Pick and Place Machine TVM802A / TVM802B

[pl116]

Hi,
what is the latest software version of  2.XX currently ?

thanks.

[bverstee]

Just uploaded the first run of my TVM802A!

[bverstee]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.
Very satisfied with the results, but also got frustrated a couple of times during the process, especially when the prick is stuck and the machine crashes when tearing some tapes while moving 

[Kjelt]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.

It looks like besides the larger component trays there is a bottom up camera but it is not used at all?
Shouldn't the machine pick the large part and check position and rotation on that camera and then correct for any off center pickups before it places the component?

[SMTech]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.

It looks like besides the larger component trays there is a bottom up camera but it is not used at all?
Shouldn't the machine pick the large part and check position and rotation on that camera and then correct for any off center pickups before it places the component?

You'd think so wouldn't you. Looking on Youtube at other videos it would seem using the camera is an option you choose to use or not, doing so would presumably remove most of those alignment issues. I would suggest using it for all components, if it works the way you would expect it should then auto correct the pick position for the next attempt. It will be interesting to hear how much easier this process becomes when you are more familiar with the machine and its software.

[bverstee]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.

It looks like besides the larger component trays there is a bottom up camera but it is not used at all?
Shouldn't the machine pick the large part and check position and rotation on that camera and then correct for any off center pickups before it places the component?

The 'vision' (IC detection algoritm) didn't work at all with my tests (it didn't properly detect the parts dimensions) so I disabled it for now.
Will look into it later.

[bverstee]

A video showing the whole process from stencilling until using the completed product:

[Kjelt]

Pretty nice product you made. 
The placement of the p&p is still off but the camera should fix that.
Your squeegee is a bit small, at the Action with the paint supplies dept. they have a set of four or five blue plastick for €0,89 , they work fine 

[bverstee]

Yeah, thanks, I should get a bigger one.

As said, the vision software is not able to detect the dimensions of the component at this moment, I need to look into it.
Hope it's easy to fix.

[pl116]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.

It looks like besides the larger component trays there is a bottom up camera but it is not used at all?
Shouldn't the machine pick the large part and check position and rotation on that camera and then correct for any off center pickups before it places the component?

The 'vision' (IC detection algoritm) didn't work at all with my tests (it didn't properly detect the parts dimensions) so I disabled it for now.
Will look into it later.

Hi, bverstee.
What do you mean - "Vision is not working at all" ? 
Funny video - to place IC without vision ))). did you check the calibration of vision systems ? what comp threshold did you set, why you do not use the marks ... etc
 
   

[bverstee]

Did a full run after lots of tweaking and tuning today.

It looks like besides the larger component trays there is a bottom up camera but it is not used at all?
Shouldn't the machine pick the large part and check position and rotation on that camera and then correct for any off center pickups before it places the component?

The 'vision' (IC detection algoritm) didn't work at all with my tests (it didn't properly detect the parts dimensions) so I disabled it for now.
Will look into it later.

Hi, bverstee.
What do you mean - "Vision is not working at all" ? 
Funny video - to place IC without vision ))). did you check the calibration of vision systems ? what comp threshold did you set, why you do not use the marks ... etc
 
 

I just added Vision and Mark.

The problem was that with default settings and whatever Comp Treshold I tried, the vision system didn't work - the part dimensions weren't detected (all kinds of rectangle boundaries on the screen).

I had to change the Angle Offset to make it working, but after that it wasn't set to the correct angle.
The Angle Offset was -0.2 by default, but the Vision system only started working when I set it to -0.1 or higher.
I also measured that the Angle Offset actually should have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of -0.8, but that certainly made the Vision system unusable.

But it works with -0.1, and with a slight angle adjustment to the parts that need it, it's perfect.
Watch the video:

[bverstee]

Let's break the silence: time for another 'instructional' TVM802A video.

[bverstee]

And two more videos with some examples:

[nicole]

Hey bverstee,
thank you very much for all your nice and candid information and videos! I have a TVM802BX and just recently started to seriously tinker with it. It also took me quite some time to figure out how to calibrate it properly and get most things working - at some point I want to write up the calibration process and my findings.
BTW - I asked the manufacturer for their latest software and this is now at V3.22 which finally adds vision aiming for the IC trays - very handy!

I think by now I have most things figured out and am in the process of creating a Python program to create CSV files for the machine from KiCad projects. I have figured out most data fields from the TVM802 CSV files and also found that most of the non-component fields can actually be omitted, which is nice! Then you do not have to replicate the stack configuration all the time. Now I need to think about how to best handle stack configuration and some kind of stock keeping and map this to pick&place projects. Will see...

I also found that the PCB mark bitmaps are actually raw 8 bit gray scale base64 encoded bitmaps, cool! What I have not figured out yet though is how to calculate the resolution, which seems to be a function of the mark size which is selected in mm in the software. Since the raw bitmaps do not seem to have any embedded information about their pixel resolution it must be calculated from this size setting? Oh well, some time someone or me will figure it out... ATM I use in KiCad fiducial "components" in the board design and the Python program will automatically assign the coordinates to Mark1 and Mark2 if it finds components FID01 and FID02 in the component list. Makes alignment of the PCB  lot easier.

But more importantly I still have a major issue with the up facing camera. The brightness / contrast of the picture is very very low, you can barely see the pins of the chips and thus the vision system has a hard time to detect and measure the part. By playing with the component threshold I can get it to accept the part but the result is more like a lottery, sometimes it's marvelous, sometimes it's just a bit off and sometimes it's totally wrong. It is not usable in this way.

I got myself the TVM802BX machine, i.e. the version with two reel stacks and the embedded PC built into it. Since I usually only use Linux I did want to have to bother to get and setup a Windows machine. So now everything is contained nicely in the TVM802. The PC they built into it is based on an Intel N2800 CPU, which is just enough to drive the machine - exactly what I wanted. Why I write this is because I found a couple of JPEGs on the SSD of this PC:





These look like some kind of picture quality setting from some device built into the machine? You can also see the up facing camera being seen from the down facing camera. If I could change these settings, like brightness, contrast, saturation etc. then I think the up facing camera could become useful. Or some other trick? I already tried to search for a tool for the STK1160 grabber built into the machine to maybe adjust the picture, but did not find anything useful. The machine also came with installers for some DVD/TV grabber software. These of course allow to change settings but these get reset once the SurfaceMount application starts.

Apart from these problem I am pretty happy with the machine, exactly what I was looking for and totally worth the buck :-) Only construction flaw is the back side reel feeder. The excess tape of the left side feeders is fed into a slid in the machine table and turned around so that it comes out from under the feeders again. You can run a hole reel without having to mess with the excess tape. But the back side feeder pushes the tape below the PCB holder and over the hole table out to the front. If you have an additional tray and such mounted there it will get messy. I have seen similar machines which attach the second feeder stack to the right with the same slit and tape turn around. Oh well, a minor annoyance.

Just the other day I also finally ordered a T961 small reflow oven completing my workshop :-)

Oh, BTW, this here is my (start) of my KiCad TVM802 project:
https://github.com/nica-f/tvm802-mdgen
I need to update it soon once I made up my mind how to handle the component<->stack assignment.

Looking forward to sharing more experiences and wisdom about the TVM802 :-)

Cheers
  nicole

[ubbut]

BTW - I asked the manufacturer for their latest software and this is now at V3.22 which finally adds vision aiming for the IC trays - very handy!

Omg finally. had reqested this ages ago!

But more importantly I still have a major issue with the up facing camera. The brightness / contrast of the picture is very very low, you can barely see the pins of the chips and thus the vision system has a hard time to detect and measure the part. By playing with the component threshold I can get it to accept the part but the result is more like a lottery, sometimes it's marvelous, sometimes it's just a bit off and sometimes it's totally wrong. It is not usable in this way.

Strange. I have basically all thresholds on 50 and it works. Reliability is improved when turning off the lights in my workshop. If you have overhead lights it also helps to build a small cardboard 'shield'.

Apart from these problem I am pretty happy with the machine, exactly what I was looking for and totally worth the buck :-) Only construction flaw is the back side reel feeder. The excess tape of the left side feeders is fed into a slid in the machine table and turned around so that it comes out from under the feeders again. You can run a hole reel without having to mess with the excess tape. But the back side feeder pushes the tape below the PCB holder and over the hole table out to the front. If you have an additional tray and such mounted there it will get messy. I have seen similar machines which attach the second feeder stack to the right with the same slit and tape turn around. Oh well, a minor annoyance.

Agreed, but it's manageable. My main issue here is access to the back feeders (I have the machine against a wall due to space constrictions)

[nicole]

BTW - I asked the manufacturer for their latest software and this is now at V3.22 which finally adds vision aiming for the IC trays - very handy!

Omg finally. had reqested this ages ago!

Sadly they do not have a public download for it, so if you still have a contact to them I'd recommend asking them. They are very responsive via Alibaba, which is where I got the machine from, directly from QiHe.

But more importantly I still have a major issue with the up facing camera. The brightness / contrast of the picture is very very low, you can barely see the pins of the chips and thus the vision system has a hard time to detect and measure the part. By playing with the component threshold I can get it to accept the part but the result is more like a lottery, sometimes it's marvelous, sometimes it's just a bit off and sometimes it's totally wrong. It is not usable in this way.

Strange. I have basically all thresholds on 50 and it works. Reliability is improved when turning off the lights in my workshop. If you have overhead lights it also helps to build a small cardboard 'shield'.

Yeah well, I guess they also use different cameras... my machine came with a defect LED light for the down camera, some LEDs did not work. Instead of just the ring PCB with the LEDs they sent me a completely new camera assembly! And this new camera is much brighter and has more contrast than the original one.

Anyway, yes, I started out with the default of 50 and it kind of worked. It worked a bit better for a LQFP100 but also there every once and again I have misalignments. With a QFP32 it gets even worse which is, I think, due to the construction of the lighting, which has most illumination towards the outside and less towards the center. I am in contact with QiHe about this problem, let's see what they come up with. And yes, I have switched off all light in the workshop room I think I'll also get myself some matte black paint and paint the bottom side metal / aluminum parts of the head to avoid reflections.

BTW - the cameras in my machine, as far as I can see it, are regular video cameras outputting a composite video signal which is then fed into the controller PCB (the one with the Ethernet) and get switched there to the USB framegrabber, which in my machine is a STK1160 (or STK1120, not sure) based grabber USB stick - so not the XBOX cameras anymore which they used before. I don't know if this is an enhancement or regression A proper digital camera with more resolution than just a PAL or NTSC picture should be better?

Apart from these problem I am pretty happy with the machine, exactly what I was looking for and totally worth the buck :-) Only construction flaw is the back side reel feeder. The excess tape of the left side feeders is fed into a slid in the machine table and turned around so that it comes out from under the feeders again. You can run a hole reel without having to mess with the excess tape. But the back side feeder pushes the tape below the PCB holder and over the hole table out to the front. If you have an additional tray and such mounted there it will get messy. I have seen similar machines which attach the second feeder stack to the right with the same slit and tape turn around. Oh well, a minor annoyance.

Agreed, but it's manageable. My main issue here is access to the back feeders (I have the machine against a wall due to space constrictions)

Yes, the feeders in the back are a bit hard to access. I also do not think I will use them often but I thought, if I buy such a machine I'll go for the fully loaded one, you never know :-)
Would be agonizing finding out later that for a super cool project you would need just these two more feeders!

Tonight I took off the main table and took a couple of pictures of the inside of my machine, will upload these in a bit... pretty interesting. The controller PCB uses a STM32F107

Cheers
  nicole

[nicole]

And here come the pictures of the inside of a 2019 TVM902BX - sorry for the partially not so great quality, I had to hold the table (which is REALLY heavy) with one arm while placing the light and taking pictures with my phone on the other arm :-)



This is the small embedded mini ITX PC - Intel N2800 based, 2GB DDR3 RAM, small 32GB M.2 2244 SATA SSD. It is attache with the blue ethernet cable to the machine controller and the red ethernet is my connection to my LAN. Beneath the blue ethernet cable you can see the black USB frame grabber for the cameras. Its input cable is attached to the machine controller PCB.



A bit better view of the embedded PC and the machine controller board.



And a bit closer...



First try to get a picture of the machine controller *meh*



Ah, here we are, a bit better :-) What you can not read is the chip marking on the controller's CPU - STM32F107



A set of three power supplies.



An overview...



Slightly better overview...



Again the PC mainboard.



Close up of some of the PCs connections and the frame grabber.



Another shot of the machine controller board.



Another try...



And again... :-)



The pumps - there are two, I think one is pressure and one is vacuum.

Oh well, not much to learn from here. But I am pretty happy how this machine is built, pretty solid and clean, all wires are properly connected and kept into place.

Cheers
  nicole

[ubbut]

BTW - the cameras in my machine, as far as I can see it, are regular video cameras outputting a composite video signal which is then fed into the controller PCB (the one with the Ethernet) and get switched there to the USB framegrabber, which in my machine is a STK1160 (or STK1120, not sure) based grabber USB stick - so not the XBOX cameras anymore which they used before. I don't know if this is an enhancement or regression A proper digital camera with more resolution than just a PAL or NTSC picture should be better?

Yes they started doing this a few years back all machines with firmware 3.xx use the new cameras with STK1160. Seems to be sufficient though, I can place 0.5mm pitch well (If I don't forget to pray to the right gods and perform a voodoo dance)

Overall the reliability is borderline sufficient. One day I can place boards just fine, the next day it's never ending hiccups and faults.I still ( after 2 years) have not figured out how to calibrate the part and pick positions correctly. It just does not make sense and does not work.

[ubbut]

This is my machine by the way. You can see the tapes of the back feeders are not really an issue..
I added a joystick for better manual mode control
The vibration feeder works well, to. You just define an 'IC Stack' with 1*1 and it will always pick the same location.

[nicole]

Oh, very cool!
I wasn't aware that QiHe also offered a vibration feeder, I am missing that clearly :-)

Meanwhile today I partially solved the camera mystery. The cameras used are, according to their markings, 1080p (how do they output 1080p to composite video!?) Sony cameras. The more interesting part is that the small maybe 4x4cm PCB not only has a 3 pin connector for GND, +12VDC and the composite video signal, but there is a second header with 6 pins - hmm! On the PCB next to the header are markings with "G U D L R M" - what could that be? Well, turns out, this is GND, Up, Down, Left, Right and Menu! These small cameras have an OSD (On Screen Displlay) menu integrated which, you may have guessed it by now, allows to control the image taken! Like brightness, contrast, exposure mode, white balance and a couple more.

So, if your back camera is too dark and delivers too little contrast to properly detect parts just connect a button pad with these five buttons (each pulling to GND when pressed) to this connector and fine tune your camera picture! The problem is just that the camera is a bit tough to access. At least in my machine the connector is exposed and accessible for the up facing camera - not so much for the down facing camera where the connector is removed completely. But my down facing camera isn't a problem anyway, so that's OK for me.

No I have to find a matching connector and build myself a cable - I made a keypad today and tested it with the old down camera and this worked super nicely! And the cameras are actually pretty good, they deliver a nice and sharp picture, when you unleash them from the brutal settings they came with. The OSD can BTW also be set to English (by default it's Chinese, of course).

Getting there!
So I think there is serious hope to get the up camera to behave.

Cheers
  nicole

[ubbut]

Cool info about the cameras. Hope I won't need it though

The vibration feeder is not from QiHe and I don't know if they even sell them. Just a random one from aliexpress

[nicole]

Yesterday I finally received the camera keypad PCB from QiHe and after some playing around I was able to increase the contrast a lot! The camera now produces a pretty clear vision of the chip pins/pads which helps to make the vision system much more robust! The jitter in the part detection (the red rectangle) is less and I could increase the component vision threshold again which helps a lot with precision.

What I also had to do was to adjust the "distance per pixel" in the sys settings since the measurements of the camera were a bit off all the time. Now I get readings which are just a few 1/00mm off, which of course helps a lot with the positioning.

What I still find a bit annoying is the speed of the up vision system. It takes ages for it to adjust the chip which is IMHO caused by the system to try to adjust the part position while hovering over the camera. With the latency of the vision system this ends up in a lot of back and forth with hysteresis efffects and so forth. Takes ages and I think this is the wrong way to do it. What one should do instead is to move the part over the camera taking the nozzle as the center and then to just measure the part as is and not trying to correct its position already - only measure size, position and angle. Then take these values as correction values for placing the part. This should be a lot faster and this is AFAIK also the way how bigger machines do it. If you watch videos from other machines these just speed over the camera quickly snapping just one picture and then move on to placement.

So I went ahead and suggested this to QiHe and they responded that I should try the "fast vision" mode - WTH!? Cool! I have not seen such an option yet anywhere in the software. They will tell me tomorrow *meh* how to enable it and I am frankly pretty excited! I'll let you know once I know how to enable it.

PS: If you are also struggling with setting up your machine and all the calibration necessary, one quick tip: Make sure you have some adhesive on your PCB when trying to place parts. I once made the mistake not having it and lost almost half a day with total frustration because regardless of what I adjusted the outcome would be just like a lottery. After applying some adhesive to the PCB surface - tadah! As adhesive I use a 3M double sided tape which uses the same glue as on PostIt notes, i.e. easily removable and reusable. Not cheap that tape but very handy for this purpose and you won't need much of it anyway.

Cheers
  nicole

[nicole]

*doh* ! The "fast vision mode" they mentioned is the "Quick" setting instead of "Accurate" when choosing the per component vision mode. Oh dear, I need more coffee. And this mode exactly behaves as I described and wanted it :-) Now I just need to check if it is just fast, which would be great, or also indeed less accurate and if, how much less accurate.

BTW: I am playing around heavily with the vision parameters. There is a general vision component threshold in the systems setting but you can also set a component threshold per part, which I do not fully understand. Which one gets applied when? This parameter is pretty important since it determines the required "contrast" in the vision picture for the outline detection. Setting it too high will result in the part not being detected at all, setting it too low may take anything (even a reflection or the bends of the pins) as an edge.

Getting there!

(I think at some point I will write a posting with the calibration steps... this learning curve can be avoided a lot by some documentation...)

Cheers
  nicole

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Has anybody found an *easy* way to get software / firmware / whatever updates for these machines? The whole "send them an email and see what happens" process has been very hit and miss over the years .....

Thanks

Bob

[nicole]

No, that's also what I did the last couple of times, asked via Alibaba messages (I do not even have an email). On Ali they are pretty responsive and I usually got a download link within a couple of days - latest version I have now is V3.22 (this is for the machine version with just one USB video grabber).

BTW - I have started to document some (hopefully) helpful things in WiKi:
https://source.dpin.de/nica/tvm802-documentation/-/wikis/home

I spent quite some time figuring out the calibration and wanted to share it since it really makes a difference - once done right it just works like a charm :-)

Cheers
  nicole