Neoden 4 pick and place

[mikeselectricstuff]

Assembled stand. Some parts a bit bent but can be straightened easily just by hand - missing the M5 bolts but i have a bunch of it. All holes are tapped and they do not forget to put the rubber sheet  .

Is the inside of the stand use to store anything ?
If not, then it seems to me that it's a waste of space - an open frame or solid table would provide storage space underneath.

[TheSteve]

The inside of the stand is hollow, no opening to store anything.

We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape. The best fix we could come up with was to set it so it didn't peel far enough and then use a little weight on the end of the tape. We also had a problem with a nozzle not being as straight as we would like. When it rotates the part the placement would be rather poor with one specific nozzle, changing that part(SOT23-5) to a different nozzle made it much better. If not for the resonator feed issue the machine would have been pretty much hands off.

A pic of the inside of the machine, our peel box "fix" and the panel we made. I am sure Ichan will get better pics of the inside.

[mrpackethead]

Did the wiring ship like that, or have you been in and messed it up?

[vonnieda]

Some interesting stuff in that internals shot!

Here is the pump: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/12V-Micro-Diaphragm-pump-KVP8-Series/500411_32497394487.html
I'm surprised to see they use four of them. One per nozzle, I assume. That's an expensive little diaphragm pump, too. I wonder how it compares to other similar units.

External stepper drivers, which makes sense. Also makes me think the drivers for the C axes are onboard the head. I'd be very curious what the wire bundle going from the control board to the head looks like.

And boy, that wiring is sure a mess. Looks like they might have soldered that ribbon cable directly to the motherboard?

Thanks for posting this, and please keep em coming! It's fascinating to see the guts of this machine.

Jason

[TheSteve]

Did the wiring ship like that, or have you been in and messed it up?

That is how it shipped. It is a bit of a mess but looks worse in the pic then in person.

[thommo]

Congrats The Steve!

Nice work, and very reassuring news. It seems that the 'path' delivered by Neoden's SW could certainly be improved. Many people appear to be reporting on it, but I can't because I've not actually seen, or tried using, it.

Nonetheless, once navigated, getting a usable product out of it on the other end, all appears possible, and now that you know how, practical.

I assume you'll report that Tape Puller issue to the Neoden guys.

Finally, I reached out to Tonny from Neoden on Skype, and also to Hiama [sales]. I haven't heard anything back from Tonny, and this is despite Hiami's reassurance he said he would contact me 'as soon as he got out of his meeting' [that was last Monday - so 5 days so far].

Based on this kind of response, I'm not hold my breath any longer for those SW updates and releases that he promised in a 'few days' either.

Don't get me wrong - I REALLY want this machine to deliver a workable solution. And I particularly want their rail/conveyor system feature.

We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape.

[Ichan]

Here are the video i that i take yesterday.

TheSteve said that the reason for a Neoden 4 is because it can pass through a standard door, here in my narrow space workshop it goes to the 3rd floor  .



While uncrating the machine we found Some of the feeder box pulled off, seems the utility box can move and hit the feeder on their shipment position.



Seems i have to buy some rubber feet for the stand..



Will take more pictures and video today.

-ichan

[mrpackethead]

no safety glasses!!!

[rwb]

@Ichan  I can already tell this is going to be one well documented Neoden 4 test 

Thank you so much for documenting this properly for all us guys who are on the fence and not knowing which way to go. 

Can't wait till production starts 

[thommo]

Was there anything unusual about the distance between the component pockets on the tape TheSteve?
Kinda sounds like that distance is on the edge, and between the feeder step resolution.

Are you able to swap it with another tape puller?

The inside of the stand is hollow, no opening to store anything.

We built more boards the other day. With this batch our TSSOP8 CPU feed perfectly but we had a small crystal resonator that had constant peel box issues. It wouldn't peel the tape far enough with one setting, the next increment up it pulled too much so that it constantly popped the resonators out of the tape. The best fix we could come up with was to set it so it didn't peel far enough and then use a little weight on the end of the tape. We also had a problem with a nozzle not being as straight as we would like. When it rotates the part the placement would be rather poor with one specific nozzle, changing that part(SOT23-5) to a different nozzle made it much better. If not for the resonator feed issue the machine would have been pretty much hands off.

A pic of the inside of the machine, our peel box "fix" and the panel we made. I am sure Ichan will get better pics of the inside.

[ServoKit]

Isn't that standardized? My machine has four (unitless) feed settings: 2, 4, 8, 12, no in-betweens.

Regards, Axel

[Cathy_Neoden]

Dear all,
Good day!
I'm Cathy, International Service Support Coordinator of NeoDen Tech., I'd like to thank you all for your kind attention and sincere suggestion regarding our NeoDen 4 Pick and Place machine.

We understand all the concerns of the machine users and our Team is continuously on the job, at this point, we would like to inform all our esteemed and prospective customers that , we are hereby putting a data related to our software development stages from the date of release of the first batch of machines from our factory ,Hope from the attached snapshot, one can understand that the way which we are addressing the issues.
We are committed to update each and every machine on the field with the latest update free of cost. We request our existing users of NeoDen 4 machines to be in touch with us for the new release update to get updated on your machine.

[mikeselectricstuff]

no safety glasses!!!

Not cutting anything - why would you need those ?

[elmood]

Hi Cathy,

Thank you for the changelog... but note that none of the stuff discussed here has been included in your list. Please see this link for a collection of issues and feature requests that we have been assembling from the user community:

http://collabedit.com/hfe7r

Feel free to edit it and add notes. Or better yet, please consider making a Bugzilla or similar bug tracker available publicly so that we can see the status of various bugs. This would give confidence to those not yet purchasing a machine that bugs are being taken seriously and being dealt with. And for those (like me) that already have the machine, it would make it easier to recommend the system to colleagues knowing that annoying problems are going to be fixed.

[Jefferson]

Hello !
...
I look at that picture PC. And much disappointed for many reasons such as:
1) This is an old version of HW, which isn't supported by the market.
2) Issue of a very old or very old components and reskrs ended. (Hard to find in the garbage, such components are already recycled)
3) A huge doubt prolonged use of such PC.
4) Not supported industry standards for this PC, only as a hobby.
5) What are the problems with the BIOS? no information.
6) OS Windows XP no longer supported.
7) The cameras look at the components and their old driver for XP, also the problem of long-term work.
Regular failure, if you look at the installation inside. Can apply the standards, but don't, sorry.
9) S/B bugs in software for video, enough capacity to deal with this. For this reason, many inaccuracies when installing small-sized components 0402, BGA and the like.

I am sure that such a high cost is just business, and beautiful picture.
Why is this not a professional, and not even HAM choice?

Who buys buys big risks in the PC and ...
I wanted to warn seeing photos PC inside.
I Am disappointed :-(

[Ichan]

@Jefferson, how do you compare it with a machine that use a proprietary SBC?

We turn up down the machine and take some photo.







-ichan

[ServoKit]

This is actually a fairly recent mobo, probably with Atom or Celeron processor. The chip near the ribbon cable seems to be an ITE IT8781F (4 UARTs, LPT, plenty of GPIO). I presume that the ribbon cable connects to a bunch of sensors, like limit switches and the like. I can't imagine that they use the parallel port to generate stepper pulses (Can't be ruled out though, Windows XP is still the system of choice for Mach3-style pulse generation.)

Addendum: The green PCB is mounted differently in ichan's machine and also seems to be a different version (says "83" vs "80", near the blue connector).

Regards, Axel

[elmood]

ichan: Where is your factory located? It looks like you have quite a big operation running there!

[Ichan]

Here are the nozzles and vacuum pump.

ichan: Where is your factory located? It looks like you have quite a big operation running there!

I am in Jakarta - Indonesia, not a big one just a private business serving the local electronic community in here .

-ichan

[rwb]

Ichan when do you expect to have the machine up and running the first board?

By the speed your moving I would guess today.

Thank you for all the pictures! This will be the #1 Neoden 4 thread out there.

[Ichan]

Ichan when do you expect to have the machine up and running the first board?

We plan to do the production on the next monday. Up to now the machine has not powered on yet, will do it tomorrow doing some test and setting up for production - hopefully everything goes well tomorrow.

Below is the final arrangement of the machine.


The finished board will go to the rear bench where the manual placement will be done and do some visual inspection + correction before the reflow.


Planned video camera view later, to capture both the machine and the display.


Will do the Youtube things now...

-ichan.

[mrpackethead]

no safety glasses!!!

Not cutting anything - why would you need those ?

Hammers and crowbars.  Only in places where OSH is crazyness.

[H.O]

Thank you for all the photos!
Nozzles looks like Samsung CP45 style.
I'd love to see a couple of closeups on the head it self.

[vonnieda]

Thank you for all the photos!
Nozzles looks like Samsung CP45 style.
I'd love to see a couple of closeups on the head it self.

Agreed! I'd also like to see some pictures of the cameras, if you can see them without taking things apart. Very curious to know what models they are using.

Jason

[TheSteve]

Here are the video i that i take yesterday.

TheSteve said that the reason for a Neoden 4 is because it can pass through a standard door, here in my narrow space workshop it goes to the 3rd floor  .


While uncrating the machine we found Some of the feeder box pulled off, seems the utility box can move and hit the feeder on their shipment position.


Seems i have to buy some rubber feet for the stand..


Will take more pictures and video today.

-ichan

Maybe your Neoden 4 was crated differently then ours but you only need to remove the screws from the bottom edges and the entire top of the crate simply lifts off and is even reusable. At that point the machine simply lists off its shipping mounts. See my pics in the first page of this thread.