Author Topic: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine  (Read 28331 times)

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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #25 on: November 29, 2022, 11:47:49 pm »
FYI, this is the one I missed, a TVM920 with over 40 Yamaha feeders.
Ideally this is what I'm after used. A unit small enough to get through a single door and sit on a desktop, but uses decent cartridge feeders for better reliability.
Yamaha/clone CL feeders are definitely the way to go. Sure, they have their limitations but if you're not going below 0603 size then nothing beats them for price and availability.
And how about 0402? For a lot of designs you can't avoid using 0402 in order to get the decoupling close enough to chips.

0402 is pretty essential these days. Avoid if possible of course, but a decent modern machine should be capable of it.
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #26 on: November 29, 2022, 11:55:25 pm »
Aliexpress looks to be riddled with various P&P machines. There could be some interesting feedback amongst the machines that got sold. One of the things I'd look for is that a P&P machine has a closed loop servo position system instead of freerunning (open loop) steppers. Using open loop steppers is asking for trouble.
I'd disagree with that - unlike something like a CNC, where it has significant and not-always-predictable loading, the load on a P&P gantry is negligible and very predictable ( except when it crashes into something, which is mostly down to user error), so open-loop steppers are fine as long as  speed and acceleration aren't pushing the envelope.
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Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #27 on: November 30, 2022, 12:00:34 am »
Main problem is this has to go into the bunker, and I've not kinda got my eye on the dungeon dowstairs as it's got ventilation and, well, it's just downstairs instead a walk across the business park.
Would have the check if it's physically possible of getting in the bunker though.
Watch out for your floor type. Some of these machines can really shake the floor up, and annoy the neighbours, if not on a really solid concrete floor.

Both my storage units are underground basement carpark concrete floor.
Getting ethernet installed in my dungeon tomorrow!

How's the ventilation for reflow fumes ?
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #28 on: November 30, 2022, 12:02:01 am »
Aliexpress looks to be riddled with various P&P machines. There could be some interesting feedback amongst the machines that got sold. One of the things I'd look for is that a P&P machine has a closed loop servo position system instead of freerunning (open loop) steppers. Using open loop steppers is asking for trouble.
I'd disagree with that - unlike something like a CNC, where it has significant and not-always-predictable loading, the load on a P&P gantry is negligible and very predictable ( except when it crashes into something, which is mostly down to user error), so open-loop steppers are fine as long as  speed and acceleration aren't pushing the envelope.
The problem is right there in your last sentence. Imagine the lubrication runs dry and the steppers need to produce more torque than the designer anticipated. These kind of surprises are something that is easely overlooked in a cheap design. So on a cheaper system it is even more important to have closed loop position compared to a machine that has been designed properly by an engineering team that knows the margins required to maintain good operation. The NeoDen YY1 as discussed in another thread seems to be a perfect example to show why open loop steppers are not good. Given the prices of the systems Dave has proposed in the first posting, there seems to be very little reason to not get a P&P with a closed loop positioning system.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 12:11:07 am by nctnico »
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Offline loki42

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #29 on: November 30, 2022, 12:04:51 am »
That Juki is :
1400 * 1440 * 1460H
Weight: 1100 ㎏

Though yeah, it's old and used but you can see it running and get some training on how to use it. The Phillips emeralds etc are a similar size, and for any of those machines you'll need a decent amount of dry air. A lot of the smaller stuff is single phase too.  Just make sure the machine places what you need to place. I needed 88 mm feeders and trays which meant I basically needed a machine that specialised in odd form. Check the max height of stuff like inductors and how many of each feeder size you'll need. Check how many feeder slots things need too. For my machine 8mm feeders are dual lane (reels on top of each other) and take 1 slot and 12mm takes 1 slot. 16,24,32 take 2 slots. 44 takes 3.

Stencil printing for smaller parts gets hard. I swapped out a 0.3mm pitch BGA because I was having trouble keeping the stencil clean enough for it to be reliable.  I'm pretty sure I don't know what I'm doing with stencil cleaning though...
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #30 on: November 30, 2022, 12:14:55 am »
Main problem is this has to go into the bunker, and I've not kinda got my eye on the dungeon dowstairs as it's got ventilation and, well, it's just downstairs instead a walk across the business park.
Would have the check if it's physically possible of getting in the bunker though.
Watch out for your floor type. Some of these machines can really shake the floor up, and annoy the neighbours, if not on a really solid concrete floor.

Both my storage units are underground basement carpark concrete floor.
Getting ethernet installed in my dungeon tomorrow!

How's the ventilation for reflow fumes ?
That is another good question. How about stencil printing and a reflow oven? Running a reflow oven will require a ventilation system. I still recall a board getting stuck in the reflow oven at one of my former employers. Almost the entire building (2 stories high, probably some 800 square meters) smelled of burned PCB despite having ventilation.

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Offline Whales

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #31 on: November 30, 2022, 12:36:49 am »
I hope Charmhigh are better now compared to what UnexpectedMaker experienced.  Summary (from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong): poor part placement reliability + they couldn't solve the problems for him, he ended up wasting lots of time and money.  Then he bought a Neoden and has been happy with that.

EDIT: Description from one of his videos:
Quote
More money being spent on this pick and place just to make it do even basic tasks, and no communication from Charmhigh after publicly stating they wanted this resolved.

It's just lie after lie from Charmhigh - I've really had enough.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 12:39:26 am by Whales »
 

Offline Jackster

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #32 on: November 30, 2022, 12:45:55 am »
I hope Charmhigh are better now compared to what UnexpectedMaker experienced.  Summary (from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong): poor part placement reliability + they couldn't solve the problems for him, he ended up wasting lots of time and money.  Then he bought a Neoden and has been happy with that.

EDIT: Description from one of his videos:
Quote
More money being spent on this pick and place just to make it do even basic tasks, and no communication from Charmhigh after publicly stating they wanted this resolved.

It's just lie after lie from Charmhigh - I've really had enough.

Might want to check his recent videos about his NeoDen machine...

Offline Mangozac

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #33 on: November 30, 2022, 12:58:54 am »
And how about 0402? For a lot of designs you can't avoid using 0402 in order to get the decoupling close enough to chips.
You can get the 8x2mm CL feeders that will do 0402 and in theory the Chinese machines using the CL feeders will place them OK. I've never tried it though - we simply don't do the kind of stuff that needs parts that small.
 

Offline Whales

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #34 on: November 30, 2022, 01:00:36 am »
I hope Charmhigh are better now compared to what UnexpectedMaker experienced.  Summary (from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong): poor part placement reliability + they couldn't solve the problems for him, he ended up wasting lots of time and money.  Then he bought a Neoden and has been happy with that.

EDIT: Description from one of his videos:
Quote
More money being spent on this pick and place just to make it do even basic tasks, and no communication from Charmhigh after publicly stating they wanted this resolved.

It's just lie after lie from Charmhigh - I've really had enough.

Might want to check his recent videos about his NeoDen machine...

These are the only two Unexpected Maker Neoden videos I can find.  They seem to be praise?  Are there others I have not found?



EDIT:
Quote
20:30: I'm super wrapped with the quality of the machine
Quote
No, this video is not sponsored by Neoden ;) but both Neoden and EMLogic have given me such fantastic service and support - during the S1 saga and leading up to, and post the Neoden 8 purchase, that I honestly feel they deserve any business I can drum up for them.

EDIT2: This one is the closest to negative I can find.  Faulty parts from shipping damage, they tried doing remote debugging via video chat, returns for repairs being processed.  Separate reflow oven unit not working correctly.

« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 01:24:17 am by Whales »
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #35 on: November 30, 2022, 01:36:10 am »
How's the ventilation for reflow fumes ?

Dungeon has a vent into the car park, fresh air is pumped in 24/7 from external location via ducting.
The bigger bunker does not have a vent, but does have external fresh air pumped in. Could drill a hole through the besser block wall and install a vent though, I doubt anyone would notice.
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #36 on: November 30, 2022, 01:38:23 am »
I don't think stencil printing is a big issue for small quantities if you're not going below about 0.5mm pitch. I use the Eurocircuits printer, which is built with complete overkill - I have no doubt you could get similar performance at much lower cost
https://be.eurocircuits.com/shop/offtheshelf/product.aspx?ad=13777&ano=ec-stencil-mate&an=ec-stencil-mate&s=ec-prototype-equipment

It uses pin alignment with a couple of tooling holes in a frameless stencil, which can be tensioned. There is no x/y/theta adjustment and I've never felt the need for one ( except the time  I forgot to put tooling holes in a couple of stencils!), the pin alignment works fine even on PCBs up to about 300x250mm.

Using a framed stencil would remove the need for tensioning if you want to keep things simple, though for smaller boards you can get away without tensioning if you can keep everything nice & flat & fix the stencil down
 
« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 01:48:23 am by mikeselectricstuff »
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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #37 on: November 30, 2022, 01:42:18 am »
These are the only two Unexpected Maker Neoden videos I can find.  They seem to be praise?  Are there others I have not found?

He says don't buy one.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/neoden-yy1-pick-and-place-machine-with-under-$3k-price-for-hobbiestlow-vol-usag/msg4531682/#msg4531682
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #38 on: November 30, 2022, 01:47:24 am »
How's the ventilation for reflow fumes ?

Dungeon has a vent into the car park, fresh air is pumped in 24/7 from external location via ducting.
The bigger bunker does not have a vent, but does have external fresh air pumped in. Could drill a hole through the besser block wall and install a vent though, I doubt anyone would notice.
That would be fine - for the odd board or two you can get away without ventilation if you don't mind a bit of a smell, just avoid "incinerate" mode!  A fallback timeout on the oven is highly recommended.
I use a Sanyo toaster oven on a variac, run at about 60%, a kitchen timer to prompt me to go watch it after 4 minutes and turn off when flowed,  and the internal timer on the oven set to 6 mins as a fallback.
You ideally want an oven with elements top & bottom,  a nice big window, and a tray that comes out as you open the door.

If I had to replace this oven I'd probably look at something with a circulation fan.

For larger boards I have a commercial pizza oven which I modded with a homemade hinged door with some stove glass
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Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #39 on: November 30, 2022, 02:04:03 am »
Dave, I'm sure you went through my blog post and will notice that my machine main criteria was the door width of 80cm which I think yours should be around there too unless Aussie door is even smaller than that. There's not many machine that go go through that width unless it's a little Fox from Essemtec. Even with my unit, I had that disassemble the top half and then tilt the machine 90 degree to go through. And all that with 5 men help to move it. There's a new unit from Bovi/Kayo (Bovi sells inside China, Kayo sell to outside of China) similar to mine but without any cover that weigh around 100 kg (mine is 250 kg) but I haven't check the dimensions yet (we need to know your dimension limitation to begin with). I don't have the listing (in the midst of production at the moment!) outside of China yet but on Taobao it is priced RMB42800 with the CL feeders. I will post a link once I finish my work later today.
 
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Offline asmi

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #40 on: November 30, 2022, 04:06:56 am »
That Juki is :
1400 * 1440 * 1460H
Weight: 1100 ㎏
Lol are you seriously offering a 1100 kg machine instead of 20-30 kg one? :-DD

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #41 on: November 30, 2022, 04:34:08 am »
Dave, I'm sure you went through my blog post and will notice that my machine main criteria was the door width of 80cm which I think yours should be around there too unless Aussie door is even smaller than that. There's not many machine that go go through that width unless it's a little Fox from Essemtec. Even with my unit, I had that disassemble the top half and then tilt the machine 90 degree to go through. And all that with 5 men help to move it. There's a new unit from Bovi/Kayo (Bovi sells inside China, Kayo sell to outside of China) similar to mine but without any cover that weigh around 100 kg (mine is 250 kg) but I haven't check the dimensions yet (we need to know your dimension limitation to begin with). I don't have the listing (in the midst of production at the moment!) outside of China yet but on Taobao it is priced RMB42800 with the CL feeders. I will post a link once I finish my work later today.

Yes, noticed that. My dungeon door is just under 80cm.
The one I just bid on and lost was a little bit over that, but you tilted it over then it could have fitted.
My bunker has double doors, but a narrowish hallway.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #42 on: November 30, 2022, 04:35:04 am »
If I had to replace this oven I'd probably look at something with a circulation fan.

I'd be willing to spent a decent bit for a good oven I think.
This one looks quite schmick: https://www.itechsmt.com/products/rf-b530c-reflow-oven
 

Offline loki42

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #43 on: November 30, 2022, 09:02:16 am »
That Juki is :
1400 * 1440 * 1460H
Weight: 1100 ㎏
Lol are you seriously offering a 1100 kg machine instead of 20-30 kg one? :-DD

Yeah, at a lower price point you're getting 37 X more machine... weight wise ;) I also think if he could fit it it's a decent machine that actually works and has actually put down a lot of parts. Though if it's too big it's too big. I was massively limited in oven selection because I needed my total line length to be under 12 meters so I understand size constraints. All the cheap / good ovens are giant.
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #44 on: November 30, 2022, 09:43:15 am »
If I had to replace this oven I'd probably look at something with a circulation fan.

I'd be willing to spent a decent bit for a good oven I think.
This one looks quite schmick: https://www.itechsmt.com/products/rf-b530c-reflow-oven
You noticed the 7kW startup power spec, right?
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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #45 on: November 30, 2022, 09:51:13 am »
If I had to replace this oven I'd probably look at something with a circulation fan.

I'd be willing to spent a decent bit for a good oven I think.
This one looks quite schmick: https://www.itechsmt.com/products/rf-b530c-reflow-oven
You noticed the 7kW startup power spec, right?

Nope, didn't look that far!
Kinda need a PnP machine first.
 

Offline jayx

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #46 on: November 30, 2022, 03:55:05 pm »
Autotronik makes fairly small, kind of desktop P&P machines: BS281 (https://www.autotronik-smt.de/en/products/smd-bestueckungsautomat/bestueckungsautomat-bs281s), but I'm fairly sure it's more expensive than USD$5k, even for a 2nd hand.
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #47 on: December 01, 2022, 12:15:42 am »
So, you are okay having an air compressor in the place? Those smaller machine usually doesn't need one as they have a small pump built-in and of course it's feeder system doesn't use them (drag feeder). Those with Yamaha CL feeders usually requires an external air compressor.

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #48 on: December 01, 2022, 12:18:42 am »
So, you are okay having an air compressor in the place? Those smaller machine usually doesn't need one as they have a small pump built-in and of course it's feeder system doesn't use them (drag feeder). Those with Yamaha CL feeders usually requires an external air compressor.
I can't imagine they use much air though , so a small & cheap compressor would probably be enough
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Offline coppice

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Re: Choosing a Desktop Pick and Place Machine
« Reply #49 on: December 01, 2022, 12:22:32 am »
0402 is pretty essential these days. Avoid if possible of course, but a decent modern machine should be capable of it.
Don't delay, or you'll need something that can handle 0201. :)

More seriously, quite a few interesting parts that are made predominantly for the mobile market are only available in chip scale packages. I've found it really frustrating when those had to be avoided, because of assembly machine limitations. I find hat a bigger issue than the handling of small passives.
 


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