Warning Mechatronika MX70 MX80 M10V Pick and Place Machine

[MR]

This is a warning about the Mechatronika Sp.J.  Pick and Place units (from Poland). This company is owned by Lesław Gajda (62 years) and Dariusz Pieczerak (65 years)
Source http://www.infoveriti.pl/osoba-krs/Pieczerak-Dariusz-Andrzej/e6fe06aada80d57fbf45ad28e16edf0e.html

They're fraudsters... really bad. They don't really care about customers and their products - and just trying to rip off the last few customers who are willing to throw money after them. There's no explanation why they do not even comment obvious issues of their machines nor repair issues which they have caused so the customer can simply go on with his manufacturing. We have paid and they did not deliver, and when telling them about fixing it they just ignored it. They just don't care about their reputation anymore.
They are not even doing an affine transform on the PCB but use highschool math (trigonometry only) - which in some cases might introduce extra inaccuracies.

There has not been any development for over 5 years, you buy Mechatronika - you buy garbage. Even their used machines are way too overpriced.

The market is really small, even Chinese vendors are taking care about their reputation nowadays. Mechatronika Poland is just a dead company. Don't believe any word they're telling you, they're just after your money the quality of their devices is sub entry level. None of those companies can afford negative reviews because the market is too small (unless they don't care because their business is already shut down). Even Essemtec cleaned up a messy situation with another customer in the past.

Before you buy anything from them tell them to clean up their issues, in our case only a refund and public statement why things are that bad will be a solution; And they shouldn't even think about accusing us because we know everything about their products (esp. since we fixed up all their issues with the main machine). An official statement to their partners has been released some months ago (the mail can be found at the bottom) of course trying to save their ass with more lies.

If you are a potential customer, the situation might easily escalate like this and then you end up with awful expensive scrap metal, frankly said their products are just not worth it, cheapest builds, cheapest design and immature software. Any other opinion just shows that the person having the other opinion is also very inexperienced.
We also trust Mechatronika at the beginning, they abused that trust. And all our requirements are within the official machine specification which they put online. All this is the result of Dariusz and Lezlaws (the Mechatronika owners) decisions, if they would have delivered working parts after their service or no later than after reminding them a couple of times there wouldn't have been any issue.

As a final conclusion the worst problems were the result of a faulty build (loose/not stiff enough screws!) of the machine directly after they re-assembled the new version, more details can be found in this entire post. Secondly the feeders are not fully reliable (Mechanical issues especially with plastic tapes; also pull issues with full reels from time to time since they apply all the force to a single tape hole and rather damage the edge of the hole than advancing the tape; sprocket based designs are a clear winner). Those machines - especially the MX80, are not suitable for 0402 as they are (too many component drops due to issues with the optical recognition and unreliable feeders / mispicks), don't even think about 0201. The gantry is accurate enough but the feeders are not. Alternative feeders and a better software (with a better optical recognition) can fix those issues. The warning is that especially the feeders of all machines will sooner or later fail a similar way; lanes will get stuck and if Mechatronika services them improperly it just adds cost (or profit to Mechatronika) but no value for the customer.
Our Mechatronika feeders are the proof (fully serviced but still not reliable), there's an attached picture what a jammed feeder can cause, the tape is advancing itself because the plate inside the feeder box is using gravity for retracting the solenoid plate - but if a solenoid pin jams up with a plastic tape things are getting terribly wrong

This post will be updated from time to time based on new experiences with the Mechatronika MX80 and Mechatronika Sp.J.

Do not ... seriously do not believe in the marketing of this company, save your money all their products are developed by the same people with insufficient background in mechanical, electrical and software engineering. People who buy Mechatronika either have no idea about software, mechanical construction or limited electronic knowledge (at the time buying - the knowledge and experience might change after some time as it did for us; on our side it was missing knowledge with mechanical construction and drive systems)
Do not buy feeders from them they're faulty by design and absolutely overpriced for what they are, get a cheap microcontroller and adapt professional feeders, the protocol is very easy. Those feeders will break after some time (some lanes will not advance properly) and have confirmed issues with some plastic tapes.

They claim they never had customers like us for 20 years. Time evolved, what they're selling is outdated crap and charge even higher prices than back then... Vision done like in 2003 manually patched PCBs in 2017 that is now worth no more than 10$; There are few hundred FPS sensors available nowadays, and what they're doing is piping it through a slow 50 FPS half frame analog system (effective 25FPS).
Off the shelf servo units (nothing done by themselves). Steppers with microsteps and even loosing steps on the theta axis, Dariusz and Lezlaw are overall awful. Almost no development for 20 years and still selling the same shit they've done in old times back then.
Little bit aluminum cutting that's all they do themselves. I'm sure the frame is also outsourced to a professional metal working company.


Expensive does not mean you will get an appropriate value for your money, we have learned that with Mechatronika (it's a warning from a Mechatronika customer!).
If their business would be so great, they'd probably have no problem to refund the failed upgrade; however their products are absolutely outdated and worth nothing especially since there's no serious support on their products so they depend on every single customer who still wires money to them (their software did not receive any valuable updates for over 10 years). Do not support that, there are many other businesses out there who work hard on delivering products.
Customers will figure out that their service is rubbish once they really evaluate the result so they count on customers becoming silent and trying to sell the machine; what a business model?!

And obviously this company/Dariusz Pieczerak and Lezlaw Gajda are lying about the performance of their new machines. There's no way that the turnaround speed is 1 second per component for this kind of gantry across the entire table. The average is 50% slower (and the way they delivered it to us is at least 70% slower due to almost sequentially driving X/Y with the software version which they have given us, possibly there's a too long sleep inside the code which makes it look like that; the firmware code that is sent is not explicitly sequentially (there's no transaction asking if the position was reached)). They did not name any IPC standard on measuring the speed. Maybe moving a component 10 cm inside the machine can get you the mentioned performance. All they can do is to avoid public discussions and accuse the customer who's against them now because otherwise the entire show they're playing would blow up.
The machine does an average of around 1700 CPH (verified by us); while 3200-4000 CPH is given in the specification. That makes a real performance of 53% (3200cph taken as reference; but not with their software). When talking with a serious company about such an accusation they'd better justify why it's that bad and fix immediately since there's a lot money involved.
The machine had a similar performance with the old stepper motors; but the spec of the (yes 10 years old and unmodified machine) was 2500 - 3000 cph (closer to the real values).
All that makes the paid upgrade they offer (and which we have paid for) absolutely worthless.
They just made things move (and were probably lucky about it to get it work at all) but did not upgrade to the actually offered specs.

The acceleration profile in their stepper based systems is based on a trapezoidal profile.
Seriously for over 20 years they sold the same shit and no development yet because it worked as it is and no one complained because the machines were expensive enough and customers have no experience in that particular area. The new Delta drives introduced an S-Curve profile which is smoother, however as delivered (as it was configured by them) also slower than the Stepper based solution.
Only very inexperienced people buy and handle Mechatronika machines (unfortunately including us back then....)

In the meanwhile we have built a second machine for a second location with a better structure by ourself using FreeCAD (thanks to all the detailed negative experience with Mechatronika we know what should be avoided). The MX80 is no more worth more than a few thousand EUR. Any Mechatronika machine is practically not worth more than 1000-3000 EUR.
Mechatronika Sp.J is a house of cards there's no value behind that company - absolutely none (all the work done by Dariusz and Lezlaw is already superseded by newer technology)

MX80:
- vertical support/portal (as done with CNC) is not suitable for a pick and place machine it removes a lot space from the pick and place area.
- If you're off by a few centimeters with a tray the gantry might run against the tray, if the gantry would be fixed on a higher level than the PCB there would be substantial more space for trays
- closed design below the pick and place table, motor adjustments are difficult to do (it's mentioned here if something falls into it you cannot get it out)
- the software is rubbish, it's not rocket science; refusing customer support puts the cherry on it. This applies to all Mechatronika pick and place systems. Operators have to do many useless steps, really dragging each component over the camera for a reference picture is an absolute joke. I wonder how someone can design something like that.
- the proportion between the structure of the machine and pick and place performance is just not met. A machine can be substantially lighter with multiple heads and less gantry speed delivering a better pick and place performance and less mechanical stress.
- The LED rings are absolutely insufficient, they need to have multiple angles when installed otherwise non-even surfaces will throw shadows and eg. cause improper fiducial detection or issues with the optical component recognition. This is a very basic requirement - Mechatronika Lezlaw and Dariusz have no idea about all that they don't even know what they're selling, they cover the flat LED ring around the top camera with milky glass to diffuse the light (which is good) - however in a real scenario there are still problems with HASL based (non even surfaces), those issues could be solved easily however the Mechatronika way is - just ignore it the customer has already paid; however all their decisions on the LED topic are just very bad. (we have designed a second machine ourself and also had to get deeper into that topic because we really pick and place products and are not an SMT equipment manufacturer..). This issue applies to all Mechatronika machines.

If a company wants a customer to fly to them for a slow single head pick and place machine, there's something substantially wrong with that company. However for the price they charge the customer can expect a fully workable machine - without any trouble. DIY costs a fraction and is easily faster and more flexible.

Mechatronika owners have a PHD in mechanical engineering, we don't and still it should be common sense.





(this is the screenshot of our software not their one Mechatronika does not support component status tracking)
The first time 3 seconds (including nozzle changer)
There's one item with 5 Seconds - optical recognition issues (it was probably able to pick and place the component during the second try)

The timings include the full pick and place cycle in Milliseconds 1000ms = 1 Second (see last column Elapsed). The machine is permanently moving.
3200 CPH would be 60*60/3200 = 1.125 Sec per roundtrip (max).
This is how it was delivered to us after a full upgrade, of course their software won't directly list the pick and place duration to the customer so it won't be so obvious to the customer.

Everything green for 0402 looks great no? Not really, some of their feeders are always stuck or misaligned after some time and will be blocked after 3 failed picks by the software (Mechatronika charged over 2K EUR for a full service of the feeders). It's easy to fix it after a main pick and place run but it needs additional retries. With their software the machine stops and needs baby sitting randomly (might happen in 10 minutes, might work for an entire panel, it's absolutely random), at least our software postpones the problematic parts to the end of a pick and place run.
We're slowly replacing the feeders already.
The problem again lies in the Mechatronika feeder hardware, but after looking at the mechanics of those feeders we don't want to dig into that rubbish design - if it would work reliable it would have been okay but touching that is nothing but a waste of time.

A small part how the computer communicates via RS232 with the machine:

Code: [Select]

--> <941,84513,1309,38,20,816,2,0,3>p // pick component
<-- o
--> <102597>G // drive to that Y coordinate
<-- o
--> <4096>O // set theta axis
<-- o
--> <3>f // forward feeder
<-- o
--> <29809>: // drive over flying camera and switch to buffered frame coordinate
<-- :<$3C16>o
--> m // select theta
<-- o
--> H // get theta coordinate (1000 hex = 4096)
<-- H<$1000>o
--> <40>k
<-- o
--> <12>k
<-- o
--> <0,0,1>$ // disable left flying camera
<-- o
// apply offset of optical recognition:
--> <4159>o // rotate theta (=187.155 degree; which is super close to the factory default absolute maximum 190°)
<-- o
--> <30029,102808,1329,4159,40,3>P // place component

In case offsets occur, there's no such thing as inaccuracy from a controlling point of view. The applications always send accurate cartesian coordinates to the machine and expect that those will be executed properly. However in our case the machine did not do that. Those amateurs Lesław Gajda and Dariusz Pieczerak didn't care, neither bothered to do a quick check on what's going on. They were just thinking it's a user error and we should get some training, I guess we could give them some detailed training about their Machines already. We even have the ability to build much quicker machines by now already.

The feederblocks use a communication similar like it's used with infrared controllers, only TTL is used (no parity bit or checksum is used; that's why in some rare cases the wrong feeder is advancing a lane as well).
The M10V, MX70 are perfectly suited to be integrated in OpenPNP - and then you also get support (compared with that shady polish company which just runs away with your money). Even a 500 EUR service contract is nothing but wasted money for those machines.
However for such a slow machine you can just take your time and build the machine yourself or ask a hobbyist to build it for you and run OpenPNP with it.
The MX80 is a bit different (but also slower than some hobbyist machines)

For existing customers who write that they have no issues (although everyone who has used plastic tapes confirmed that there are issues with the feeders), until now none of them wrote that they are placing eg. 0402. And none of them are using an MX80 (where all problems apply because it integrates those rubbish flying cameras; while other machines only integrate parts - so other machines are also affected by some issues). And none of them took the time to take a picture of the manually patched chinese top head camera (when asking them). Proof me wrong.
Mechatronika is a dead company.

Mechatronika wrote to a potential customer:

- he bought in 2015 almost 10 years old second hand machine

That said, Mechatronika has removed the entire stepper motor, driver electronics in 2017 and installed the new servos and electronics on the machine, and the new installation was faulty. They have had the entire unit in their office and did not work properly on it.

- he have bought this machine with our big surprise without any tests,
verification at customer side

We did not complain about that, we have asked some questions at the beginning and the communication was all okay on a normal level, they were friendly and seemed to be a supportive company - so we decided to send it to Mechatronika for a full service and what they call "total rebuild". It's totally clear we cannot blame Mechatronika for a used machine, but we can blame them for a failed rebuilt machine, especially for not acting immediately after telling them that things are obviously wrong.
Our plan was even to buy one extra feeder box from Mechatronika for the front of the machine, but when we noticed that those feeder boxes are unreliable we quickly forgot about that and looked for alternatives.

We have no problem opening our email conversation with Mechatronika to proof that Mechatronika yet again is lying that they have told us eg. not to buy the machine (which they have never said, they probably mistake us with another angry customer). The communication was friendly at the beginning until we have paid and wanted the promised value (that we can pick and place without problems) for our money.

As we let you know earlier we can totally rebuilt your machine to
the actual version MX80 as follow:
- AC servo drives in X and Y axes, cover significantly faster work
of machine and significantly reduce noise
- new linear encoders in X and Y axes
- new Z axis drive with new control unit and new features
- higher (doubled) resolution of theta axis
- new and better quality of flying cameras
- new stage camera
- new targeting camera with the new white lighting
- new electronic control system
- new supply unit
- upgraded software
- some additional improvements in existing mechanical units

We have ordered a total rebuild there's not much left of the original used machine, and it cost a lot money as well considering the low speed.

So all those issues (caused by loose screws, at the most hidden place) can easily happen with new MX80 products, the big difference between the MX80 and other Mechatronika PNP machines is that the other machines don't apply the same level of force to the portal and pick and place head; So the construction might be safe for weaker models (but if you run into problems you can see how Mechatronika might deal with it!).



- Support does not exist (if you're lucky to get support it must be an easy issue, real issues are ignored or endlessly delayed (so you won't be able to manufacture your items on time))
- Expertise/Knowledge of this company is very limited (our experience with them, Highschool students can do what they did; how do we know? We have fixed the machine and rewritten the pick and place software. And the required knowledge did not exceed high school level)
- Deliver faulty items and invoice (non existing items -- this is in question) (see camera photo later in this post)

There is a 3rd party explanation about the camera, this patched 2006 camera is sold in 2017 as new camera (Mechatronika did not reply directly to us about this incident). A picture of the substandard camera can be found later in this post

If we would have known that they modify old cameras we would not have done the upgrade, that's certainly not what someone expects as "new camera" and expensive part of an upgrade (they charge us 10.800 EUR back then, even better they would charge for such an upgrade 14.800 EUR nowadays!)
(one Mechatronika ex. customer mentioned that he went for a mydata my9 and he's very happy with that one; and the used machine costs less than the rubbish upgrade with jumpwired cheap cvbs cameras).

- Machine software is very primitive and done on an absolute beginner level, everything that requires knowledge was outsourced.
- construction is ridiculous, if something falls into the machine you can barely get it out anymore since there's no opening where an operator can reach below the pick and place table (basically on the MX80 the gantry (=Aluminium U-Profile + Timing Belt + stepper motor based Z Axis like on most OpenPNP based designs) and everything is directly fixed to the table inside the machine, the table itself is tied to the housing construction, we have cut the plate below the pick and place table into two pieces so we can get inside easily) It makes the impression it's done so the customer will get back to them for a (paid) service, even though that would not be necessary.

- for fixing the problems which Mechatronika have created during their service and which they are not even willing to fix, we have to disassemble the entire machine because the screws which are not tightened are all deeply hidden in the construction

If there are doubts about anything I write here, we are willing to let an independent consultant review the machine which they have delivered to us (all our updates are reversible and easy to explain). We have also been in contact with Delta about the portal drive system.


[update 6. June 2020]

the pulley was not fixed properly to the servo drive motor. Be aware that Mechatronika shipped it like that to us, the problem of an oscillating portal happened shortly afterwards, since the screw was loose of course the problem went worse after some time. Mechatronika did not care to fix that - and effectively that's why you pay a high price on a pick and place machine support--- not only for the machine itself which only costs a very limited fraction of that amount.

Aside of that the pick and place head PCB is just using a slow atmel microcontroller 2 stepper motor drivers. The estimate cost of that board is around 50$ and can easily be done by yourself. They did not change that too much over 15 years.
Mechatronika is doing substandard hobbyist machines and their software is nothing but insulting, requiring absolutely useless steps during the setup process.

[update 27. May 2020]

(update 2) At this time it looks like the entire pick and place head was not installed properly by Mechatronika during the service (We admit tracing a 0.5mm "play" is also not that easy; however Mechatronika just ignored our issues), it seems like we really have to check every screw after Mechatronika has touched the machine; that makes 3 loose items which directly affect the entire process

- one completely loose screw on the bottom side of the portal (that cannot happen due to transport issues (which Mechatronika might say); the screw was removable without a screwdriver).
- the driving unit was not installed properly
- the pick and place head was not installed properly (not attached stiff enough to the portal; it looked stiff but was not by applying some force we were able to misalign it; which results in a misaligned needle / just like the wrong suspected homing).

any kind of mechanical instability will cause big issues for any kind of pick and place machine because the machine is moving quickly / the motors are applying a lot force during the pick and place process.

Mechatronika wants customers to commission units which they buy from them - be aware; They're troublesome.

(update 1) Correction: The portal end-stops are not directly used for homing, the pickup-head will run against the bumpers and search the origin marking on the linear scale.
However something is wrong there from time to time.


thanks to that information to the Delta distributor in Poland which is familiar with those devices.
At that point our assumption was wrong that the bumper is directly used for homing; nevertheless hardware homing is still not reliable with that machine (and never was).

For example today's homing error (this was an unused component at that time):




The homing error will also require a re-calibration of the flying cameras.

not as off as usual, but still there, the maximum off distance which we experienced was 0.5mm (usually after power cycling after a day or so)

(update) actually it's not a homing issue and not loosing track it's a not stiff enough pick and place head



as a comparison (the claimed part) a different PCB in the array/panel (before the pnp head misaligned itself):



The bottom cameras are fixed, a misaligned needle/pick and place head will cause optical corrections to the wrong direction.

Mechatronika Sp.J. is not going to fix any issue as mentioned; they never did, they did not only fulfil only half of the upgrade which we have paid for (eg. one missing camera, 2 flying cameras with dead pixels) they also made the machine super unreliable for pick and placing.

Our workaround is currently visual homing with our software after the hardware homing; With their software that would not even be possible.

I must say the rest of his "problems" I don't like to comment, it's a
waste of time. His genius discovers announced few times daily about
homing procedures, design principles of different mechanical or
electronic parts, etc. in our machines make us laughing - we don't like
to comment or clear these crap and mechanical nonsenses he generates as
rifle...To be honest - he never said sorry if he made a mistake.

This is Mechatronika's statement.
For them an oscillating portal and insufficient installed system directly after their service, that doesn't seem to be an issue for them.
The customer cannot pick and place anything reliable - no problem for them of course, the customer should get a training; the loose screws in question are absolutely hidden and crucial parts of the machine it requires a complete disassembly of the unit.

If a customer buys a product reads the product manual (in case it's available) and has some questions he will certainly consult the manufacturer, if the manufacturer feels insulted by some questions something's certainly wrong.
A customer advising modifications in software or hardware should not be an issue either; After all this assembly machine is being used by electronic and software engineers, it's used by staff which is learning quickly. And all the modifications were only required to fix misplaced or missing components on PCBs - if the machine would have placed anything reliably it would not have been any problem.

- his problems with optical recognition are related with lack of
knowledge how to prepare templates and what is the crucial issue in this
method, etc, etc

We still agree that the optical pattern recognition system based on reference pictures is a fundamental misconception and should not be used by any pick and place machine (having to create template pictures of every component that looks a little bit different (eg. different in colour/grayscale value not only in size!), even various 0402, 0603, 0804 adds a lot operational overhead which normally is absolutely not needed). Picking up the component driving and capturing reference pictures over each camera (at least 3 cameras) takes a lot time. No cheap Chinese pick and place machine is doing that.

Industry standard for pick and place machines is that components will be analysed, eg. filtering and using a convex hull and calculating the center of the component (there are many variations, but analysing the landpattern/component shape is the correct answer to optical recognition) and not grayscale sensitive pattern detection and requiring reference pictures (it costs a lot operational time; and as Mechatronika points out it requires training in something that is absolutely not necessary for real)

However this is just a small issue compared with the mechanical issues.

[update 20. May 2020]
The end-stop buffers are almost falling from the machine, they can be slid easily on the surface with one finger since the glue is not holding them in place. They are absolutely improper for that kind of machine; and they're probably the most important parts when it comes to nulling the machine (wrong nulling will result in offsets for all feeder positions).

We went further into that topic, and can definitely say that using end-stop buffers for nulling is the wrong way, that's why the machine is off by 0.5mm from time to time after powercycling the machine. update the crashing against the endstop buffers might also have modified the position due to improper installation of the pick and place head;
We even thought that the PCB is moving during the pick and place process, because the target location went off within 1200 components.
Our application is drawing the component location over the video screen and the onscreen location changed after some time, that's how we finally figured out about that problem. Mechatronika does not support that in their application so it's difficult to trace such an issue with limited software support (as Mechatronika offers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzo9m0tMD0A&feature=youtu.be&t=572

update; the machine itself is accurate using the Delta motors and linear scales It's very important that everything is installed and fixed properly.

[update 4. May 2020]
We have also started to read the Delta ASDA-A2 Servo Controller manual and figured out that mechatronika is installing the servo controller the wrong way in their Mechatronika MX80 product



https://www.deltaacdrives.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ASDA-A2-User-Manual.pdf
Point 2.4
Do not install the drive in a horizontal position or malfunction and damage will occur.

Mechatronika is endangering the machines of customers and thus also the products of the customers.

[update 7. April 2020]
We have identified another problem with the feeder, they cannot handle various plastic tapes and will jam easily. We'll move our machine to pneumatic and electrical CL-Feeders since really everything Mechatronika did with our MX80 (their top model) is nothing but faulty. The more plastic tapes are in the Mechatronika feeders the more problems will come up, it goes as far as rewinding other tapes in the feederblock occasionally.

Plastic Tape issues are confirmed by other users, workarounds are proposed to squeeze a paper tape between the plastic tape (as a comparison cheap pneumatic CL-Feeders do not have that problem).

- we informed him, that Mechatronika software is licenced, not sold. The
ELUA (End User Licence Agreement), which can be found on CD provided as
a part of machine delivery clearly states, that reverse engineering,
decompile or disassembly Mechatronika Software is illegal

No need to reverse engineer their application; just capture the RS232 protocol.
Before claiming that they should proof that our work is really based on reverse engineering the application.
The reverse engineering is based on the electrical RS232 protocol not on their application.
We move in their application it will send the control commands via RS232.

Aside of that a CD was not delivered, they just sent the binary via Email no license and nothing at all (just like a small company would do)

- his reverse engineering works with machine's hardware cancelled any
warranty terms

Mechatronika gave us no choice, they did not fix their problems and that's why we went into it. The machine was overpriced and we needed a pick and place machine.
We have prepared the assembly of our products and prototypes and nothing worked properly - but we also had to deliver our products; Mechatronika did not support the oscillating portal neither did a post check after we proposed a workaround. The result at that time we outsourced the assembly again.

This weird company even tries to claim that it's our fault and happened during reverse engineering (which was only done because nothing worked properly, and their support does not help nor fix issues on time). The feeder issues are mechanical design issues (or just faulty feeders, but they aren't willing to fix their stuff on their cost since the beginning on; initially we have paid for a complete service which completely failed).

Mechatronika has invoiced new cameras, but did not install them - clearly fraud (see attached photo of the camera module - it's a 2006 camera)

- we have replaced this top (targeting) camera and corresponding
illuminator and added adjustable unit to get the constant gain of
sensor's signal, otherwise a strong reflected light needs hundreds
milliseconds to get the stable picture from the CCD sensor.

So a patched 10$ camera (which was sold around 2006) seems to be Mechatronika's standard for their upper class pick and place machine in 2017. Aside of that we have replaced it with a newer sensor which also offers a onscreen menu for applying the appropriate changes.

Look for cvbs camera module on ali-express.

According to a 3rd party statement, this camera is sold as a new camera in their top model MX80 in 2017.





Be warned.

This applies to:
Mechatronika MX80 and many application related issues apply to MX70, M80, M70, M10V

they all share the same pick up head design, which is nothing but rubbish; and Mechatronika does not even seem to configure them properly.
Most issues are due to mechanical issues, few issues apply to the optical recognition (eg. Onsemi TSSOP has issues)

This is a review about following product:
http://www.mechatronika.com.pl/content/view/31/4/lang,en/

One information ahead, we have reverse engineered the RS232 protocol and wrote our own software and are able to use the machine properly (which was impossible with what they have delivered to us)
But now let's get back to what they deliver:

- the optical recognition is based on trained picture patterns, this system fails when components reflect light and are not very close to the same trained pattern. This is a very very critical bug (Mechatronika doesn't care). This caused many component drops. (at least 5% with our units, mainly 0402)

part of a Mechatronika Email:

- using the Don't care area option please mask areas as on attached picture to prevent of the presence of part of nozzle in the captured image.

see attached picture "0402R template 2" (Mechatronika attached this picture and sent it to us back then)

attached picture component_10uF_crosshair (1).png is what we sometimes get from some components (those were usually dropped by Mechatronika's Software because of unpredictable reflections). The crosshair analytics was done by our software already, our own software is pretty much solid with it [without training and without a template picture] It usually only happens with some of our capacitors.

- The company does not properly calibrate their machines after servicing them (they charged us for that, why upgrade motors for an expensive fee and deliver it with a speed which is even slower than the old model?)
compare:
*
with:
* https://streamable.com/t8cfl (take picking up the component from the right side as reference, the left side is non optimized programming)
The M80 is stepper based, once upgraded to the MX80 it uses Servo motors.
This is a very critical issue, you ship the unit to them pay a lot shipping and service cost and they don't even care to do the setup properly for the money you pay
I know what I'm writing about since I set everything up by myself including the servos, this is not acceptable.

this part is subject of change, since the pulley wasn't installed properly (our technician figured that out in May 2020, once the part went completely loose); It was not installed properly from the beginning on. The servos have to be reconfigured properly to match those settings now (Jun 2020)

The average pick and place speed is now 1710 CPH instead of 1600 CPH (including optical recognition). The optical recognition is slowing down the process since CVBS is very slow (in fact it's slowing down the pick and place machine).


Mechatronika upgraded the motors in our setup, the default setup can only get <1K5 CPH it can all be adjusted - but in my opinion the customer should not even touch the motor settings by himself, especially since it is not documented.

official Placement rate
3200 - 4000 cph

for real it usually only does 1600 cph including optical recognition, the application has a delay of 200 milliseconds set up in windows for camera stabilisation due to interlaced video (so the machine is effectively doing nothing for 6 minutes per hour just to wait for a stable picture).


- a big disadvantage is that all different looking components need reference pictures

- by default the component rotation allows only 190 degree (hardware limitation) leaving only space for a 10° fix at to side (the 10° limitation to one side affects all components which are placed 0° or 180°)
(using a rasp this can be extended to 270°, probably even 360° if you change the connector for the vacuum, the limitation is a non documented register in the eeprom.. easy to find). A 190 degree rotation can reach any position, there's just a limitation on the offset correction.
- Component rotation stepper motor is loosing steps (usually customers don't notice that because the rotation is relative after each pickup, while the controlling itself is done using absolute hw degrees (4096 for 180 degree))
- we have had awful many component drops due to the optical recognition and wrong servo settings
- there we come to the Mechatronika MX80, they shipped it with misconfigured servo settings; The portal was shaking/oscillating terribly sometimes (due to a misconfigured PID controller). Mechatronika did not bother to fix that they just left us alone with it (well we fixed it since they're using Delta motors from Taiwan and Delta has a convenient Windows Tool for adjusting the controllers).
- the feeder system is error prone, the used tape might get stuck because the mechanical construction is not good enough for directing the emptied tape outside of the machine
- there are EMC problems with the pick and place head, touching it might reset the top head controller and defaults to the machine factory settings (the application normally reprograms the stepper motor configuration). Guess Mechatronika owners don't really pay attention to it .. when programming our own application we had a close look at everything.
- cameras are CVBS based (interlaced...) many dead pixels, shows up very low quality as shown in the attached screenshot



- there's an FPGA in the machine which is able to freeze the picture (full frame), and converts it to CVBS. Back then we've caught the Windows application capturing the picture too early thus returning an interlaced picture which caused a re-run of the optical recognition or dump of the component.

- it takes 5 mouse clicks to place a single selected component, try to place 10 single components - 50 mouseclicks (multiselect is not available), this is necessary eg. when a feeder is jammed and ignoring the part (and trying to fix it at the end).

Even cheap Chinese machines have multiselect in their software (see following video of the sub 5k chinese pick and place machine):



- pick and place needles are overpriced, the material cost is below 1 EUR, they're sold 100 EUR each (it's cheaper to buy a small used lathe and make some by yourself).

- the machine stops when problems come up, eg jammed feeders, it's absolutely necessary to do baby sitting. - no component tracking option (eg. if a component did not get placed it will not be marked as not placed in the software). In our rewritten application it has shown that component tracking is seriously mandatory to prevent that the machine has to stop all the time.

- No multipanel setup is supported
- We have done a machine upgrade (and paid way too much money for that), it also included a camera upgrade (attached you can see what kind of camera we got for that, those are 10$ chinese cameras but Mechatronika got it even worse). 

- Mechatronica was only responsive as long as they could see that they could get money from us for nonsense service and upgrades (technically nothing improved after servicing our machine, the new motors even came with a misconfigured servo controller as mentioned)

On the pro side:
- if you can get it cheap, the RS232 protocol is easy to understand so it's possible to add support for it to OpenPNP (however we did our own application for it... if you want to do a good one count 4 months+ in for everything including component management).
An older Version of Portmon for windows is able to capture all the RS232 communication.

Our pick and place software has around 35K lines C++, 9K Lines webscripting for the component/project management also online feeder setup, even an online preview of the PCB including all the designators. We went through many problems when doing our application, and know the limitations of the machine (eg. components are captured too small, different lenses could increase the entire pick and place quality).



the screenshot says 1800 cph (because some components close to the PCB were placed), it's more like 1600-1700 if components from all feeders are utilised

We are using OpenCV, and various algorithms to nail down the components - until now the machine dropped almost no component (compared with before 5% at least, various youtube videos also have a lot components lying around inside the machine).
Again a direct picture pattern approach for detecting components is nonsense and will cause problems.
If we wouldn't have been able to figure out the control commands we would have sold the machine immediately, we have fixed all the issues with our own application - and the machine is good with good software, but garbage with what it's delivered.


To sum up, Mechatronika (the manufacturer) doesn't care and if you have delicate components (slightly reflecting capacitors are already delicate for their system) which cannot be handled by the pattern recognition you're screwed.

Hope this helps when deciding to buy such a device.

The plus point of their product is that they're using standard items so at least we can get support and replacement parts from their vendors directly and easily.
Mechatronika is selling 1 Nozzle for 100 EUR, if you go to a machinist they can do 10 for 100 EUR including setup fee. CAD drawing time 5 minutes.

Some items also apply to Mechatronika M10V, M70, M80, MX70.
M70 and M80 use Stepper Motors, while the MX Series seem to use Delta Servos (400 & 200W Delta ASDA-A2)


=== Mechatronika Statement ===

Dear our Partners and customers - current and future,

From more than one year you could find many surprising and false posts on few forums, which concern particularly our P&P machine M80/MX80, but also all our SMT products and business activity as well.
the photos show a different story
Guy, who places and signs these posts as MR or Daniel is from ..... company. He places his posts full of anger and slanders omitting few fundamental issues, which finally should be clarified as follows:
 -  he bought in 2015 the second hand our M80 machine, which was originally produced in 2006. He bought this machine without any training on customer's side, tests, verification of quality, software features, etc, etc. - just paid and received.
They're lying, the PCBs inside were dated 2010 back then, however it was upgraded to 2017 and those are the ones we complain about;

Previous owner:
I can tell you that we did not purchase it at a trade show, we purchased the machine from the U.K distributor at the time for Mechatronika - Turner electronics, If a copy of invoice is required they may still have it on their records. If not, they will gladly confirm that we purchased the machine directly from them and they provided us with support through a service contract we took out with them for the machine. We purchased the machine brand new in May 2011, we were told the unit was in stock and had been in their possession from the manufacturer for approximately 12 months

After few weeks he started with many different questions - we've answered for all of them, but finally we decided to offer him the upgrade of that old machine to the actual version MX80 - this proposal had many advantages for him and for us from hardware and software reasons.
Machine was rebuilt and then we kindly asked him to come over to us to accept and confirm all works done. We invited him also for training - it's crucial issue to understand the principles of preparation of programs, templates, explanation of technological parameters and all new features, etc., other-words - to pass our standard training procedure, which all new customers pass.
Unfortunately he didn't come and didn't send any of his workers. He started play with the upgraded machine and then he opened list of problems regarding software - hundreds of problem...
We realized then the fundamental truth - he had no knowledge in SMT technology, no experience with P&P machines as he never worked in this area before. To be honest - nothing bad, everybody once starts and learns. The problem is that he suddenly "discovered" that he wanted quite different machine with the totally different software features !
He wanted us to give him our codes, data transfer protocols, etc. to prepare his own application. When we finally refused him - he started with reverse engineering works and disgusting campaign with blackmailing, offending and ageing us.
During last year he put a lot of false information on different forums. His opinion presented there were totally false as his mechanical and technological knowledge was zero. From the other hand he was surprised because of lack of any similar response there.
After several emails sent him to stop this "activity" we have decided to stop cooperation and all relation with him. We have sent him few crucial facts just for remembering also:

- he bought in 2015 almost 10 years old second hand machine
We only complain about the failed upgrade in 2017, we cannot complain about used items
We need your official order for the rebuild of your M80 to MX80
within
week to book it on our schedule for 2017.
We need asap the photo service as below described.

Best regards
Dariusz

and that is what they have got from us.


- he have bought this machine with our big surprise without any tests, verification at customer side
That's why we have shipped it to Mechatronika, which made the situation worse
- he had no time to check this machine before transaction and verify if machine fits your requirements regarding hardware and particularly the existing software - it was the first fundamental reason for his future experiences
again, that's the reason why we shipped it to Mechatronika and paid for the full upgrade and service
- when machine was upgraded by us we asked him to come over for commissioning, training and verification if everything was good - it's our standard procedure - unfortunately without his positive response - it was the second fundamental reason for his future experiences
commission is worthless, the motor wasn't fixed properly and the portal was shaking on our side, should we spend money and fly to their shit company for disassembling the entire machine for verifying that the parts are correctly installed?
- we've spent a lot of time to help him but it was wasted time as from the beginning he started reverse engineering works with this machine - it was the third fundamental reason for his future experiences
if what they have done required a lot time then they're highly unqualified for this business, our questions were short and should be easy to answer - aside of that we paid over 12K EUR for the upgrade and service, so we can't expect anything in return? Sorry
- we informed him, that Mechatronika software is licenced, not sold. The ELUA (End User Licence Agreement), which can be found on CD provided as a part of machine delivery clearly states, that reverse engineering, decompile or disassembly Mechatronika Software is illegal
- his reverse engineering works with machine's hardware cancelled any warranty terms
That was just done because they did not act on time, the machine was idle for months damaged PCBs, and wasted lots of components; Aside of that we reverse engineered the RS232 signals, no need to touch their crap application they're just running away from what they did wrong and trying to find an excuse

Such a customer and all facts described above happened us the first time in our 30 years history and our presence and activity on SMT market. From year 1990, when we sold our first P&P machine marked as M10 we have sold few thousands different machines and accessories for SMT application. For our customers and other people it's absolutely clear truth, that wouldn't be possible to develop and sell SMT machines in case if any facts related with our business honesty and rules described by him be true...
right, they're selling cheap CVBS cameras in their system, 30 years .. that's what the technology inside those crap Mechatronika machines is (except the delta motors, they're ok; they did not configure them properly but ok). At least one point were we have to agree

Mechatronika Team [[who's awaiting to rip off more potential customers]]

[SMTech]

Interesting, the bit where you write on your own software particularly. I think most people would probably scrap the machine, and send in the lawyers "fit for purpose" tests would seem to fail if things are this bad. Many of your issues are inexcusable, sadly I bet the payment terms on this machine were somewhat different to what we see on more expensive ones.

However - "Optical Recognition based on patterns" I'm no expert but how in basic terms else does image recognition work? On a Versatronics a much cruder method is used where it uses pretty natty edge detection algorithm to pick out its maximum dimensions and that's all it uses. Like many other machines Essemtec uses Cognex and that vision uses lots of algorithms, some of which are almost certainly pattern based, but they are used to spot bent leads, missing balls as well as dimension and offset data.

Nozzles - You want shocking try €400 for an Essemtec nozzle which is a metal tip inserted into a machined piece of Delrin. Unlike Fuji/Yamaha etc these are not widely copied and the fine pitch ones are sufficiently small and complex there's not really any way you can copy them cost effectively (the bigger ones are totally feasible). The Versatronics nozzles were purely machined Delrin, I don't think we or anyone who still has one has found a machine shop that would make them for much less than £40 in quantity despite the low material cost and relative simplicity of design, a service dept has to make profit on top of that. Plenty of people don't want the expense mess or space a lathe, training, risk assessment etc required in a real business if machining is not their area.

Its fairly reasonable for a jammed feeder to stop the machine, sadly when you bring down the cost of machine its the feeders that are likely to suffer first, its clearly much trickier to make good ones than most people want to recognize.

From what I have seen of these machines the software is pretty clunky too which means the arrival of the many Chinese options should really kill them off. All that is really needed to finish off the job is proper local support as currently that is limited.

[Styno]

Like the Mechatronika the simple mechanical feeders on our Dima Optimat suffers from the "spent tape curl-up inside the feeder" syndrome, in additiion to the tape sometimes getting caught by an edge somewhere. It requires regular checking on new reels until the first bit of the tape has properly exited the feeder after which they run smoothly.

Some of our second-hand feeders came with the very sophisticated hack of a section of small cable duct taped inside the feeder with the purpose of catching the spent tape early on and to guide it out of the feeder. We intend to copy this to all of our feeders. Perhaps this would work with the Mechatronika's as well?

[SMTech]

Like the Mechatronika the simple mechanical feeders on our Dima Optimat suffers from the "spent tape curl-up inside the feeder" syndrome, in additiion to the tape sometimes getting caught by an edge somewhere. It requires regular checking on new reels until the first bit of the tape has properly exited the feeder after which they run smoothly.

Some of our second-hand feeders came with the very sophisticated hack of a section of small cable duct taped inside the feeder with the purpose of catching the spent tape early on and to guide it out of the feeder. We intend to copy this to all of our feeders. Perhaps this would work with the Mechatronika's as well?

This is something of a risk with Essemtec CLM type feeders as well although primarily its plastic tape with pockets that is most likely to have an issue, luckily its really quite rare. With the CLM feeder tho' I would say the reason it can be a problem is because they are feeders in banks of 10 so the path of the spent tape is well inside the feeder housing and hard to get to, older feeders had nothing in that area between lanes so tapes could tangle with each other.

If you are working with a lot of short tapes there is an increased risk the front of the tape will hit small ledges and catch, so its best to keep a decent leader on your tape or even splice one on. However splicing may or may not cause issues with some feeder designs. ps...

[MR]

We have put together items where we can attack Mechatronika the legal way as well (but we're also a small business and time is an essential matter for us...), they do not meet certain required standards in Europe. Since Mechatronika is more or less a "partnership under the Civil Code" the owners are liable with their personal money it's going to become interesting.

However - "Optical Recognition based on patterns" I'm no expert but how in basic terms else does image recognition work?

analyze pictures, check rectangles, etc. it works flawlessly if you do it correctly. I only apply certain groups to the components eg. [0402/0603/etc] the identifier of those components is one side must be longer than another, and a certain area must be met to qualify as 0402 or 0603 etc, the pick and place list also has information about which component it is.
[QFN] .. component must be a square (with some tolerance) ... TSSOP8 component must be longer again and meet a certain area.
It works wonderful.

If you apply direct picture patterns that's never going to work perfectly on a quick run, and imagine how long a setup will require if you put more than 60 components in... some components can be grouped in the Mechatronika application yes but if the shape is a little different or if there are unavoidable reflections it just doesn't work anymore. Back then we've started to copy groups SOT323 SOT323-COMPONENTNAMEA SOT323-COMPONENTNAMEB etc. all not necessary... now it's just SOT323 and needs to meet a triangle shape which needs to meet a certain criteria (the optical recognition checks against the final rotation of the component and does some calculation again).
The key-skill required for doing all that is high-school trigonometry.

Direct template pattern based systems need reference pictures of the particular component. They're nonsense. A serious Pick and Place company might have rules about the landing patterns or about the shape of a components but not a direct reference picture of it - it's too error prone.
Check the attached picture... that's what we're doing with our application now. You can also see some dead pixels in the picture (that shows up quality).
So far it's 99.9% reliable I would say I did not run into any issues anymore.

I have stopped using their application a few months ago because when I tried to pick and place a prototype their software complained 7 times when trying to place 10 components... well, sure you can go on and try to reconfigure the whole thing until it will meet their requirement but it's just not economically and not needed if an application is done the right way.

My point was always the mess that happened to us was always the fault of their application - a proper application will:
a) be careful with customer components
b) not let the operator run into the knife

If you're the victim of that machine (especially the Mechatronika Software) all you can do is to resell the machine and hope that the new owner won't kill you for fooling them. I have seen a few users selling that machine quickly and they seem to be disappointed that they couldn't get the entire process work properly - and it's not even their fault it's the fault of the crap software. Even getting a training from Mechatronika in workarounds is not acceptable.

the last thing they've told me is you want a DIY machine... surely that's why I have bought their expensive unit and loose 4 months for our own products. And I've clearly told them where the problems are.
Finally we're still happy with it because it fits 100% into our process with our application, it now eats the Altium pick and place files directly without a stupid importer (like which they have in their application).
Our application shares a global component database in our company, so no need to duplicate entries anymore.

Regarding the nozzles, they are really not difficult to make by yourself and you can easily get the material for free from the scrapyard of a company which works with metal.. all you need is a small lathe, 20mm soft steel stick and some needles from china.
The nozzle changer supports 8 nozzles, all of them are easy to make.
The material cost including buying a small lathe is around 600 EUR (we've bought an old used desktop EMCO lathe which can do the job).
I know the cheap Juki nozzles (clones) from China, they're ages ahead and I probably would not try to make them myself.

For myself it was an interesting dive into mechanics, since the Mechatronika machines are very easy to understand and on a very low entry level.
The Delta servo motors will just shut down if you configure them wrong using the Delta controller - they're very safe to touch (the automatic emergency shut down of the servos happened after the full upgrade/service from Mechatronica from time to time ... ). After reconfiguring them by ourself the machine is also much quieter. Basically they messed up the de-acceleration settings of the machine.
As a normal operator (only) you'll think how you've fucked up that part of course... we've just decided to have a closer look at all the parts and figured out more or less everything.

[MR]

Like the Mechatronika the simple mechanical feeders on our Dima Optimat suffers from the "spent tape curl-up inside the feeder" syndrome, in additiion to the tape sometimes getting caught by an edge somewhere. It requires regular checking on new reels until the first bit of the tape has properly exited the feeder after which they run smoothly.

Some of our second-hand feeders came with the very sophisticated hack of a section of small cable duct taped inside the feeder with the purpose of catching the spent tape early on and to guide it out of the feeder. We intend to copy this to all of our feeders. Perhaps this would work with the Mechatronika's as well?

I think so! I will have a closer look at the feeders next week, we need to catch up with pick and placing our products now since we're already overdue with some products...
Thanks for the hint.

[wilhe_jo]

It seems you're not alone with this impressions.
There's a quite long thread over on the mikrocontroller.net-forum.

https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/377363 (english translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikrocontroller.net%2Ftopic%2F377363)

73

[MR]

That's our post, cheers from Austria btw.
I have seen that someone from our area (in Austria) has also bought a Mechatronika machine, they have sold it quite quickly and went for Autotronik some years ago.
Block-Feeders are not a K.O. criteria, aside of that we could also put other feeders into it since we know the communication protocol.
Someone already did that earlier in a youtube video.

I guess there are not so many customers of those more expensive machines out there and the lower end machines people just deal with the crap software that company is delivering.
Eg. for us it was impossible to reliably place an OnSemi TSSOP8 with their software (other TSSOP8 components were ok), we have spent hours trying to configure the software.
In our software we have no problem with it, and all we do is put the component into a category TSSOP8 (without any optical training).

Mechatronika is aware that we are posting the reviews online, we have told them. They don't care (the owners are supposed to be around 60 years old).

The machine was bought to increase productivity, effectively it decreased our productivity initially with their software. We are also (and are still) open to talk with Mechatronika but they don't bother and just said we focus on existing customers (one nozzle 100 EUR ... there you see where the money comes from).

[Kjelt]

Well that explains why a dutch distributor dropped them a few years back 

[MR]

We will keep testing and extending our pick and place application until December afterwards we can offer an upgrade kit for their machines.


So far we support in our application:
- Web based Stock/Component management, including Barcode/and Printer and an android app for setting up feeders
- The components are stored in a mysql database, our buyer is entering the components directly, and the pick and place machine is sharing the same data
- Components are all optically analysed (no template pictures anymore as mentioned)
- Multiple-Multiplanels are supported
- The pick and place list can be edited like a normal excel table
- Easy 2D AOI
- There's an OpenGL view of the pick and place which can zoom in/out the captured areas of the Pick and Place table
- Components are drawn onto the camera screen and virtual pick and place table view (that helps for verifying that the components will be placed at the correct position upfront)
- Fiducial check can be set up as separate task (Lock PCB, afterwards coordinates are recalculated and components can be placed eg. one by one - or using multiselect many at one time)
- The PNP head can be jogged by clicking onto the camera screen
- Runs with Linux dual screen (one screen for the camera, the other screen for statistical purpose)
- The system works with Fiducials and anonymous markers (I always use Fiducials, anonymous markers are just in case no Fiducials are available on a board - that needs 2 markers and 2 components for the setup)
- Multiselect is available for all tables (Mechatronika does not support that... nowhere).
- Several items like re-programming the component position/pickup height can be done directly on the video screen using hotkeys.

There are still a few more items which we want to implement:
eg. an error list, if a feeder is jammed or reel is empty it should be disabled while the entire panel should still go on with pick and placing, once everything is done the operator can go through the error list and fix the open issues.

Now we just need to get rid of the single pnp head and install 4x it's on our list.

That's the result of several months of work so far and we're very happy with it now, even though that's not what we have bought the machine for to write our own application.... but as usual we've learned a lot and luckily not all is lost.

[IconicPCB]

Seems to me You bought a secondhand machine then decided to  remake the design  in your own image while complaining how it does not work,  could have never worked, amplifying the allegations by posting same information on multiple boards and hoping to hear others scream "... the sky is falling..."

If I were a shrink i might be qualified to make claims of behavior befitting a sociopath  ( i am sixty five not sixty ) but seeing how i am not... i will not.

All i can say is I have an M10V and i do not see any of the issues you are enumerating.

In any case I look forward to your input on github.

[MR]

Not at all we have bought a used one and paid everything that has to be paid for a full upgrade to their latest model.
The initial plan was to use this machine for pick and placing our products and not for reverse engineering it.
But they did not give us any choice due to all the inaccuracy that happened in every aspect.

The M10V does not have flying cameras, I think they cause big issues, I'm only using the stationary camera for a few components, I cannot say too much about them.
Many issues also come from the Mechatronika feeders (jammed feeders, or the feeder is not strong enough to advance a tape .. and it's enough if that happens to one out of 60 feeder positions), however we also shipped them to Mechatronika for servicing them and they charged us over 2K Eur for the service. So absolutely no excuse for having it somewhat work. Either it works perfectly or it's shit.

We bought a second hand machine yes, but shipped it to Mechatronika for a full service, they have replaced the motors and cameras (look at the first post and the camera which was inside!), and they shipped it back with misconfigured the servo controllers. We have replaced the top camera with a 10$ CVBS camera afterwards which had a slightly better quality.
If you have a close look at the entire machine there's not much technology behind it, personally I don't see any value in the machine anymore since I dived into it so deep, all standard components.

There's not even an option to throw off a component with air pressure and it's possible to have 0402 components stick to the needle and the software telling the operator to remove it manually, because they saved a few bucks on a pressure switch on the PNP head. I don't know why we had so many issues with Windows back then but it's all gone with our application now.

We have faced big issues with the optical recognition and the flying cameras, we still have some logs around and it's just awful how many standard components were dropped due to misdetection. And as mentioned we don't need to take reference pictures of standard components anymore - so no drops from the optical recognition side.

On-Semi TSSOP - I have spent at least an hour trying to set up a pattern back then - and it did not work properly out of 10 components at least 6-7 drops. Again now - no issue anymore.
I have paid 40K Eur for all that (including service and upgrade from Mechatronika) and believe me for that price I did not intend to write my own application - but we had no other choice because Mechatronika's support more or less did not exist. I would expect that if you pay like 10K for such a pick and place machine to receive an awful software.

Additionally to the main issues I don't want to take reference pictures of standard components, this is really extra work which can be completely eliminated. Only lunatic would want that from customers for standard parts, sot323, 0402, etc.

----
the detailed log about the misconfigured servo drive was:
- we received the MX80 back from Mechatronika with new motors and new cameras
- we have started to pick and place a new project, after a few minutes the portal started to shake/oscillate heavily
- since we urgently needed those PCBs we tried to figure out by ourself what was wrong. First we aimed at mechanical issues, tightened a screw which seemed to be loose to us.
This temporarily fixed the servo drive because it added more tension to the belt which is connected with the gantry (we have told Mechatronika about that), because of that the motor required more power to move the portal and that might have matched the PID controller settings better. After all we know about it now Mechatronika should have immediately said don't touch that - sorry but we need remote access to a computer which is directly connected to the servo controllers via USB to fix this.

So with that setup we were running for around a half year, the vibrating portal happened again randomly but not that often at least.
Early this summer we decided to have a closer look at it again and figured out:
* adding more tension to the driving belt of the gantry almost damaged it
* Delta provides a windows tool for doing the Servo setup, the ramps were misconfigured, it took us 2 days to figure out how to set up the controller properly (yes we've never done that before). The gantry and servo drive are the heart of that machine, once you have that under control you can say it's your device already. No more oscillating portal anymore.

So Mechatronika has made a terrible mistake and instead of fixing it they just ran away, absolutely unacceptable.

[MR]

"manual" QFN placing, after changing the Tray (with our software):

https://streamable.com/muepw

regular run (also with our software):

https://streamable.com/t8cfl

in the meanwhile we have fixed the sequencial X/Y drive (as it was done with Windows before and run X/Y at the same time, the sequential drive can be seen in the Video), so now the machine is even faster than with the Mechatronika Software.
Since we grabbed the RS232 commands via portmon for winxp we have implemented the same problems first of course.

One screen is for the video the other one (not seen in this video) for status reports.

This is a very exceptional situation where a customer writes his own application for such a pick and place machine because the Manufacturer is unable to provide proper support and unable to provide a proper application.

[mairo]

I have Mechatronika gear and it has been working for many years + have never had any issues with correspondence.   

[MR]

It's good that you have no issues; however you are not participating the discussion, only writing that you have no problems without clear answers about my questions are worthless. This post is not against Mechatronika users, it's against Mechatronika and the owners who're directly working on the hardware.

- What are you placing?
Our side:
* 0402
* all feeders occupied
* QFNs
- Which machine do you use?
- Is it stepper or servo based?

it has been confirmed by several Mechatronika users in another forum that some (not all!) plastic tapes are causing issues as well, so you are not using such plastic tapes; which very likely means that the items which you are pick and placing have a lower requirement (which again is good for you of course!). We have many of them and it's possible that the entire feederblock locks up because of that.
Plastic Tapes which have that issue:
- some SOT323 (not all of them)
- some USB and IR connectors

If tapes are moving backward due to jamming up the feederbox that's clearly no user issue anymore.

And I'm not trying to bash anyone, it's a clear post about things that Mechatronika promises but aren't workable in the field (including the speed of our machine after a full upgrade - timings are measured and documented in the first post).

----


I think they do not have the servo based machine under proper control (or they just made a mistake with our machine before shipping it out to us). I have also read in the other forum that the stepper based system seems to be more reliable.
Especially those problems added a whole chain of issues and reworking need to our projects and has shown us the critical limitations.

But I guess you would also run into issues if you would use HASL based PCBs because the illumination of the PCBs is a design issue of the machine. eg. ENIG PCBs did not cause issues with the fiducial detection. There's no good way for verifying if the fiducial detection worked out or not with Windows - we have implemented the option "Lock PCB" into our application - it will just try to match the fiducials and draws the designators onto the camera screen so you know where the component is supposed to end up. It also features the option "snap to blob" which centers the detected fiducial automatically (in the training process).


fiducial_a -> default PCB illumination
fiducial_b -> PCB illumination using the shielding.

The shadow of HASL-based PCBs is not predictable, attached is just one example. The fiducial might also end up having a dark spot on the other side. Depending how the process turned out for the particular panel.

For 0402 such an offset can be an issue already - and we had that. The solution was to wrap around the shielding as you can see in the video:
https://streamable.com/t8cfl
I wouldn't use that machine without it anymore.

Just adding more power to the LED ring cannot fix this problem because otherwise the entire PCB will be too bright.

 
Mentioned this -> got no reply from Mechatronika back then.

Since the machine was used -- but shipped to Mechatronika for a full service, I also attach a picture of the feeder did they change this in a newer design? It would be better if every stripe would have its own channel out of the machine.
If a reel is completely full and the friction between the slot and reel is too big the feeder won't advance the tape, the workaround is to unwind the reel a little bit.
A proper solution would be to remove the friction.

I really wonder you never saw such an issue? Because to me that seems to be impossible.

You see the stripe leaving the machine at the wrong place, this gap should not even exist -> design issue.
At the right side of the feeder you can see the bottom of the reel holder, the reel is just lying on the other side so forwarding the tape will cause friction on that plate, and in some cases it's just too much friction so it won't advance the tape (recently a 0.1uF reel). This can also happen if the reel is almost used up because the diameter of the tape on the reel is getting smaller (so it needs to pull harder). Again they serviced the feeders and charged us for it, so no excuse for not having it work properly.