really, if you know how to write programs in any reasonable language, this shouldn't be too hard.
I had a Philips CSM84 P&P (made by Yamaha) some years ago, and recently upgraded to a Quad QSA30A (made by Samsung).
Both take ASCII text files for part placement info. I use Protel 99SE (predecessor to Altium ) and it produces an ASCII text file with
part designator, part type, X Y and rotation. The program reads a component file that names all the different part types and gives a feeder location for each.
Then, it reads the Protel P&P file, and matches each part type to the info from the component file. Also, the component file has a rotation offset to deal with different rotations of the component in the tapes. Then, it outputs a file in the form the P&P machine wants it.
The Philips was a simple machine, it did it in the order of the file, no auto nozzle changer. The Quad has an "optimizer" that figures out the best order to assemble in, deciding when to change the nozzles, and allowing for picking up parts on all nozzles at one time.
Jon
-
Can anybody with a Neoden 4 tell me what you are getting for vacuum values
Test done in test mode with my finger tip on blocking nozzle tip
I'm getting
nozzle
1 = -68
2 = -92
3 = -75
4 = -84
For Blow
1 = 10
2 = 13
3 = 8
4 = 9
I don't remember what the values were when it was new
-
Can anyone explain me coordinate system of Neoden 4? We are playing with one slightly used machine ane we are lost.
I would like to know the relationship between Pick angle (from feeder setup) and Rotation (placement file).
Many people recalculate CAD coordinates to machine coordinates, but we were able to make it work using aligned first component + fiducial marks. We also can place parts but the work on feeders is like "hmm bad orientation, I will try to add minus to the Pick angle" - so who understands it? ;D
-
Hi hoooooonza, write me an email. Address is neoden4@r-n.cz. I will call you. It is faster then write.
Radikn
-
Hello everyone
Does anyone have the latest Neoden 4 update?
Thanks for uploading here
-
@Alx
The NeoDen4 latest software can be download via below link:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/x9nlg9wyu0jmxkr8alfa6/h?dl=0&rlkey=fpbgg9knn1xhazf2gklbsiza2 (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/x9nlg9wyu0jmxkr8alfa6/h?dl=0&rlkey=fpbgg9knn1xhazf2gklbsiza2)
--
Tonny-NeoDen
Senior Sales Engineer,
tonny@neodentech.com
-
@Alx
The NeoDen4 latest software can be download via below link:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/x9nlg9wyu0jmxkr8alfa6/h?dl=0&rlkey=fpbgg9knn1xhazf2gklbsiza2 (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/x9nlg9wyu0jmxkr8alfa6/h?dl=0&rlkey=fpbgg9knn1xhazf2gklbsiza2)
--
Tonny-NeoDen
Senior Sales Engineer,
tonny@neodentech.com
Hello dear
Thank you for your attention
-
We will run some job on friday, so I will test it for you. Sorry for the delay.
Jan
-
Updated to this version. Cool new features, however.
Image recognition became significantly slower especially if Individual is selected.
-
I have latest version installed...What are the cool new features?
Retries still stuck at 6 and not adjustable, dumping 6 expensive chips on the floor and getting the legs bent!!!
Camera setting is still Global and not per feeder/part, can't get it right for the two ICs I'm using.
-
Probably because the built-in controller has limited memory to implement those stuff per feeder? It's going to full 8 years since Neoden 4 came into the market, I think it already hit it's own limit.
-
Can NeoDen4 pick bulk single components like various capacitors from a bulk slot or only single bulk component like IC?
I know Mechatronika PnP can pick one of many single components from a bulk slot. That sounds like a perfect match for a rapid prototyping of a single board!
Yes I heard bad opinions on Mechatronika but also on NeoDen4 :-)
I also know that NeoDen YY1 can pick single component out of many components from a bulk slot.. but I also heard disastrous opinions on them, so my choice goes between NeoDen4 or Mechatronika :-)
-
Neoden4 - 2019-2020 did not have this function.
Probably still not now, some owner has to answer that.
Are you really insisting on this feature? Yes, I liked it too, but it didn't get priority in the end.
My advice: prefer more feeders, and even more feeders (preferably CL, or equivalent).
Note: how much money is available? Because the price of an M10V in a smaller setup will buy you 2.5pcs of Neoden4 (new machine prices).
-
Things we found useful:
1. On the mount window preparing to replace component button moves the place head from the camera. So when parts run out next to the camera is not impossible to install the new reel.
2. The mystery checkbox next to this button Component D: If a pick failure occurs the beep and pause is longer giving a chance to see what is the problem and eventually stop before a ton of components are feeded out.
3. I find the colored crosshair in the preview helpful.
Problems:
1.Feed/peel inconsistency, feeder calibration i feel that is still inaccurate. no idea why.
2.Peeler gears started to crack. Almost all of them i had to replace with 3D printed pars.
3.Stop on the first problem is really lacking. Like you say dropping expensive parts.
4.This version sometimes outright crashes. (once every 3 days)
5.For some reason sometimes component feeding occurs moment before picking up the part, while peeling is still in progress. Trying to pick while the foil is still in place. Missing that component.
6.I still hate the chaotic and unpredictable nature of component picking/ placing. I try to batch parts so the machine does not travel to the left side only for one component, but is really random how ends up.
7. All pick failures should be logged. Not only when the machine is stopped.
-
Can NeoDen4 pick bulk single components like various capacitors from a bulk slot or only single bulk component like IC?
I know Mechatronika PnP can pick one of many single components from a bulk slot. That sounds like a perfect match for a rapid prototyping of a single board!
Yes I heard bad opinions on Mechatronika but also on NeoDen4 :-)
I also know that NeoDen YY1 can pick single component out of many components from a bulk slot.. but I also heard disastrous opinions on them, so my choice goes between NeoDen4 or Mechatronika :-)
Neoden 4 can't do it, at least with the current software. I bought a Mechatronika M10V and the bulk picking feature works very reliably. I have now two bulk feeder trays so that I can load one while the machine is working. It gives a lot of flexibility but not a lot of speed or a good man/machine ratio.
-
Hi all together :D
So this is my first post on this forum as i bought recently a neoden 4 pick and place machine.
I dont have much experience in terms of pick and place machinery and was used to hand placing before...
Im still struggeling a bit with the basic usage of the device, so maybe ill briefly explain how im actually using
the machine at the moment:
PCB Layout is done in KiCAD and POS file is generated. Then i create a new project file on the NeoDen4. After
the Rail Setup is complete and it found its board, i add a first component and localised it on the board. Then i
add these coordiantes to the panelisation as i wanted to use a 1x1 panel. Then i added the positions of the fiducials.
When i now import my KiCAD POS file, the neoden is simply taking the raw KiCAD positions without any adaption
to the coordinates of the board i just entered? So i helped myself by adding a coordinate recalculation to my conversion
tool, which now calculates all xy coordinates based on the coordinates of the first component. So when i use such a
prepared file, everything works quite nice. The board and the fiducials are detected automatically, once all parts are set-up,
but i think im doing something wrong here? :-//
-
Can NeoDen4 pick bulk single components like various capacitors from a bulk slot or only single bulk component like IC?
I know Mechatronika PnP can pick one of many single components from a bulk slot. That sounds like a perfect match for a rapid prototyping of a single board!
Yes I heard bad opinions on Mechatronika but also on NeoDen4 :-)
I also know that NeoDen YY1 can pick single component out of many components from a bulk slot.. but I also heard disastrous opinions on them, so my choice goes between NeoDen4 or Mechatronika :-)
Neoden 4 can't do it, at least with the current software. I bought a Mechatronika M10V and the bulk picking feature works very reliably. I have now two bulk feeder trays so that I can load one while the machine is working. It gives a lot of flexibility but not a lot of speed or a good man/machine ratio.
I can really tell you do not get a Mechatronika. If you buy that you are within their environment, very limited and all you can do is throw more money after them.
And Mechatronika customers, just open the head camera cover, to watch the 10$ jumpwired camera where they scratched legs of the QFP from the PCB to jumpwire it with a potentiometer and oscillator. I have seen that at 3 customers so far.
I have replaced the camera at some point with a chinese CVBS camera with OSD menu, it worked flawlessly.
Most chinese PNP machines use AHD (full frame higher resolution) cameras nowadays. Some AHD cameras also support CVBS.
AHD cameras will be faster since they are not interlaced - like CVBS. The CVBS resolution 720x576 (PAL) is absolutely okay for component detection; an interlaced picture needs 2 half frames to form a full frame.
On the MX80 we even traced their crap windows application that they triggered component photos a little bit too early on their flying camera setup and that caused component drops. Without having full control to the software it's difficult to fix such problems.
during movement interlacing looks like this:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Interlaced_video_frame_%28car_wheel%29.jpg)
It's over 20 year old technology.
After a 10K EUR service where they replaced the motors and all the electronics they did not fix the pulley properly which caused the entire portal to oscillate. Also part of it was a new camera (I was expecting non-interlaced but they just continue with the same shit, so absolutely worthless)
This is not a user error (which they always use to claim and they try to find excuses for their failures).
They claimed that the new motors are faster - however the observed speed was just just the same, other M80 machines even performed faster than our one initially due to different configuration. They did not care about doing a proper setup after the expensive upgrade.
Stepper motors on the M10V cost around 50$/piece on Digikey (we checked that last time)
The feeders are just 2 stepper motors, one pushing a plate with solenoid stubs forward - retracting is done via gravity, and some plastic tapes can lock up an entire feeder box. 2 Steppers for 14-20 lanes, while they charge like 200$ per lane.
To work around I have installed pneumatic CL feeder on the machine, which solved that problem. I controlled the CL Feeder via USB with my own software, no need to go through their system.
Mechatronika dropped the support for us so I reverse engineered the entire machine 5 years ago - directly after their full service.
I re-designed their nozzles back then and manufactured 10 pieces, each of them cost around 10$.; Mechatronika charges almost 100$, their shady distributors 170-200$; material cost is maybe around 20 cent.
The last nozzle we ordered/they delivered was clogged with dirt, again for the price it's not acceptable. Though, there's no runout on them, it's just a piece of soft steel with a stainless needle of a syring attached.
Their software is very bad, there's no multiselect available to place multiple selected components at once, placing one component needs like 4-5 mouseclicks. The optical recognition has permanently failed for an onsemi tssop on our side and one 0402 capacitor did not work, the shape was rounded and there were different kind of reflections and the edges looked a little bit inconsistent under the camera.
However I was able to solve all those issues with our software.
I have written my own software for it and use opencv, the component drops have minimised and the placing quality also has improved.
Mechatronika is not using an affine transformation for matching the component location on a PCB which is another disadvantage. They use two reference points for component alignment which means they are only using trigonometry to adjust the position; that is the highest level of math used in their application.
The affine transformation is a very handy way to map component locations to a PCB and it's the most accurate way.
If I'd buy another commercial machine this would be a requirement for me.
To buy their machine just for loose component picking is like walking on very thin ice.
I stopped using the machine 3 years ago since I moved to another country, I have built another machine myself and use the software which I have written for the MX80 with that new DIY machine now. I also built 8mm electronic feeders myself.
I'm still working on the new machine, and goal is to add 8 heads, currently only one is installed; My software is already prepared for multihead.
Maybe once I go back where the MX80 is I might add more PNP heads to it as well.
The price of their machines and the service does not match up, it's a company from Poland charging prices from the west, but delivering poor effective support.
We were under stress to manufacture our products back then and Mechatronika just did not care, even though we have paid a lot money to them. The oscillating gantry and not fixing this problem by themselves after getting notified is a big no go.
We increased the tension on the belt of the Y axis first - which increased the friction of the entire system and worked to a certain degree but only fixing the pulley on the Y axis motor itself (which required heavy lifting) solved the problem.
We always gave them the chance to fix it - we proposed that they should fly to us instead us flying to them for a useless training.
But we also warned them to disclose the experience with them if they won't act and fix the problems we experience, they decided it's better to publish the experience we had instead of looking at the root causes (which never was missing training).
HASL based PCB surfaces don't work well with their camera, fiducials will bounce the light outside the camera leaving an uneven spot on the screen. you can wrap a foil around the camera and form a tunnel for the light to the PCB, this worked as a workaround.
If fiducials or marks cannot be seen properly by the camera fiducial detection will not work properly and panels cannot be placed.
Again no statement from this shady polish company about this issue back then.
There is a chance that their pick and place machine works properly with your project - but there are some components which cannot work well with their machines due to differences of the component belt, and some components cannot be handled with their optical recognition implementation due to inflexibility. And since Mechatronika doesn't care about supporting that it might be a go or no go for you.
Don't say I did not warn you ;-)
The MX80 they used to sell this machine incl. feeder for 40-60K USD... and that's what you get from Poland:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/mechatronika-mx80/?action=dlattach;attach=1001553;image)
picture from another customer:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/neoden-4-pick-and-place/?action=dlattach;attach=1833151;image)