Neoden 4 pick and place

[rx8pilot]

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.

[cgroen]

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 ?

[TheSteve]

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.

[cgroen]

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)

[TheSteve]

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.

[cgroen]

Thanks!
Nice to know what to avoid (datasheet: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/212/KEM_T2005_T491-533941.pdf)
Trying to decide what machine to eventually get my hands on

[blackarboy]

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.

[TheSteve]

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.

[Tonny-NeoDen]

@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:

Photo of Automatic Production Line:
1.
2.
3.
4.

[Cathy_Neoden]

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.

[doug.conyers]

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.

[mrpackethead]

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.

[Cathy_Neoden]

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]

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. 

[Cathy_Neoden]

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.

[mrpackethead]

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.

[ottopilot]

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.

[GEORGE12]

Neoden 4 Mounting SIM 800 Module , VQFN64 and QFN24 packages

[rwb]

Thanks for the video George12 , it looks like the machine did a fine job.

[HHaase]

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

[sparkswillfly]

They must like game of thrones

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hodor-of-NeoDen4-Working-Table-Stand-for-Pick-and-Place-Machine-/182197834376

[rwb]

That's funny and odd at the same time 

[paullhamilton]

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

[thommo]

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/
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

[harry4516]

I am just about to purchase a QiHe TVM920 machine :
   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