Bringing PCB assembly in-house with Dima Optimat?

[Styno]

Yeah, when all the initial problems were fixed everything went quite well for a while except the constant problems with worn-out tape spool adjustment nuts on the feeders. But, still, every few months another big issue pops up, like the worn-out feeder activation air cylinders or x-axis belt just now.

Having a slow motion camera really helps to pin down causes of new problems and due to the simplicity of this old machine these are surprisingly easy to fix. The belt was replaced in about 1.5 hours this morning and the machine responds well to this, it appears to run a bit quieter.

If someone needs to let go of a good young-timer flexible machine with lots of feeder slots and feeders, please send an pm

[Styno]

Some of the machines I’ve been look8ng at are:
Dima Modulo MP-200
Samsung CP40/CP45fv (neo)
Samsung SM320
Samsung SM421

I admit to having a soft spot for Dima as they are a local company and that machine ticks all the important technical boxes. But I have to remind myself that this is not only a hobby, so access to local (trained) support, to (cheap) spare parts and additional feeders is equally important. The Samsung lineup was long a mystery to me until I found this leaflet on the SM4xx series that shows the history of their lineup as well. The CP40 is from the same time period of our current Dima Optimat and the CP45 is only a few years younger. Although they are ubiquitous on the second hand market, I fear they will join the maintenance hell pretty soon as well.

The SM320 and SM421 are much younger but I have some questions.
- What type(s) of feeder do they support and are they interchangeable over more than one generation?
A: SMN/SME series are suitable for SM3xx and SM4xx machines. SMN is pneumatic and SME is smart electric.

- How do these feeders compare to e.g. the Yamaha CL series (price, reliability, handling of small or very light components, etc)?

- Is it easy to switch reels on a feeder without losing components? We have over 200 feeders for the Optimat, but those are very cheap…

- Do the samsung feeders need leaders or trailers on the tapes, or how much components are lost/remain in the tape?

[jmelson]

The Samsung CP45 is a fantastic machine.  I have a Quad QSA30A, based on the Samsung CP30 but with Quad alignment cameras and Quad electrical feeders.  That machine has line-scan cameras that look at the components from the side.  The CP45 flips a mirror so the cameras can look at the bottom of the chips, so it can view the pads on leadless parts.  I did have some big issues with setting up my QSA30A, the manuals are pretty bad, just a romp through all the menu screens, but kind of light on how the machine actually works.  I think the manuals must have gotten better by the CP45 days.  I'm still learning the ins and outs on my machine.  The CP45 feeders are quite simple, and look a lot like Philips/Yamaha feeders.  One good point is they have a latch to hold the upper guide from lifting, that was an issue with tall parts on my previous Philips/Yamaha machine.  When the upper guide lifted, the sprocket would jump steps.
After a lot of fooling around to understand how the coordinate system and origin worked, I wrote a small program that reads my CAD system's P&P file and converts to a form that the QSA30A can import.  Then, the machine optimizes the placement order, nozzle swap order and feeder assignment if you want it too.
I can't comment on the SM machines, I've never seen one, but I assume they are a descendant of the CPXX models.
After buying my QSA30A (sight unseen) at an auction, I needed to get a bunch of repair parts.  I had no problem sourcing parts from Korea and the far East, at very affordable prices.  I suspect the same would be true for the otehr Samsung machines, although parts for the newer machines might command a higher price.
Switching reels on a Samsung feeder seems like it would be fairly easy, it looks like they don't need a lot of leader or cover tape to thread it, and will just have 3-4 parts worth of cover tape peeled back.
Jon

[Styno]

I read your story a few times and it reinforces me towards a newer machine as I’m not attracted do the ‘constant fiddling to get the machine running’ and ‘find out everything yourself’ anymore. This not to look down on your path, I’ve been there & done that as well. It was a great experience but it’s time for something more productive. I’m still looking more intothe Samsung feeders as there appear to be more series around.

Dima was very helpful, their service guys sent a lot of info via email and answered quickly and honestly even though they officially don’t support the PnP machines anymore (AAT Aston in Germany has taken over official support).

[jmelson]

I read your story a few times and it reinforces me towards a newer machine as I’m not attracted do the ‘constant fiddling to get the machine running’ and ‘find out everything yourself’ anymore.

Well, it has settled down quite a bit, since last year.  Remember, this machine was bought *** AS IS *** with absolutely no guarantee of condition or completeness.  It was stored for 6 years since last run, as I could figure out from the timestamps in the hard drive.
But, if you can afford the newer SM3xx series machines, they will almost certainly be better performers, have more reliable software, and maybe have better manuals, too.  Now that I mostly understand the software workflow on my QSA30A, I can get a new board programmed and run in one day.  That is pretty much a first with this machine.  I have yet to re-run a board that I had run previously, hopefully that will go much faster.

Jon

[Styno]

It’s great that your setup times have improved so much. I mean that, but for a high mix/short run shop like ours, a whole day for setup is not acceptable.

Our setup times are much shorter. I’ve written two scripts for our cad: The first to export from cad to a format that the Dima understands, in user (cad) coordinates. The machine and a pcb are used to convert the user coordinates of the fiducials to machine coordinates. Then the file is processed by the second script that uses both coordinates for the fiducials to calculate the machine coordinates for the components. Then the fiducials of each pcb in the panel must be tought and then the machine is ready for production (assuming no new components need to be tought or new feeders to setup). This generally takes about an hour. Loading an old project is just that, it works.

I expect a new machine to be at least as fast to setup.