There's a video on youtube where someone adapted his CNC to be a PNP, with button and slider control of the axis movements and buttons for pickup and drop.
I think the problem with that, as well as many of the existing DIY machines (and the cheaper commercial ones) is that the PnP head can't move that far, and there's often also limitations to external access around the edges of the movement due to construction.... As a result, they can't access enough different parts.
If you have a link would appreciate it
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If you have to make piles of parts on or around the PCB so you can then pick and place them onto footprints, I think the machine is very limited and is going to still have a lot of the fiddlyness of a full manual setup.
Agree, I find the DIY solutions with the strips stuck somewhere a big mess and nice for one off but unhandable for small series (keep on sticking).
A carousel is annoying in some ways because you need to load compartments up with parts, and you lose orientation like you get from a reel or tube... but once they are in there, it gives you the ability to reach a lot of parts while only taking up a relatively small amount of space inside the range of the PnP head.
It takes up so much unused space in the middle, it looks great but not that space sufficient and there are limited amount of parts to be placed. You probably want one carousel per project but then what do these cost a piece
The modern Fritsch unit has an option you can buy called the Paternoster, which looks amazing.. would be very cool to DIY.. it's basically a desk-sized automated parts library.
Wow, wow, wow. Any idea what the price is ?
503 parts, let me think, resistors in the E12 range in three package sizes is only 216 boxes, that leaves 300 boxes for capacitors, jellybean parts and small ic's.
That is enough for me and most hobbieists
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Or put a second one besides it
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The challenge for DIY is the lid mechanism.
You can really tell the difference between the good ones and the bad ones (from Ebay are some really bad).
The lids tend to snap off after a dozen times or get kind of stuck.
If you make the mechanism smooth you don't even need the lids on each box.