Electronics > Manufacturing & Assembly
Tronstol E1 experience
TJ232:
--- Quote from: lamabrew on June 13, 2023, 08:15:10 pm ---
For me, I find it's faster if doing more than one reel to pull the feeder bank out. That requires shutting down the machine as the claim is my bank failure was because I unplugged it from the system while powered up. Maybe someone with small hands would find loading reels in the feeder while on the machine easier.
When you take the feeder bank out you will need to realign it when you put it back in, again it's semi-automatic to do that. You'll also need to get the new reel's feed/pick location into the machine. Again this is now semi-automated. The thing to watch out for is to not distrub any other reels, if you move the parts tape then you need to tell the machine where to feed/pick from again for that component. This is a tradeoff for any pin feed system vs. normal feeders.
A have a number of components (big caps, connectors) that I do as cut tape strips on the bed. Also some ICs as for a short piece of cut tape attaching an extender for the peeler and getting it in to the machine is slower vs. putting it on the bed. I need to make up some cut tape holders, for now I've been using plexiglass strips with double sided tape and it works well for me. But I'm not doing big builds where swapping out stips like that would be annoying.
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A good idea very bad implemented.
To be able to change Feeders Bank on-the-fly can be one of the best selling points for their machine and can justify the increased price for it's class but it's not working as it should be. To shut down the machine, realign, etc, etc sound like more pain waiting you around the corner.
lamabrew:
--- Quote from: PCBprototyping on June 24, 2023, 04:29:35 pm ---Seems like your SW version is not compatible with version of library.db file(some versions needed a separate upgrade file to add entries to db file as Tronstol added some additional parameters) or you accidentaly left some parameter value empty(or O instead of 0), it happened to me before. Latest SW warns you if cell is empty.
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Support at Tronstol sent me an update over the weekend - I was not expecting a reply so fast as it was Dragon Boat holiday. I will try it out tomorrow. I suspect you are right about some "bad" data as it was working and then stopped while in the process of adding a boatload of new components. Will report back once I try it out.
UPDATE: The software update solved the problem. I don't get any warnings about bad data, but I can update the library now.
lamabrew:
--- Quote from: TJ232 on June 25, 2023, 08:22:12 am ---
To be able to change Feeders Bank on-the-fly can be one of the best selling points for their machine and can justify the increased price for it's class but it's not working as it should be. To shut down the machine, realign, etc, etc sound like more pain waiting you around the corner.
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I have not run out of something while building as I'm only doing small prototype batches; replacing one reel isn't really a problem. My comment was more about swapping out "a lot" of parts; it's defintely faster to take the feeder bank out. I do agree that it would be much better than powering down to have some sort of program option to place the feeder bank in a safe state in terms of pausing things and unplugging.
I have some boards where I've got more part types than feeders. Some of that I worked around by just placing cut tape in the tray area. This is actually preferred when I'm already starting with very small cut tape - like when I have maybe a strip of 20 ICs and don't want to lose a few to getting them in to the feeders. The machine very kindly puts parts back in the cut strip when you're adjusting/testing the pickup.
After speaking with another E1 user (they actually just bought a 2nd E1 and commented the new one is better than his 1+ year old one) he said purchasing some extra feeder banks is the best way to go in terms of change overs. Somewhere on DHL plane coming to me are 3 new feeder banks. One I ordered with the "special" high feeders for handling SMT electrolytic caps, connectors, etc. I am using BOMIST to manage parts and I put in to its inventory location field the feeder bank and number for parts that are on the machine. That gives me a good way to plan/report what goes where. What I have not tried to do is automate getting that info in to the E1.
I'll let you know how it goes with the multiple feeder banks, etc. I feel like I still have a lot to learn about using the E1.
On the Neoden YY - I have been peeking in on that thread and I agree something is not adding up in terms of software updates.
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