Pick & Place with conveyor, 0201, CL Feeders

[Daughenbaugh]

We are looking to upgrade our line.  We currently have a DDM Novastar LE40V, which has been great for us, but we are looking for a few specific new features:

* Conveyor system (less human board handling)
* 60+ Yamaha CL Feeders (industry standard, inexpensive, easy to swap)
* 0201 Capable (for future needs, implies spindle x/y instead of belt, at the very least would be better at 0402)
* Good Software (hard to evaluate before purchase)
* Inexpensive (cheap Chinese, instead of expensive Juki, Yamaha, Samsung, etc)

We actually don't really care about throughput - we aren't high volume.  But faster isn't a bad thing!

This forum has so much great information, I want to give back some of my research, and ask for suggestions.

I have narrowed my short list of units that meet our requirements to:

1. YXing SMT660
** https://www.zjyingxing.com/products/pick-and-place-machine-smt660-with-6-heads-64-feeders-ID259.html
** Rebranded HW-T6SG-64F
** 6 Heads
** May not really be up to 0201?
** 64 CL Feeder capable
** $11,300 on Alibaba

2. YXing SMT880
** https://www.zjyingxing.com/products/pick-and-place-machine-smt880-with-8-camera-80-feeders-ID308.html
** 8 Heads
** 80 CL Feeder capable
** $15,200 on Alibaba

3. CharmHigh CHMT761P6
** http://www.charmhigh-tech.com/sale-10243086-high-configuration-chmt761p6-charmhigh-6-heads-60-feeders-auto-rails-ball-screw-auto-nozzle-change-p.html
** 6 Heads
** 60 CL Feeder capacity
** $14,800 direct

4. Kayo A8L
** http://en.kayosmt.com/prod/detail/105.html
** 8 Heads
** 70 CL Feeder capacity
** Quote required (I don't want to share the quote they gave me, but it is a bit more than the others)
** Recommended on these forums

5. Rison RS-TX5
** http://www.rison-aut.com/en/content/xiaoxingtiepianji2/38.html
** 8 Heads
** 56? CL Feeder capacity
** $18,000 on Alibaba

I also looked at several other brands and models:
Qihe: no 0402
SmallSMT: No Conveyor
Borey: No 0402
Neoden: belt driven, questionable for 0201, limited component heights, bad feeders
SMTmax: expensive

Several people on this forum own these machines-
xdave has 2x SMT660's
Proto has a SMT660
jedas has a TVM920
etc.

I have been in contact with Jenny Wang at Kayo and she has provided info on their stencil printers, ovens, feeders, and lots of other good stuff.  We may end up doing a big package deal with them. 

Can any of you with machines from the above manufactures give a review?  I would greatly appreciate it, as would many others on this forum.  I will make sure we share our experience once we take the leap with one of these.

Thanks!
Jason Daughenbaugh
http://aed.pro

[Smallsmt]

If you don’t need to buy immediately we add 2 more machines soon with conveyor option.
Please read my last postings.

Regards
Michael

[xdave]

We have used two Yingxing SMT660s for about a year now (2018 models with the single conveyor).  They are rebadged HW-T6SG-64F developed by Beijing Huawei Guochuang (http://www.smthw.com), although I believe YX buy them in part form and assemble themselves as there are some subtle differences from the other HW-T6SG-64F clones with things like fixings, etc.  You can also buy them for export from Wenzhou Zhengbang.  Both YX and ZB OEM them under license.

Ours do 0402 with ease.  We have no requirement for 0201 so haven't tested them.  You used to be able to order them with belt X axis so be sure to specify you want the ball screws if they are still optional.  For component detection there are two cameras - a high quality single camera and a smaller but much faster camera for each head that can process each simultaneously for speed (so 6 cameras or 8 on the SMT880).  We only use the high quality camera for 32 pin chips and above, the fast cameras work well for everything else (including checking polarity on LEDs, etc).

The software is not developed by YX and is provided by Huawei Guochuang and rebadged depending on which OEM is supplying it.  The main software itself is a .NET WinForms application which although obfuscated can be quite easily converted back into source code and modified to suit.  We needed to do that to fix a couple of bugs, and adapted the workflow to fit in with our processes.  The software code is horribly structured, but is actually quite comprehensive and as all of the machine control, visual processing, etc, are handled there you can effectively take control of the entire production process.  We use the mark camera (down facing) to check 2D bar codes on each board in an array to record exactly which component batches have been placed on each board, and to automatically skip "crossed out" boards without having to set it up manually.  We also replaced the library functions to use our existing inventory system.

(If you are interested in using the software I can share further, but it is worth noting it comes with another .NET library that exposes just the hardware interface that you can plug into other software by writing an interface.)

They have 64 CL feeder slots, can support 48 trays and 48 vibratory feeders with the supplied software (but with the code you can adapt that as needed).  Realistically you can place 8 trays on the bed at once.  It is worth noting that the UI for setting up trays is very simple to use, and supports using external tray feeders if you have need for them.  You can pick components from anywhere within the X-Y working envelope and have control over speeds, heights, etc at each step.  Re-calibrating the machines is a simple process which you are guided through, although ours was pretty good out of the crate which suggests they QC each before it leaves them*.  There are helpful shortcuts for time consuming tasks such as picking the centroids for the outer pneumatic feeders and having it update all the others for you.  The English translations are mostly good, with only a few Google Translates needed.  I got the impression that quite a lot of development hours went into the software, which is not always the case with cheaper Chinese products.

We looked at a few similar options when choosing the SMT660s and ultimately chose them because for around $10k USD (at the time) you got a lot of hardware for not a lot of dollars.

TBH I'm not sure the 8 head version justifies the extra cost as the rest of the machine is identical.

* Finally worth noting that we had a failure of a front side controller board out of the crate where the input SMEMA interface was damaged and shorted it out.  Yingxing sent a replacement out FOC (shipping at cost), so the warranty support was there.  This wasn't picked up in QC because they test the machines in isolation.

[Reckless]

Chinese machines are crap!  Not useful in a production environment. I contacted all above companies and followed a few people who had experience with them.  So far I am not aware of one single person getting use out of them.


If anyone is interested I have a top rated Assembleon Sapphire for sale with $25,000 worth of spare parts.  It uses Yamaha CL feeders and get down to 0201 reliably.  These are rebadged Yamaha GEM machines that are known to be bulletproof!  I have it for sale $14,000 in Chicago.  It's hooked up and can be seen fully operational. Don't mess with the cheap chinese toys and step up to a real industrial machine that will last forever.  Hits over 25,000 cph.

[Proto]

Follow the link below to a comprehensive YouTube video that shows programming an SMT880 from loading the coordinate file to setting and adjusting the parameters needed for a production run.  It lacks audio and you must follow text overlays on the screen while observing the mouse pointer as well to fully track the progression.  By the way, Jim Jiang at Yingxing is very responsive as I have needed spare parts and generally receive them in 2-3 days by paying a reasonable charge for expedited shipment. 

[mrpackethead]

Chinese machines are crap!

Meh. Some chinese machiens are rubbish and some are very good.   Some german machines are rubbish as well.  And so are some american ones.   How about we stop banging on with non specific statements like this becuase they are not really very useful.

[SMTech]

There appear to be some "Chinese" machines that have on paper specifications that in some areas might make them OK, but without getting your hands on one and playing with the software and running a few PCBs its hard for anyone to say they are "Good". Autotronik machines are sort of chinese, fairly successful and at least "goodish", Faroad specifies a reasonable speed but in other regards is about 10+ years behind the kind of machine its conventional rivals are selling. Faroad has a UK seller, but who knows if they still will in 3 years? If you look at some of the videos of the "Chinese" machines the workflows are awful and sometimes baffling, they make you set things up the machine should know in the first place and all sorts of nonsense. They often lack toolchangers & love to make excuses, there is no excuse its stupid, a significant proportion of people who take delivery of these cheap machines immediately have to request a spare for a faulty or missing part, no excuse for that either.
If you take the very bottom end of the non-chinese market then sure some of these machines should be very very scared of what the Chinese ones offer, DDM Novastar,  & Mechatronika for example (the last one in particular because they are slooooow)
When you buy a machine like this, there is more than just the headline price, local support & knowledge also matter, so does service & response time, so in the UK I would far rather go to http://www.intelligentdrives.com/ if I needed a smallish but not necessarily fast machine than something I can get off Alibaba, at least with the UK machine I know exactly where to go if something goes wrong.
In a different thread I said there were no equivalent machines coming out of China, I still think this is accurate, doesn't mean they aren't good or good enough, but they are not there yet on all fronts, sure generalisations are bad but low end western machines are in a difficult place anyway because their price performance ratio has never been excellent. Sometimes you can find some really odd differences, skip to printers for example and you can find the AP430 rebadged by multiple vendors. In the UK I can find that listed for £35k GBP, I have a quote on my screen for a brand new UK built printer with decent addons for £60k before discount, bargain you might think, but look again the AP430 takes a 29" (736mm) stencil but has a miserable print area of just 450 x 350 if you get the L version, so basically its not really a 29" printer.

[mrpackethead]

There appear to be some "Chinese" machines that have on paper specifications that in some areas might make them OK, but without getting your hands on one and playing with the software and running a few PCBs its hard for anyone to say they are "Good".

That would apply to any PNP machine, or in fact any bit of machinery.      You have to do your homework.  Broadbrush statements about how good or bad something is based on its origin are just really unhelpful.  You either have to do the hard yards yourself, or have someone you implicitly trust to do it yourself.  Even then sometimes you'll have something come up after you've done your testing.   Its just how it is.     I've bought some 'german' machinery ( German is supposed to be amazing right? ) that was just terrible.  I've bought some Chinese gear that is great.

[xdave]

People need to keep perspective on these machines and remember they are $10k, not $100k or even $25k.  They are not in the same market as the more established machines.  If you are buying a $10k machine brand new, it is accepted that you are saving money by not having the same level of training and occasionally having to get your hands dirty with maintenance.

That said, with the Huawei Guochuang/Yingxing machines above we've had very few physical issues.  They were commissioned in March last year and have run thousands of boards without fault from the machine.  (I'm ignoring user issues like loading the wrong components.)  We quickly updated the software so I don't have a lot of experience with the OEM software but it is similar and functions well.

The workflow that Proto shows in the SMT880/660 video above seems very cumbersome because it takes you through all the feeder setup stuff which you would not normally do just to change jobs over.  It is just being shown as a tutorial.  In most cases that is done once and the software retains them, and uses the chip library data to adjust heights/speeds/etc.  I only ever touch the feeder settings on ours if I change the tray locations, I can't recall touching the pneumatic feeder settings in months.

The normal 'new job' set up workflow on those machines goes like this:

1) Import component list from your design software.

2) Map the columns to the required data (e.g. X, Y, A, value, etc).  You can optionally have fidcucial marks imported from the data (or you can set them later).

3) Pick two known points in the data (typically two components on opposite corners) and locate them using the mark camera to automatically adjust the X Y data coordinates (mm/inches) into machine units (steps).

4) Panelise/array the boards if needed.  Data is cloned so you can adjust for any board in the array, but they retain the original links so you can still manage just the source data too.

5) Use the SMT table window to map each component to a feeder, and settings like height, movement speed, the camera recognition algorithm to use, etc.  Normally you set up your component types once in the global library and map them to the board components for each job.  (The software will try and do that automatically where there value/type and footprint are the same.  Once you have a working library built up you rarely need to touch the mappings.)

6) It is a good idea to check positions for a few random chips and any critical ones for accuracy and jog them if needed.  If your mark settings in step 3 are accurate you shouldn't need to make changes.  You can use the feeder screens to test pick and use the component list to test placement.

7) Run validation to check for errors and then load up the feeders and off you go.

When opening an existing job you just do step 7.

[protoneer]

1. YXing SMT660
** https://www.zjyingxing.com/products/pick-and-place-machine-smt660-with-6-heads-64-feeders-ID259.html
** Rebranded HW-T6SG-64F
** 6 Heads
** May not really be up to 0201?
** 64 CL Feeder capable
** $11,300 on Alibaba

We have one of these(SMT660) and they are pretty solid. Been using it for just over 18 months and have done thousands of boards on them.

We could only afford one machine when we purchased it but we are now looking to expand.

My interest is towards the smaller SMT460's with a conveyor.

Or even the NeoDen 7 with component cameras on the placement head. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HANGZHOU-NEODEN-7-Automatic-SMD-Mounter-LED-High-Speed-Machine-SMT-Pick-and-Place-Machine-6/32960242488.html

[protoneer]

The software is not developed by YX and is provided by Huawei Guochuang and rebadged depending on which OEM is supplying it.  The main software itself is a .NET WinForms application which although obfuscated can be quite easily converted back into source code and modified to suit.  We needed to do that to fix a couple of bugs, and adapted the workflow to fit in with our processes.  The software code is horribly structured, but is actually quite comprehensive and as all of the machine control, visual processing, etc, are handled there you can effectively take control of the entire production process.  We use the mark camera (down facing) to check 2D bar codes on each board in an array to record exactly which component batches have been placed on each board, and to automatically skip "crossed out" boards without having to set it up manually.  We also replaced the library functions to use our existing inventory system.

(If you are interested in using the software I can share further, but it is worth noting it comes with another .NET library that exposes just the hardware interface that you can plug into other software by writing an interface.)

I am very interested in this. You are doing exactly what I would like to do,capture serial numbers of the boards.

I was looking at sniffing the serial port and directly talking to the machine. If there is a hardware extraction layer like you say that would be much easier to work with.

The smt460 uses the same software, so it might be possible to increase its accuracy with manual software. 

[INGMULTI]

Hi,

We are about to order 2 SMT880 machines, and as you says, Mr. Jim Jiang is very professional. But we are worried about the setup and the learning time we may need to make it work, is it to hard to make it work? as well as the support we may need from and have form the Yingxing thechnicians, can you tell us something about them?

Also, does anyone has a working video of the SMT880 different that the one Jim Jiang has?

Thank you all in advance.

[protoneer]

Hi,

We are about to order 2 SMT880 machines, and as you says, Mr. Jim Jiang is very professional. But we are worried about the setup and the learning time we may need to make it work, is it to hard to make it work? as well as the support we may need from and have form the Yingxing thechnicians, can you tell us something about them?

Also, does anyone has a working video of the SMT880 different that the one Jim Jiang has?

Thank you all in advance.

My SMT660 has been great over the last 18 months. I recently needed to replace a camera on the unit and they were very helpful with supplying it.

Software is fine and once you have played around with it you should be good. It's not super advanced and config is done with XML files that can be backed up incase your changes are not good.

The Conveyor on the SMT880 machine is better than the one I have and the upgrade is pretty good. Supplied feeders have been great and I have not had an issue with any of them. Well worth buying as many of those as you can afford as you find them much cheaper.

[pisoiu]

My SMT660 has been great over the last 18 months.......

I am also considering buying one SMT880 but I need a very specific workflow, in order to cut times required for setup.
From what I understand, the machine software have 2 parts, one in which all 'teaching' is done, from where to source components and where to place, then create project file ( .qn file). Second part reads .qn file and actually execute the job.
In order for me to optimize workflow, I must generate .qn file offline (and I must write some tools for that), when the machine is working on other project. But I do not know the details of that file. I asked Jim to send me a file, he send me something (not actually a .qn file, more like a copy-paste of something as a .txt file) which was helpful indeed, but my feeling is that there is something missing.
If I am not asking too much, can you send me a .qn file to have a look at it? Preferably with tray components, not only feeders. I am only trying to see if it contains all the data I see in their software (pick coordinates, pick parameters -speed-delays, nozzle settings, vision settings, destination coordinates and placing parameters, etc). The file received from Jim contains some x,y coordinates and rotations but I got the feeling that something is not in that file. Or perhaps I understood wrong from videos, a project have one file with everything or it uses several files (ex. one file with pick coordinates, other with destination, etc) ?
Thanks in advance for your help, my email is chendeflorian(at)yahoo.com

[protoneer]

I am also considering buying one SMT880 but I need a very specific workflow, in order to cut times required for setup.
From what I understand, the machine software have 2 parts, one in which all 'teaching' is done, from where to source components and where to place, then create project file ( .qn file). Second part reads .qn file and actually execute the job.
In order for me to optimize workflow, I must generate .qn file offline (and I must write some tools for that), when the machine is working on other project. But I do not know the details of that file. I asked Jim to send me a file, he send me something (not actually a .qn file, more like a copy-paste of something as a .txt file) which was helpful indeed, but my feeling is that there is something missing.
If I am not asking too much, can you send me a .qn file to have a look at it? Preferably with tray components, not only feeders. I am only trying to see if it contains all the data I see in their software (pick coordinates, pick parameters -speed-delays, nozzle settings, vision settings, destination coordinates and placing parameters, etc). The file received from Jim contains some x,y coordinates and rotations but I got the feeling that something is not in that file. Or perhaps I understood wrong from videos, a project have one file with everything or it uses several files (ex. one file with pick coordinates, other with destination, etc) ?
Thanks in advance for your help, my email is chendeflorian(at)yahoo.com

Not so sure about the QN file. There are two parts to the setup. The machine setup and the actual job.

MAchine settings include settings for each nozzle per feeder. Trays are simple , you set top left , top right , bottom left and bottom right. Then specify the rows and columns and the machine works out the rest.

Job settings is just two fiducials  and rest is components that link to a nizzle and feeder/tray. For each component you can also specify the camera to use for identifying.

[pisoiu]

Yes, this is pretty much what I understood from youtube videos.
What happens after all machine setup for a project is done? What do you save on machine computer? One or several files? This/these are the files which I want to have a look at, because I want to try to develop a workflow which allows me to make machine setup (generate those files) elsewhere, without the help of the machine, while the machine performs another job. These are the files I kindly asked to share with me, if possible. Maybe you have files for some simple job, which does not contain sensitive data. I definitely do not want to share them or send them to anybody. I want to look at their content, to see if I can reverse engineer their structure, so I can create a workflow and tools to generate them offline.
Job settings looks simple, like loading machine with components, load files generated by setup job and run.
Thank you.

[SMTech]

What you really need is to get them shared with the guy who writes PCBSynergy he seems to have Neoden and Charmhigh in there already and I think that does the step you are looking to streamline. No matter how slick your process gets some things just need checking or setting up on the machine for new jobs.

If you are looking at doing other peoples boards there are a couple of things to look out for

Not everyone is happy sharing the CAD files (which PCBSynergy can read) so may only supply Centroid & BOM
Not every Centroid file is the same, the column orders often change, there can be extra ones or they may not include the part number or even value data, SMT Maestro is a free tool that can help with that (unless you write your own).
Some software packages call even very standard package names weird things, which can get in the way of quickly telling the machine setup files what kind of part it is (e.g "SMD1002" instead of "0805")
Rotation data should really be standardized (it is a standard) but in reality its a hot mess so package types where orientation always needs checking, if you are writing custom tools you can then apply rules that correct it.
Customer defined packages frequently have the center defined incorrectly.
If your machine setup files detail everything from feeder slot to nozzle used, because that's how these machines seem to work because the feeders are "dumb", and you change between jobs rapidly you need to be extra careful with inventory and knowing which feeder is which and whats on it. This is one of the many benefits of more expensive electronic "smart" feeders, I've seen some of these machines list electronic feeder options but their datasheets are so vague who knows if they or the software connected to them lets them be smart.

[protoneer]

Yes, this is pretty much what I understood from youtube videos.
What happens after all machine setup for a project is done? What do you save on machine computer? One or several files? This/these are the files which I want to have a look at, because I want to try to develop a workflow which allows me to make machine setup (generate those files) elsewhere, without the help of the machine, while the machine performs another job. These are the files I kindly asked to share with me, if possible. Maybe you have files for some simple job, which does not contain sensitive data. I definitely do not want to share them or send them to anybody. I want to look at their content, to see if I can reverse engineer their structure, so I can create a workflow and tools to generate them offline.
Job settings looks simple, like loading machine with components, load files generated by setup job and run.
Thank you.

Below are all the config files for my SMT660

This is the contents of a job file... https://gist.github.com/Protoneer/f220d53091b9dbf0cc55cb7d8be03d06

Machine settings https://gist.github.com/Protoneer/537ce1ee858636b8dab610e11586c892

Feeder settings https://gist.github.com/Protoneer/6c7f1ce652449a8abd46097522f8b1fe

[pisoiu]

Thank you very much  , those files really answered my questions. Pure gold.
It looks pretty simple to work with them, they're xml.
What surprised me was the feeder settings file. While machine settings and job setting seem to contain only what is needed for one job, the feeder settings seem to contain far more data than it is needed for one job. SMT660 have 60 feeders or so, but feeder file contains a lot more. Anyway, that's not important now.

[pisoiu]

Forgot one thing, apparently there is a new model at yingxing, SMT550: https://www.zjyingxing.com/products/smt550-with-50-feeders-and-conveyor-ID315.html
It looks like an improved SMT460, a bit more feeders, conveyor, ball screw and some ports for electric feeders, but also supports pneumatic.
Aliexpress has more pictures for it than manufacturer site.

[MR]

I wonder did anyone try 0402 with those machines?

We own a Mechatronika upgraded to MX80, and everything's basically a mess with their crap software.
And we basically turned from a customer to an enemy of our low quality Manufacturer from Poland.
Which on the other side is not such a problem because all spare parts can be bought cheaper from China/Taiwan since they use standard parts.

[xdave]

(Read to the end, as the software has changed.)

The qn files were just binary serialised classes using the standard .NET serialiser up till at least version 190130_V3.3.2.  The classes for the 'job data' are USR2 (pcb component information) and USR3 (machine mapped data).  I forget which one holds the feeder/tray data without checking but I think it is USR2.  They are highly version dependent (files serialised from one version will not work with another).

If you use something like ILspy on the QiGn.dll assembly you can see the class definitions, and you can then work with them as needed.  It's been a while since I reverse engineered ours so I am not certain if that assembly is obfuscated (the executable QIGN_COMMON.exe definitely is).  If you find yours is then you can use freely available tools to deobfuscate it followed by a bit of tidying up and you should be able to compile and use it.

We changed to use XMl serialisation from day one to make it simpler to integrate, and at cursory glance Protoneer's files seem to show the same basic data structures in a very similar hierarchy so it appears Huawei Guochuang have adopted that now as well.  It would be helpful for future users if Protoneer could share the version number of the software so we have an idea when the change was made.

[pisoiu]

I am a bit unsure about 2 parameters from description of chinese machines, please somebody enlighten me:
-"maximum movement range of Z axis", ex. 20mm. Does this mean that the tip of the nozzle, when retracted, is 20 mm above the pcb plane and the maximum usable component height is half of this value, to avoid bumping high components already placed on board?
-"buffering range of suction nozzle", ex. 4.5mm. No clue. What is this?
Also, some of new machines from boreytech are equipped with "flying camera system" and there is one camera instead of several low resolution cameras (one per head) plus one high resolution camera. I can imagine that new system occupies less space on machine board and maybe it makes more room for 2-3 extra feeders, and of course, it increases CPH a little. Aside from that, are there any pros/cons for this new system? Did anyone tried it on chinese machines?

Thank you.

[mrpackethead]

There is no 'standard' meanings.  It might mean what you've described, or it might mean something else.  To know for your sure you'll have to ask them.    Annoying i know, but you'll get burned if you just assume you think you know hwat it means.

[pisoiu]

Those two descriptions are pretty much the same among all manufacturers in this area (yx, borey, etc). I did not asked about these parameters specifically, but I asked about others and I did get that kind of reply from a sales person which does not mean too much to an engineer. But I will ask...