Neoden 4 pick and place

[Suntee Sun]

After approximately 20h operating time the first three LEDs of the upward camera are defective 

     We should never have bought this machine!     

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

[Maverick71]

Hi,

Anybody knows the resolution and frame rate of the neoden 4 vision system?

Regards,
Mav

[mikeselectricstuff]

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.

[Smallsmt]

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.

[Maverick71]

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.

[TheSteve]

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.

[Maverick71]

Thank You Steve, Do You know the actual resolution?

[mistek]

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.

[derethor]

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

[Eclipze]

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.

[l0wside]

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.

[Eclipze]

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).

[derethor]

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

[rom67]

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?

[Eclipze]

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."

[rx8pilot]

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.

[mikeselectricstuff]

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. 

[derethor]

yep, the 4.1.2 R3

it worked well

[derethor]

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?



free gif upload

What are you doing to place chips?

Have a nice day

[rx8pilot]

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.

[SVFeingold]

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?

[alanp]

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.

[rom67]

yep, the 4.1.2 R3

it worked well

Thank you!
Have you solved the problem with the TQFP100?

[digger123]

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

[mikeselectricstuff]

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.