Author Topic: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info  (Read 77262 times)

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Offline JacksterTopic starter

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Looks like Charmhigh have had access to this model for a few years? Found videos from 2018 from them with similar look with NXT feeders.

Saw this machine when they first release in 2019 August in Shenzhen. It's a very huge machine and expensive too. HWGC do acknowledged them as a good competitor though especially these newer big machine.

My view of Charmhigh is slightly tainted from watching Unexpected Maker's video and the trouble he had with them.
Have they stepped up their game since their earlier machines?


Their list price for NXT starts from $185

Offline 48X24X48X

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Looks like Charmhigh have had access to this model for a few years? Found videos from 2018 from them with similar look with NXT feeders.

Saw this machine when they first release in 2019 August in Shenzhen. It's a very huge machine and expensive too. HWGC do acknowledged them as a good competitor though especially these newer big machine.

My view of Charmhigh is slightly tainted from watching Unexpected Maker's video and the trouble he had with them.
Have they stepped up their game since their earlier machines?
I personally asked them on whether they would still make/develop similar sized desktop machine that Seon bought, the answer was a solid NO back in 2019. From there itself, I knew where their effort are being put into. They further add, simply because people wants a proper solid bigger machine nowadays. So, it's hard to say what these newer big machine has to offer.

Offline JacksterTopic starter

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I personally asked them on whether they would still make/develop similar sized desktop machine that Seon bought, the answer was a solid NO back in 2019. From there itself, I knew where their effort are being put into. They further add, simply because people wants a proper solid bigger machine nowadays. So, it's hard to say what these newer big machine has to offer.

Probably not enough money in it. Those desktop ones while physically play, always came with shit software.

I was close to buying one back a couple years ago but held out doing so until I knew w how many components our new products needs.
Glad I did as it is in the 40s and includes fine pitch stuff also.

Offline JMG

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #103 on: July 09, 2021, 04:41:14 pm »
After much fiddling with feeder and vision settings, I've finally, sucessfully, placed over 1600 parts on a run of boards.
 

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #104 on: July 09, 2021, 07:57:37 pm »
After much fiddling with feeder and vision settings, I've finally, sucessfully, placed over 1600 parts on a run of boards.
Well tell us about some of those problems so we can all learn...
 


Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #106 on: July 11, 2021, 10:13:07 am »
Bad day today. I ignorantly trying to plug in a feeder while machine is running. Damage all 4 nozzle and it's nozzle holder. Anxiously waiting for HWGC support's response tomorrow. Took out the head cover (those bought from YX doesn't come with a cover) and it seems to be doable.

Offline JacksterTopic starter

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #107 on: July 11, 2021, 10:37:08 am »
Bad day today. I ignorantly trying to plug in a feeder while machine is running. Damage all 4 nozzle and it's nozzle holder. Anxiously waiting for HWGC support's response tomorrow. Took out the head cover (those bought from YX doesn't come with a cover) and it seems to be doable.

Dammm

Offline JacksterTopic starter

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #108 on: July 12, 2021, 09:41:59 am »
YX just got back to me. The shipping on AliExpress is the same free to port.

Offline JMG

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #109 on: July 13, 2021, 03:49:21 pm »
I was struggling to get parts to pick up and to place without being blown off the board. I was also having issues with IC's being placed at what appeared to be random angles.

To fix the pick up issue I manually added .75mm extra Z down travel to the pickup height of each feeder. I also slowed up and down travel speed to 35. Placement delay is 20.

To fix the placement issue I measured the board height manually and made my Z down travel 8500 for every part. This meant that the travel in the spring of the nozzle would take up and extra travel that larger components didn't need. Its worked perfectly on over 3000 parts now. Travel speed is 35 up and down. Placement delay is 20.

To fix the IC's being incorrectly placed I picked to the High Cam and adjusted the R to solve the vision system detecting the nozzle as a part and trying to adjust the angle based upon that and not the actual part. For SO8 and smaller R was 185 for each part and for anything larger I used 225. Haven't had a single misplaced IC since.


The only issue I have currently is that it will not adjust placement based on Marks, so I have to manually adjust that for each pcb loaded. It seems to always want to place parts slightly to the left of center. A small price to pay to get product out the door. I can come back to that later.

I do have a concern that it isnt saving all program data and I'm currently running all pcbs of one type until that entire project is complete vs running as many boards as I need to ship and then going to a new program and running as many of those boards  I currently need. I just don't want to go through setting up this project again, there's hundreds of parts on this pcb and I legitimately spent 80+ hours getting it to this stage.
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #110 on: July 14, 2021, 06:14:12 am »
I was struggling to get parts to pick up and to place without being blown off the board. I was also having issues with IC's being placed at what appeared to be random angles.

To fix the pick up issue I manually added .75mm extra Z down travel to the pickup height of each feeder. I also slowed up and down travel speed to 35. Placement delay is 20.

To fix the placement issue I measured the board height manually and made my Z down travel 8500 for every part. This meant that the travel in the spring of the nozzle would take up and extra travel that larger components didn't need. Its worked perfectly on over 3000 parts now. Travel speed is 35 up and down. Placement delay is 20.

To fix the IC's being incorrectly placed I picked to the High Cam and adjusted the R to solve the vision system detecting the nozzle as a part and trying to adjust the angle based upon that and not the actual part. For SO8 and smaller R was 185 for each part and for anything larger I used 225. Haven't had a single misplaced IC since.


The only issue I have currently is that it will not adjust placement based on Marks, so I have to manually adjust that for each pcb loaded. It seems to always want to place parts slightly to the left of center. A small price to pay to get product out the door. I can come back to that later.

I do have a concern that it isnt saving all program data and I'm currently running all pcbs of one type until that entire project is complete vs running as many boards as I need to ship and then going to a new program and running as many of those boards  I currently need. I just don't want to go through setting up this project again, there's hundreds of parts on this pcb and I legitimately spent 80+ hours getting it to this stage.
I think you probably didn't have the machine properly calibrated (not your fault). By right, out of the box, feeder base height and PCB base height are properly set from factory. The deviation should be very small such that it is negligible when you plug in your feeder or PCB. You can also go to the calibration page, and move the nozzle down to feeder or PCB to see the calibrated values are valid or not. It should touch the feeder and PCB. The offset value should always be around 0.3mm-0.6mm. This is basically the amount of press down you want the nozzle to go down after reaching the theoretical height.

Regarding the accuracy, just ensure during importing data, everything is perfectly centered. I no longer use component as points to translate position on PCB to machine coordinates. Instead, I use 4 fiducial 0.5 mm square inclined at 45 degree at the 4 corners. As the look down camera resolution is not that great, using your components to do the process might not be that accurate which I believe do contribute to these little offset you have mentioned. Once I get my machine repaired, I will do a video on this.

Yes, the angle issue is mitigated by having a proper scan radius accordingly (with check charactors enabled) to the parts size. Use the vision test to see what the camera see. I think I mentioned this before.

I don't quite get your last question.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2021, 06:20:06 am by 48X24X48X »
 

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #111 on: July 14, 2021, 08:01:05 am »
One question, the pick up position for components in CL12 feeders is that below the big metal tab, not the position in the clear right after it...
I'm asking because the XY pick up positions in CL8 and CL12 feeders is different by a lot.
 

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #112 on: July 14, 2021, 08:06:33 am »
I was struggling to get parts to pick up and to place without being blown off the board. I was also having issues with IC's being placed at what appeared to be random angles.

I also believe that most of your problems are due to bad calibration. I for example run the red circles calibration procedure and created a mess with the nozzles positions. Had to run it a  second time with auto detection to remove the problem. My point is that calibration can be tricky but if done properly it works
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #113 on: July 14, 2021, 08:23:22 am »
One question, the pick up position for components in CL12 feeders is that below the big metal tab, not the position in the clear right after it...
I'm asking because the XY pick up positions in CL8 and CL12 feeders is different by a lot.
Must be below the metal tab. When the feeder open, that is where the component will be picked when the tab opens. This prevent components from jumping out. In order to make sure the component is at this location, you can advance the tape by hand by 4mm or multiple of it. Just press the metal tab that advances the tape by half way and take note of the metal gear movement at the front. Pressing the metal tab completely will advance the tape by how much you have already set the feeder to advance (4, 8, 12 or 16). Each gear teeth corresponds to 4 mm movement. That will allow you to adjust the component to sit exactly below the metal tab.

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #114 on: July 14, 2021, 01:27:23 pm »
Today I was surprised by something. For SOT23 components and others I have to apply a +180 rotation in the PCB list for them to be mounted correctly. However I was surprised to see that some of them did mount correctly and others did not.
Eventually I realised that some of them were placed in the 25...50 feeder locations, so indeed they were already rotated by 180ยบ. I would have thought this kind of logic would be handled by the software,,,., or am I doing something wrong?
« Last Edit: July 14, 2021, 01:30:17 pm by MasterTech »
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #115 on: July 14, 2021, 01:44:08 pm »
On older V6 software, there's a prompt at the error diagnosis stage asking whether you want to rotate 180 degrees for components at the 26-50 feeders. This seems to be removed on V8 and if I'm not mistaken on the feeder page, there's an "init angle" form at the top right. I believe it is this. Also at the bottom right there's a button for special handling too which has this 180 degree option. I have tried the latter, it doesn't seems to work though. So I guess it could be the former. But I do appreciate the init angle function if it does as what I expected it to do because even on some non trivial components like diode, it could come in reverse direction in the pocket.
 
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Offline JMG

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #116 on: July 14, 2021, 02:07:28 pm »
I believe the machine was completely out of calibration when I got it hence why so many problems. At one point,  now that I know what I'm talking about somewhat, I believe the nozzles on the X where 208mm out.

Today I need to place 150x 144 pin lqfp IC's. This was the main reason I bought the machine because doing this once a month by hand was cruel and unusual punishment 😅

Any guidance on set up? Does the down camera look at the pad location or is everything located based on the local fids?

Is there any way to run this without optimization? I've got around 20 feeders that have parts common with 3 projects and would love to be able to leave them where they are for each project. Seems like a lot of unnecessary work shifting them around, telling the software what part is in which feeder and which location over and over.

Is there a save button anywhere that saves all settings - basically the entire set up for a run? Or does it save automatically in the background each time you make a change somewhere?

« Last Edit: July 14, 2021, 02:12:59 pm by JMG »
 

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #117 on: July 14, 2021, 02:11:45 pm »
Indeed there is an option to auto change the back feeders to 180 rotation
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #118 on: July 14, 2021, 02:34:42 pm »
I believe the machine was completely out of calibration when I got it hence why so many problems. At one point,  now that I know what I'm talking about somewhat, I believe the nozzles on the X where 208mm out.

Today I need to place 150x 144 pin lqfp IC's. This was the main reason I bought the machine because doing this once a month by hand was cruel and unusual punishment 😅

Any guidance on set up? Does the down camera look at the pad location or is everything located based on the local fids?

Is there any way to run this without optimization? I've got around 20 feeders that have parts common with 3 projects and would love to be able to leave them where they are for each project. Seems like a lot of unnecessary work shifting them around, telling the software what part is in which feeder and which location over and over.

Is there a save button anywhere that saves all settings - basically the entire set up for a run? Or does it save automatically in the background each time you make a change somewhere?

Just make sure PCB components centroid files are imported accurately and panel fiducials are done accurately, that's all I could say. There's no rocket science on this.

You can import feeders configuration from other project. It's on the top left corner of the optimization page. That way, you keep what you want. But, this is what I did at first thinking I could save time. But, soon enough I found out the machine would then not being optimized and it slows down your pick and place process. Let the software do the feeder assignment task which I think it does it brilliantly. Just imagine going from 2K cph to 4K cph. That's what it's good at.

There's no save button, everything automatically saved upon keying in parameters.

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #119 on: July 16, 2021, 09:57:19 am »
Started dismantling the head after given some tips by HWGC. Replacement parts is in transit to here. Beijing Glichn helped to get the parts over to Beijing as FedEx can't pickup from HWGC's new factory in Shijiazhuang. All 4 rotational motors and the nozzle holder plus nozzles needed to be replaced. The screws are really solid to the point that it has killed 3 Allen key hex screwdrivers. HWGC sending a set Allen key that they used in the factory, just in case the new ones I ordered online sucks as well. I kinda like how easy it is to service the machine as I poke more into it's construction. Hopefully by Monday, I'm able to calibrate these nozzle back and back running.

Offline JMG

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #120 on: July 18, 2021, 05:54:13 pm »
Hate to keep bothering you guys for help but I'm struggling with LQFP176 packages. I've gone from not placing anywhere in the neighborhood, and wrong rotation to almost perfect, but I cant get to a point that's acceptable yet. It'll place anywhere from half a pin width to 2 pins off in any one direction but fine in the other direction. This is random and I have no idea what's going on. Is anyone placing large chips? May I ask your settings??
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #121 on: July 19, 2021, 03:57:57 am »
Make sure the cover is close to achieve more consistent vision result with larger components. Placement height is also very important. Ensure nozzle size also correct for adequate vacuum suction capability, 505 should be alright. And just slow things down first.

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #122 on: July 19, 2021, 05:05:10 am »
I would say play with the camera settings, thresholds and light intensity, as this can affect placement at that level.
 

Offline 48X24X48X

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #123 on: July 19, 2021, 02:42:19 pm »
Got my machine all fixed, recalibrated and up and running. Noticed the nozzle holder material has changed and improved for easier plug in.

Offline JanL

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Re: HWGC P&P machines - Documentation, Discussion and Info
« Reply #124 on: July 22, 2021, 06:13:54 am »
One question to those operating the machine: do you use a water separation device or an air drying device between compressor and machine?
 


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