Author Topic: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!  (Read 107788 times)

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Offline gxti

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #75 on: July 31, 2014, 11:31:22 pm »
With all the 3D printers and CNC mills people seem to have around these days, you'd think someone would invest some time in making an OSHW feeder mechanism. I'm sure it wouldn't be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is...
 

Offline Corporate666

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #76 on: August 01, 2014, 01:01:29 am »
Those two problems sound simple - but they aren't... that's why there are no cheap PnP machines on the market, and why "real" PnP machines start in the $150,000 range...

Not really. You can get a useful base machine for $10-20K. The ones of the likes that Adafruit and the smaller players like to use are in the order of $50K IIRC.
And of course there is a big 2nd hand market in these things.
Even Mike has a usable PnP machine in his shop, and I think it was about $5K 2nd hand?

Used is another matter - actually I've never bought a PnP new, and I think that if you choose carefully, you can get something usable in the $10-20k range, even less if you have the ability to fiddle with it yourself (like Mike).

But I don't think there are any usable base machines for $10k (new price)... there were a few companies, like APS Gold who had machines in the $25-30k range, but the cheapest I've seen is that Chinese hunk of shit that sells for $5k and uses lead fishing weights to advance the tape feeders  :-DD

I think that, by far, the best way forward for a hobbyist into pick and placing is to buy an entry level used machine.  And I'd wager that most people looking for a $1k pick and place would think $5-10k is way outside their budget... but IMO there will never be a cheap PnP machine that you can buy new and is usable for any sort of "real" work (real meaning - good enough ROI for commercial work). 
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Online sleemanj

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #77 on: August 01, 2014, 01:28:16 am »
cheapest I've seen is that Chinese hunk of shit that sells for $5k and uses lead fishing weights to advance the tape feeders  :-DD

What machine are you talking about?

The TM220A and TM240A use the pickup head to advance the tape, they have take up rollers, and they are less than $5k (well, until you include shipping), what they lack however is a vision system, and vibration feeders if that's necessary for you.  They do however have a dual pickup head.


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Offline pickle9000

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #78 on: August 01, 2014, 02:58:02 am »
This is a much better demo, I like how the presenter refers to the machine as a "PCB Bot". 


 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #79 on: August 01, 2014, 03:39:28 am »
The TM220A and TM240A use the pickup head to advance the tape, they have take up rollers, and they are less than $5k (well, until you include shipping), what they lack however is a vision system, and vibration feeders if that's necessary for you.  They do however have a dual pickup head.

These actually look pretty fast and viable, and I've heard that people use using them pretty effectively.
This is pretty much the base level benchmark in terms of speed, precision, reel support and simplicity I'd expect of a really usable desktop PnP machine.
Not much way to get this cost of precision down, it's pretty much already bare bones, unless someone comes up with something really clever.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2014, 03:58:31 am by EEVblog »
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #80 on: August 01, 2014, 09:02:08 am »
The TM220A and TM240A use the pickup head to advance the tape, they have take up rollers, and they are less than $5k (well, until you include shipping), what they lack however is a vision system, and vibration feeders if that's necessary for you.  They do however have a dual pickup head.

These actually look pretty fast and viable, and I've heard that people use using them pretty effectively.
This is pretty much the base level benchmark in terms of speed, precision, reel support and simplicity I'd expect of a really usable desktop PnP machine.
Not much way to get this cost of precision down, it's pretty much already bare bones, unless someone comes up with something really clever.
Once they add vision to these machines ( I've heard this is happenning) then they will get a LOT more useful - at the moment they're probably OK for gunning down all the passives, but won't be much good for fine pitch stuff.
A vib feeder wouldn't take much to add. 
Another minor problem is that the mix of feeder widths is fixed - it wouldn't take much to make this more flexible.
However a big reservation would be firmware quality - we all know rare it is to see a Chinese company producing decent software.
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #81 on: August 01, 2014, 09:07:56 am »
cheapest I've seen is that Chinese hunk of shit that sells for $5k and uses lead fishing weights to advance the tape feeders  :-DD

What machine are you talking about?
That's an old one sold by Madell - this one I think
http://www.ntscope.com/SX1000.html

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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #82 on: August 01, 2014, 09:13:03 am »
I have a few pressure/vacuum sensors laying around that I bought for such a purpose, but it'll be a month or two before I have a chance to play around with this.
I wonder if you could make a fast enough vacuum sensor using a really small self-heating thermistor?
If so, it would be so cheap as to be a no-brainer to include.


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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #83 on: August 01, 2014, 09:49:50 am »
I have a few pressure/vacuum sensors laying around that I bought for such a purpose, but it'll be a month or two before I have a chance to play around with this.
I wonder if you could make a fast enough vacuum sensor using a really small self-heating thermistor?
If so, it would be so cheap as to be a no-brainer to include.

..although sensors like these are cheap enough that it's probably not worth the trouble, unless the thermistor works really well...
http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Silicon-Microstructures-Inc/SM5420C-015-A-H-S/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvhQj7WZhFIALm3YtJ7iptV30%2fecC0aJXE%3d
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #84 on: August 01, 2014, 11:35:33 am »
However a big reservation would be firmware quality - we all know rare it is to see a Chinese company producing decent software.

Perhaps an opportunity for someone to come to the party there?
 

Offline MagicSmoker

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #85 on: August 01, 2014, 12:10:50 pm »
...
Yes, a well designed manual system would probably be quite popular, once word gets around that DIY PnP's generally suck, and a well designed manual system can work very well.

I can confirm this supposition. We have a "real" PnP at my business, but setting it up is a PITA so it is only worth firing up for a production run. So to bodge together prototypes or just a few production boards I decided to buy a manual PnP ("eZpick") that is basically just a stabilized vacuum pickup pen: http://www.abacom-tech.com/%2FManual-SMT-Pick-and-Place-Machine-ezPick-P93496.aspx

It's hard to believe so simple a machine could be of any benefit, but it is - I timed the assembly of a couple different board designs alternating doing them by hand (ie - with tweezers) and with the eZpick (so that familiarity with what parts go where wouldn't unduly affect just one method) and using the eZpick was twice as fast and much less prone to smearing the solder paste from inaccurate initial placement.

I did make some modifications to it almost straightaway. It comes with a lazy susan carousel which you are supposed to place the board on - I really don't see how it it benefits anything as you can rotate the pickup nozzle with your thumb and forefinger freely so I ditched that. I also didn't want to have the boards sitting directly on a plastic surface both because of static charge buildup and there being no good way to fix the board in place, so I attached a piece of galvanized steel sheet (coiled flashing for roofing) on top of another piece of acrylic that fits precisely in between the slide bearing supports. That way I could use strips of flexible "fridge magnet" tape to hold the board and ground the working surface (via a 1M resistor and a wire to earth ground), while the extra sheet of acrylic lets me slide the entire work surface left or right, giving me a much larger working envelope. Attached is a picture showing my setup (sort of) in action (ie - this is a staged picture; no solder paste on the board, etc.).

NB - no affiliation with company or product, just a happy customer.

 

Offline M4trix

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #86 on: August 01, 2014, 01:07:10 pm »
MagicSmoker,

there is no camera on that machine so you still have to rely on your sharp eyes which is a pain in the arse.  :( Speaking of which, here is a guy with an interesting project and he made a video showing this pick'n'place machine in action.

http://vpapanik.blogspot.com/2012/11/low-budget-manual-pick-place.html
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #87 on: August 01, 2014, 01:14:58 pm »
MagicSmoker,

there is no camera on that machine so you still have to rely on your sharp eyes which is a pain in the arse.
It wouldn't exactly be hard to add one though.

I don't understand why they bothered with the wireless button though - a wired foot pedal would be a much better solution
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #88 on: August 01, 2014, 01:18:54 pm »
It comes with a lazy susan carousel which you are supposed to place the board on - I really don't see how it it benefits anything as you can rotate the pickup nozzle with your thumb and forefinger freely
That seems a silly idea - as well as being unnecessary, rotating the board will lose your orientation of where you are. I suppose it could be useful on a large board so you're working near you, but can;t see it being worth the cost.
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Offline MagicSmoker

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #89 on: August 01, 2014, 01:36:01 pm »
MagicSmoker,

there is no camera on that machine so you still have to rely on your sharp eyes which is a pain in the arse.  :( ...

True, but my "sharp" eyes are legally blind without corrective lenses and I am over 40, so, perhaps not as big an obstacle as you think...

That said, the boards I design generally go into a very large, very expensive motor drives so I don't worry too much about minimizing component size or PCB area. Rarely do I use components under 0805/2012 or with lead pitch under 0.65mm.

At any rate, the main point of my contribution to this thread is that a simple manual PnP like the eZpick is actually useful relative to its cost whereas any fully-automatic PnP that is worth a crap will be a lot more expensive.


...
I don't understand why they bothered with the wireless button though - a wired foot pedal would be a much better solution

They do offer a wired foot pedal, but not knowing any better I got the wireless button version and it works well enough. The button is starting to get a little flaky after 5k+ presses, however.

 

Offline free_electron

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #90 on: August 01, 2014, 02:14:07 pm »
i just read : operator would peel back tape. WHOA !! you better have a tape winder on those feeders or the machine is useless !
the idea of a pick and place is that you press start and go do something else. having to babysit the feeders is a waste of time.
That's true only for FirePick 1, which was Karl's original design.  My design, FirePick Delta, has full-auto cover tape winders.  So far, I'm extremely happy with them.

Quote
that is why you do vacuum integrity check. nozzle down, vacuum on , wait for detectable drop to a preset value ( pumpdown of the line. if the pick is half then you will never meet the vacuum threshold : eject part ( head travels to the 'bucket' where it drops the part ) and then does a retry. 3 retries : alert operator.

even if you don't install vacuum sensor by default make sure we have access to a spare analogue input and can set a threshold on that value after pick.
pick part , wait for threshold ( with timeout ) then go do the place. retry 3 times.
FirePick Delta SMT nozzles are interchangeable, and do include a spare analog input pin for pressure sensing (or vacuum pump current monitoring via ina139 current amplifier).  I have a few pressure/vacuum sensors laying around that I bought for such a purpose, but it'll be a month or two before I have a chance to play around with this.
Good. Also , go take a look at a real nozzle. The concept of using a dispensing needle is a bit whack.
The real nozzles are spring loaded so the pick height is not important. The head moves in position, comes down and the nozzle is pushed into the head.  This is a very simp,e mechanism. A flexible tubing is connected to the nozzle so there are no moving gaskets or anything. It may be worth making an adapter for some of the standard heads.
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #91 on: August 01, 2014, 02:25:23 pm »
i just read : operator would peel back tape. WHOA !! you better have a tape winder on those feeders or the machine is useless !
the idea of a pick and place is that you press start and go do something else. having to babysit the feeders is a waste of time.
That's true only for FirePick 1, which was Karl's original design.  My design, FirePick Delta, has full-auto cover tape winders.  So far, I'm extremely happy with them.

Quote
that is why you do vacuum integrity check. nozzle down, vacuum on , wait for detectable drop to a preset value ( pumpdown of the line. if the pick is half then you will never meet the vacuum threshold : eject part ( head travels to the 'bucket' where it drops the part ) and then does a retry. 3 retries : alert operator.

even if you don't install vacuum sensor by default make sure we have access to a spare analogue input and can set a threshold on that value after pick.
pick part , wait for threshold ( with timeout ) then go do the place. retry 3 times.
FirePick Delta SMT nozzles are interchangeable, and do include a spare analog input pin for pressure sensing (or vacuum pump current monitoring via ina139 current amplifier).  I have a few pressure/vacuum sensors laying around that I bought for such a purpose, but it'll be a month or two before I have a chance to play around with this.
Good. Also , go take a look at a real nozzle. The concept of using a dispensing needle is a bit whack.
The real nozzles are spring loaded so the pick height is not important. The head moves in position, comes down and the nozzle is pushed into the head.  This is a very simp,e mechanism. A flexible tubing is connected to the nozzle so there are no moving gaskets or anything. It may be worth making an adapter for some of the standard heads.
Also, dispensing nozzles are not designed to have accurate registration between tip and mount. Metal needles are probably not a great idea due to risk of scratching parts.
For larger parts, you need either rubber suction cups or an o-ring on the end of a cylindrical nozzle.
There are also oddballs like MELFs and silicone-covered LEDs that need custom tips.

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Offline Karl Lew

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #92 on: August 01, 2014, 04:08:48 pm »
Quote
These actually look pretty fast and viable, and I've heard that people use using them pretty effectively.

I often recommend the TM220 series to folks interested in cutting to the chase and slamming out boards. Warts and all, it gets the job done. Dangerous Prototypes reviewed it in depth some time back. It's also a closed system. In the OpenPnP group we wanted to incorporate their PnP heads into our own machines but they weren't so readily available then and we were leery about committing to a single supplier. And that sums up our concern with the TM220 series. Other teams such as TempoAutomation are also going the proprietary route for cheap turnkey PnP. TempoAutomation has vision.

The goal of FirePick Delta is different. Our goal is to create an open, hackable PnP+ machine to engage the broader creativity and innovation bubbling throughout the world.  An odd fact about the FirePick Delta Hack-a-Day team is that we are not co-located. We are scattered throughout the world and most of us have never met in person. We are therefore required to build our individual FPDs according to shared knowledge and cooperation. With three FPD machines under active construction (Florida, Netherlands, California), we're already seeing healthy discussions about design and implementation. For example, Christian notes that in the Netherlands, aluminum waterjet fabrication of the FPD base plates is cheaper than 2D laser cut plastic in the US (and I'm using bamboo for my base plates, just because).  All three of us share the same design DXF.  We even have differences about the frame footpads. I like modelling clay for its sticky anchoring, self-leveling and vibration damping properties. Others are opting for rubber feet. In a few months we'll no doubt get out our stop watches and have time trials. I'm betting on modelling clay.

This commitment to communal design evolution touches all aspects of FirePick Delta design and documentation: mechanical, electrical and software. For example, Simon and I have friendly arguments about the best way to estimate the pixels/mm resolution of the camera from a picture of 8mm component tape. He advocates Hough, I advocate direct use of DFT with a bandpass filter and peak detection for angle detection. Both are incorporated into FireSight software, and we will get out our stopwatches eventually to find what works best. Since we're all contributing to the same design, the benefits accrue to the team immediately.

This emphasis on collaboration and open design also make FPD ideal for schools. We foresee that a high-school team or student could put together an FPD and hack it to do interesting things. For example, an FPD is also, effectively, a robot microscope with computer vision. Cell counting, anybody?



 


 

Offline TommyGunn

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #93 on: August 01, 2014, 04:34:15 pm »
Wow, I can't believe he actually said 0201. They are a whole other level of difficult, even with a 250K setup those little buggers are incredibly difficult. Your Z-axis accuracy needs to be within about  30 microns accurate to do anything close to reliable placement. Not to mention applying paste at those levels. You pretty much need to go for electroformed stencils which run at least $400-600 each.

I'm all for people working on these projects because I do think there is some useful stuff that comes out of it. But they seriously need to be more realistic. I think they should be very happy if they can get 0805 parts placed.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #94 on: August 01, 2014, 04:40:09 pm »

The goal of FirePick Delta is different. Our goal is to create an open, hackable PnP+ machine to engage the broader creativity and innovation bubbling throughout the world.
sigh.. You guys make machines for the sake of making machines and tinkering with the machines. i (and anyone interested in a pick and place machine) want to USE them. Sure, i'll build one that is fun , but i have ZERO interest in ripping em apart every 5 minutes and futzing with the code. i don't care what algorithm you use. just get the damn thing working.

Quote
This emphasis on collaboration and open design also make FPD ideal for schools. We foresee that a high-school team or student could put together an FPD and hack it to do interesting things. For example, an FPD is also, effectively, a robot microscope with computer vision. Cell counting, anybody?

again : you're not in  run to build and deliver a cheap pick and place machine for hobby usage. you're in the run to have fun tinkering with vision recognition code and you happen to use a P&P as development platform.

Now, if you want to optimise this thing as a pick and place i am very interested . This project peaked my interest because of the low claimed price ( 300$ ? take my money ! heck , i'll buy two ! ) , now it has the typical smell of another product that will never be finished in a usable , stable state. Just like all the 3d printers that need way to much futzing with alignment and calibrating. All the hobbyists building these printers spend more time working ON the machine that WITH the machine.

sorry guys ..
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #95 on: August 01, 2014, 04:41:37 pm »
Quote
These actually look pretty fast and viable, and I've heard that people use using them pretty effectively.

I often recommend the TM220 series to folks interested in cutting to the chase and slamming out boards. Warts and all, it gets the job done. Dangerous Prototypes reviewed it in depth some time back. It's also a closed system. In the OpenPnP group we wanted to incorporate their PnP heads into our own machines but they weren't so readily available then and we were leery about committing to a single supplier. And that sums up our concern with the TM220 series. Other teams such as TempoAutomation are also going the proprietary route for cheap turnkey PnP. TempoAutomation has vision.

The goal of FirePick Delta is different. Our goal is to create an open, hackable PnP+ machine to engage the broader creativity and innovation bubbling throughout the world.  An odd fact about the FirePick Delta Hack-a-Day team is that we are not co-located. We are scattered throughout the world and most of us have never met in person. We are therefore required to build our individual FPDs according to shared knowledge and cooperation. With three FPD machines under active construction (Florida, Netherlands, California), we're already seeing healthy discussions about design and implementation. For example, Christian notes that in the Netherlands, aluminum waterjet fabrication of the FPD base plates is cheaper than 2D laser cut plastic in the US (and I'm using bamboo for my base plates, just because).  All three of us share the same design DXF.  We even have differences about the frame footpads. I like modelling clay for its sticky anchoring, self-leveling and vibration damping properties. Others are opting for rubber feet. In a few months we'll no doubt get out our stop watches and have time trials. I'm betting on modelling clay.

This commitment to communal design evolution touches all aspects of FirePick Delta design and documentation: mechanical, electrical and software. For example, Simon and I have friendly arguments about the best way to estimate the pixels/mm resolution of the camera from a picture of 8mm component tape. He advocates Hough, I advocate direct use of DFT with a bandpass filter and peak detection for angle detection. Both are incorporated into FireSight software, and we will get out our stopwatches eventually to find what works best. Since we're all contributing to the same design, the benefits accrue to the team immediately.

This emphasis on collaboration and open design also make FPD ideal for schools. We foresee that a high-school team or student could put together an FPD and hack it to do interesting things. For example, an FPD is also, effectively, a robot microscope with computer vision. Cell counting, anybody?
That's all good as a development process, but at some point you need to have a pretty standardised basic design which is proven to work - the line between a useable P&P and a complete waste of time (and parts) is down to the last fraction of a mm of repeatability.
Unless there is, eventually,  a standard version people can buy with confidence that it will actually be useful, it will never be more than a niche toy for tinkerers.
Ditto the software - all the talk of various different libraries, licenses etc. already gives me premonitions of it ending up a big mess held together with sticky tape that takes a week's learning to do anything useful.
At the basic level both the software and hardware it needs to be packaged up into a form that just works out of the box. By all means allow people to fiddle, but don't force them to fiddle just to use it at all.

 
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Offline M4trix

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #96 on: August 01, 2014, 04:44:24 pm »
MagicSmoker,

there is no camera on that machine so you still have to rely on your sharp eyes which is a pain in the arse.
It wouldn't exactly be hard to add one though.

Yep. Well, like MagicSmoker mentioned, when you step into your 40's, small letters become more and more blurry.  :-DD
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #97 on: August 01, 2014, 04:44:46 pm »
Wow, I can't believe he actually said 0201. They are a whole other level of difficult, even with a 250K setup those little buggers are incredibly difficult. Your Z-axis accuracy needs to be within about  30 microns accurate to do anything close to reliable placement. Not to mention applying paste at those levels. You pretty much need to go for electroformed stencils which run at least $400-600 each.

I'm all for people working on these projects because I do think there is some useful stuff that comes out of it. But they seriously need to be more realistic. I think they should be very happy if they can get 0805 parts placed.
I'd say 0603 (with very high reliability) and 0.5mm QFP is an absolute bare minimum to be useful.
0402 and 0.3mm pitch is probably the smallest that would be generally useful  to most people - certainly not worth spending more money on achieving.
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Offline Corporate666

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #98 on: August 01, 2014, 06:37:15 pm »
cheapest I've seen is that Chinese hunk of shit that sells for $5k and uses lead fishing weights to advance the tape feeders  :-DD

What machine are you talking about?
That's an old one sold by Madell - this one I think
http://www.ntscope.com/SX1000.html

Probably is that one - I remember they were sold on eBay.  I don't think Madell is the manufacturer, but maybe they source them from an outfit in China.

I've built two PnP's.. one from the ground up and one by retrofitting an older machine with a new motion/drive system.  I've learned a couple of things.  One is that fast and accurate placement isn't easy... it seems like it should be easy in theory, but it's pretty difficult to reliably and repeatably pick up very small and very light parts from imperfect tapes and perfectly place them.   My DynaPert chip shooter has monsterously large ballscrews, linear rails and frame... even the Quad's I use now are very solidly built, and they only do a few thousand parts/hour.

The other thing that is difficult is feeding.  Another thing that sounds easy in concept but is really difficult to get perfect.  For many boards, I'll burn through a reel of 3,000 components in a half hour... so you can't just get a 99% success rate, you need a lot higher - and maybe more importantly is the ability to overcome errors (including an empty feeder).  So whenever I see crap like lead weights or some contraption on the pick head to advance the tape.. it always seems like a hokey solution to one of the most fundamental problems of PnP'ing.

I know you realize all the above - just not sure if the home brew guys realize how difficult these problems are to overcome.  A PnP that you have to constantly fiddle with to keep running isn't worth having, IMO... better to hand-place or outsource or save up $5-10k and buy a Quad 4C or such.
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Offline Corporate666

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Re: O-M-G cheap pick and place machines coming!
« Reply #99 on: August 01, 2014, 06:40:36 pm »

Also, dispensing nozzles are not designed to have accurate registration between tip and mount. Metal needles are probably not a great idea due to risk of scratching parts.
For larger parts, you need either rubber suction cups or an o-ring on the end of a cylindrical nozzle.
There are also oddballs like MELFs and silicone-covered LEDs that need custom tips.

+eleventy.

I've said before that I think the best solution for any sort of home-brew PnP is to use off the shelf feeders and nozzles (and maybe vision as well).  The big guys have that stuff figured out 100%, and there's no cheap solutions that will ever come close to what Samsung/Philips/MyData have already figured out years ago. 

With feeders, alot of them are electrically actuated with a simple voltage, and you can even buy (or make) the simple slot system they mount to.  Quad feeders are a good example... widely available, cheap, easy, reliable, and 100% electrical.
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