2nd hand Autotronik / Manncorp feeders

[jayx]

I'm looking for 2nd hand Autotronik / Manncorp feeders for 8mm tape. I've checked a few websites which sell used P&P machines, but haven't found any. Maybe someone on this forum have any for sale?

[forrestc]

Good luck.

If you ever find a source, please post back here (but only after you've got all you want, since I'll probably take a chunk of the remaining feeders).

The limited availabilty of used/lower cost feeders is probably my only gripe with these machines (I have a 10+ year old MC384 that I bought new).   Oh, and the fact that certain larger parts don't work with their feeder design.

[MR]

Does anyone have a defect feeder and could send it to me? I'm machining customized feeders here, maybe we can make an adapter.

[deanclaxton]

The limited availabilty of used/lower cost feeders is probably my only gripe with these machines (I have a 10+ year old MC384 that I bought new).   Oh, and the fact that certain larger parts don't work with their feeder design.

Interesting - what parts do you have issues with? I'm looking at an Autotronik that is for sale atm - BA-385V2-V.  How do you find the machine in general? does the fly-by vision work well?

[jayx]

Yeah, these are quite good machines and I have a similar 10+ year old BS384 which can even place (imp) 0201. Could be a bit more acurate with them, but they are so small that vision on the fly camera can't see them very well or perhaps I need a better library picture .

Components taller than ~15mm may be problematic. They sit quite low on the nozzle so may crash with the other tall ones on the PCB / tray, also the tape is bent quite sharp in the feeder so if you have deep pockets it will get jammed.

As for the limited used feeder availability, I guess it's because it's not a machine which large CEM would use (too slow), so it's not that much of them overall hence not much used feeders either.

[forrestc]

Interesting - what parts do you have issues with? I'm looking at an Autotronik that is for sale atm - BA-385V2-V.  How do you find the machine in general? does the fly-by vision work well?

Like I said, I don't really have many gripes with it.   We've had to replace the rotation motor once, and repair a broken wire on the replacement after a couple of years, but besides that I can't really think of many issues.

We place down to 0402 and do 0.5mm pitch TQFP's and am starting to do similar pitch QFN's with it.   It is like pretty much every other machine in that it takes some tuning to get everything working right.

The feeders work remarkably well until you get to thicker parts as the feeders don't do a very good job of dealing with thick pockets.   For those parts, we've printed some custom jedec trays with ESD 3d printer filament and staff loads those trays by hand for the thicker parts and then just alternates them each run.

[jayx]

That's the problem with the tape for a tall components (see attached).

I've never had any problems with the machine. It never broke down, although it's not used much. No more than a few hours a week (for very small batches), most of the time we're swapping tapes in the feeders. Almost no problems with the feeders either, maybe one or two out of over a 100 got some minor issue over the whole time.

Forrestc, do you use your machine a lot? Do you have your own products or build PCBs for external customers?

[MR]

Can you upload a photo with more details from that front edge?

Maybe it's possible to CNC mill a larger radius?

[forrestc]

Forrestc, do you use your machine a lot? Do you have your own products or build PCBs for external customers?

All our own in-house products, run the machine about 2-3 times a week for a full shift.   We tend to alternate between it and the selective solder and the tester.   

[jayx]

Can you upload a photo with more details from that front edge?
Maybe it's possible to CNC mill a larger radius?

I think the tape bending radius is mainly determined by the sprocket wheel diameter. Milling wouldn't change much anyway, there is not much distance left to the front of the feeder. I think the only way would be to use larger diameter sprocket wheel, but it will move the component picking window in the feeder away from the front, which may be an issue.

Front edge of the feeder attached (it's 8mm tape width).

[MR]

You do not need a full engagement on the sprocket wheel - a larger radius might still work.
However someone would have to know more details about the mechanical design.

[jayx]

It wouldn't help much, as mentioned before components are quite low on the nozzle so there are other issues. Below is an example of 8mm tall component already placed on the PCB and another one on the nozzle, there is not much gap left. Obviously you can adjust placing sequence to avoid collision, but it's problematic.

[SMTech]

It was the increasing number of taller parts such as electrolytic caps that made me put that requirement top of our list when we were choosing a machine 10 years ago. On the "its possible" front the Essemtec was the only machine in its class that really did it properly, Dima perhaps close behind, Autotronik remaining firmly vague (on this and other fronts like servicing).

At the time, it was also quite a good filter for more established brands too, many would still cover tall parts with a dedicated low speed low capacity, "oddform" parts machine. Today you could buy a mainstream machine form most manufacturers that does a reasonable job of both tall parts and "chipshooting" with 15mm being common and 25-30mm being possible on some models like the Juki RS-1, its possible even with those platforms that you need a dedicated feeder to use the capability, feeder differences are not obvious in most vendor brochures. It remains a massive achilles heel of smaller machines, Autotroniks lineup & design is basically the same now as it was then.

[loki42]

I'm not sure if it's relevant to other brands but something I didn't realise when looking at Universals very confusing nozzle / head collection is that the 30 spindle head has 2 heights of nozzles which allow a different max height.  This doesn't seem to be the case on the 4 or 7 spindle heads. 

[Yellofriend]

Maybe he is willing to sell some spare feeders:

https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/548323

[kinero]

I feel your pain. Used Autotronik feeders are hard to come by.

So much so that I recently designed my own half-step conversion kit to transform standard 8mm tape feeder (4mm pitch) to half-step (2mm pitch). Basically a laser-cut double aperture disk + 3D printed sensor bracket that uses existing photo-interrupter.

I made a few extra kits if anyone wants to convert theirs. PM me and I can help you do the same.