Essemtec Feeder Repair

[rfe1]

Hi

I have 2 Essemtec Feeder CLM950 that have some mechanical Issues.
Has anybody ever tried to repair one of those or does know somebody who does those kinds of repairs?

[zjr]

Hi

yes I did. The only thing to be cautious about when you take the feeders apart, is the block with the sprocket wheels. It is under tension from a lot of springs. If you unscrew it from the base plate, you'll need patience and maybe a jig to put it back together.

But the mechanical problems like no feedforward of parts, or a timeout, is usually coming from parts or tape stuck in the used-tape tunnel, the gears of the cover tape wheel or the gears turning the sprocket wheels.
Also make sure you can pull out the cover tape from the cover tape wheels without too much force.

It is nor problem to open up the feeder from the sheet metal side and have a look.

Good luck.

[SMTech]

In the UK, the distributor up until about 2 years ago still has all the kit to service CLM feeders. Presumably some of the other regional distributors do too although I believe some rely and returning them to Essemtec.
Taking the (thin) side off to clear out a jam is simple enough, although it shouldn't be required often. You can also carefully remove the front plate to get at the lanes from that angle too. I haven't personally dared attempt to meddle with the sprocket assembly, it looks very complex and my service engineer tell me they do indeed have a jig back at base as well as a proper test bench with comms etc.
As @zjr says, make sure the nylon ring in the spool holder runs freely, also make sure the metal/magnetic surfaces of the two halves of the spool holder are not touching and rubbing each other. When that happens you get a nasty black soot that then completely ruins the surface as its very abrasive. As the feeders have aged I have taken to doubling up in the teflon sheets in the spool assembly to maintain the gap and keep them running nicely (I'm guessing they are slowly spreading out given they appear to be made from FR4). If they stop running freely a tight/stiff spool, can pull the tape forwards when the spool motor runs for other lanes.

[rfe1]

Thanks for your answers, I will open them at the end of the week and see what I can achieve, hopefully I won't ruin them completely and I am able to understand whats going on in there

[luckyluke]

Hi
i have a question about CLM950 feeder, today during operation feeder stop feeding components into PnP.
There is noting wrong with DC motor, motor is tested via lab power supply and works fine, continuity test is performed to a parallel connector to check loose wires and contacts, and all is fine.
While feeder is working, measured voltage on motor drops from 24v to about 17-16 volts.
Has anybody any idea what could cause this problem?
All feeder lanes are occupied during this operation

[SMTech]

Does it do anything, what if you move it to another location? Do you have the versions with LEDs or without?
I have had a feeder location fail once, when I removed the feeder rack PCB there was a ferrite bead that had blown so I replaced that and was back up and running. However I think as I have "PC+ CLM" feeders the control boards on the machine and the feeder are in fact different you may not find such an easy to fix point of failure (or at least not the same one).

[luckyluke]

We solved the problem by taking off thin back plate off and clean it properly, and dust it off with air compressor.
Issue was caused by smd components that fell off reels and jammed feeder reels and reel tape.
Voltage drop was caused by that jam (haven't measure current drain on DC motor, but im pretty sure that current would be higher than usual) and after feeder reassembly and occupying spool holder and lanes with reel feeder worked normally.
Thanks allot on your advice!

[SMTech]

Interesting, ours would tell us that kind of fault had happened by lighting up every lane red and with a feeder jammed message in the software.