New Pick and Place machine

[vaneenbergen]

Hi all
last week we installed our new pick and place machine (replacing the old one).
It is a essemtec paraquda, 4 head pick and place with bottom view alignment.
Very quick should go up to 10000 components per hour (we run at about 6500 cph).

3 years ago we decided to do our own SMD manufacturing, because of long leadtimes at our subcontractor.
We often need to make the board (custom modifications) and ship the unit the same day, well the show must go on.

small video



little detail, the old machine weight in at 200 kg. The new one 1200 kg, that is 1000kg just concrete for stabilizing.

Joost van Eenbergen
ELC lighting bv
www.elclighting.com

[Time]

hypnotic

[EEVblog]

Awesome.
I was about 1 week away from getting my hands on a new pick'n'place machine, but alas that is no more.
Would have made for plenty of good blog material.

Dave.

[vaneenbergen]

what kind of pick and place was your plan?

[Lance]

How much do those cost?

[george graves]

inquiring minds want to know.

[EEVblog]

I believe you can get a "desktop" pick'n'place for under $10K, but a decent machine is probably around the $50K mark.

Can't remember which one we were getting, but considering I don't work there any more, I won't get the play with the new toy 

Dave.

[mikeselectricstuff]

A 'real' automatic P&P starts at around $30-40K plus feeders for a Chinese model with flaky software - there are some 'desktop' ones around $10K which are little more than mechanical assistants for manual placement.
If you are patient, determined, willing to take a risk and have plenty of space you can occasionally find old used machines below $10K

[vaneenbergen]

This machine should set you back around 100k-120k without feeders.
feeders are a big factor. these cost around 500 euro each.

Joost

[saturation]

Amazing to see, thank you!  That 1000kg of concrete, is it poured when the unit is in its final position or shipped with the weight?  Taking delivery must have been quite a production.

[vaneenbergen]

It's real swiss concrete. getting it of the truck and off the pallet we needed to hire some one with a forklift.
The box it came in now makes a great playhouse for my daughters  
It's funny that you need 1000kg to place a 01005 resistor.

The installation was quick. After the connection and calibration we got our first board made the same day. I played around with the software before. The new software is great and it uses a touch screen. Thats why i got the machine, the touch screen. i have a ipad so....   

Programming a board on a p&p machine is simple. There are a few steps.
- adjust or make your own component packages. this differs between machines. Our previous machine used laser alignment for most components and bottom vision for fine pitch. the new machine only uses bottom vision, but a faster one. for bottom vision you might end up with different light profiles for different packages.
- next make a library of the components that you have. a component is a combination of
   - package
   - value
   - supply type (tape/stick/tray)
- then you make an adjustment file. this file tells the software how to read you cad's program pick and place file. (pick and place file is normally a list of component values/xy coordinates/rotation and package. next you might need to match the cad's library to to machines library. for example the rotation of the cad software library might be offset by 90 degrees or the cad/package values might have a different name.

ones you have this that it is as simple as selecting a cad's pick and place file and the adjustment file. set the board size and select what fiducials to use. this normally takes 5 miniutes.

if you use a subconcrator to manufacture you stuff than he needs to make the adjustment file for each custommer and load/program the machine every time. this is why it is expencive for small runs.

This is the reason we jump in to the smd production for our own. we run batches ranging from 100 boards down to 6 or even a single prototype. we have many board with placement options that can be selected at the last moment.

[tekfan]

That is simply amazing

lol at:

It's funny that you need 1000kg to place a 01005 resistor.

[FreeThinker]

1000kg of ballast is not surprising when you consider the speed of the head, lots of inertia to deal with and ANY sort of movement in the base will cause misplaced  components. I've worked on Panasonic P&P machines and the counterbalance weights were cast billets bolted to the base... lots of them 

[the_raptor]

I was wondering how PnP software works. Do you just load up the PCB layout and have the software auto-route? Or do people fine tune the pattern the machine follows?

[vaneenbergen]

Hi
You just load in the pick and place file from your cad software.
It has the coordinates and rotation of the components.
Run it against the adjust file
Select the fiducially
And let the machine / software do the work.

Joost

[mikeselectricstuff]

I was wondering how PnP software works. Do you just load up the PCB layout and have the software auto-route? Or do people fine tune the pattern the machine follows?

Optimising for speed is the machine's job - it knows where the feeders are, its travel speed etc. There are other issues like component height - for example you don't want to place a tall part before a short one nearby as the nozzle could crash into the tall part.
Of course the user also mades decisions like where to load the feeders - I'm guessing some P&P software is smart enough to tell you where to put each feeder for optimum throughput based on numbers of parts used in the job  and total travel distance.

[vaneenbergen]

The software (I'm speaking about my machine ) can optimize
Feeder placement. You can also set manually placement rules for the order of some
Componets. The new software release also does height arrangement