CHMT 560p4 pick and place -- please share your experiences here

[zerohimself]

Alright, I have a CHMT 560p4 on the way, I am expecting it any day now. I researched the machine for months, and even talked to about 3 people who had one. Nothing but either raving reviews about how good it was, or the common "don't buy chinese crap" warnings from people who have not had one.

So i pulled the trigger and bought it. Along with a 3040 stencil printer, t961 reflow oven, and a boat load of CHMT cloned CL feeders.

While waiting for my machine to arrive, a fellow maker bought one, and upon arrival has been having significant problems. See Unexpected Maker here:

Obviously I'm a little worried, but trying not to panic, and see how my experience goes.
I'm thinking about ordering some other brand feeders, hoping that IF i have any issues, that they can be easily resolved between settings and different feeders.

So, I figured I should ask, If you have one of these, or have worked with one (or anything similar), what is your experience?
Do you have any solutions for issues that you encountered?

[asmi]

Whatever happens - do not force them to say out loud it's their fault, especially if you don't have any recourse against them (like if you bought it on aliexpress, you can open a dispute and they will refund you if it will come to it). If you do - the conversation will deadlock and go nowhere. Instead keep asking for solutions, always leave them a way to save their face. It's a cultural thing which you can't really rationally explain, you just need to accept it for what it is and keep it in the back of your mind whenever you deal with Chinese people.

[MR]

So, I figured I should ask, If you have one of these, or have worked with one (or anything similar), what is your experience?
Do you have any solutions for issues that you encountered?

The solution for the feeder problems might be electrical feeders.
To avoid the jumping components he might have to cover the peeled tapes (I don't know his particular model but that should be pretty clear).
Feeders are normally way more expensive than 50$ if you get those you need to be aware that you will have to fiddle around with them.


His other problem seems to be a homing issue, if it's a mechanical switch maybe he can replace it with a light switch.

We also had a lot problems with our pick and place machine from Poland / Mechatronika, they act exactly the same.
However we're fully into our machine already and also plan to make our own electrical feeders for it (we already have the 3D design for it and just need to CNC a few parts for it).

It's hilarious if a pick and place machine vendor says that the client would like another machine ... ya we also only wanted to pick and place 0402 & co. and even that didn't work reliable. and we also had homing issues (but those were also related to an incomplete assembly of the manufacturer).

[asmi]

The solution for the feeder problems might be electrical feeders.

This machine does not support electric feeders as I understand.

[soFPG]

We also had a lot problems with our pick and place machine from Poland

But I assume, contrary to CHM, that they would have taken back your machine including a refund?

The solution for the feeder problems might be electrical feeders.

I don't see how this is a solution (to buy something else) if the machine doesn't do what it was advertised for

[MR]

The solution for the feeder problems might be electrical feeders.

This machine does not support electric feeders as I understand.

come on electronic engineers should know how to interface 24V and send a pulse to forward components....

aside of that some Chinese companies made emulating electrical feeders which detect pneumatic pressure for forwarding components.
But the price starts at 130$ plus shipping per feeder (if you buy from China)

We have designed our own ones but are building the first prototypes now (it will take some time and needs some longer testing on our side as well), from that perspective 130$ isn't that expensive.

[MR]

We also had a lot problems with our pick and place machine from Poland

But I assume, contrary to CHM, that they would have taken back your machine including a refund?

The solution for the feeder problems might be electrical feeders.

I don't see how this is a solution (to buy something else) if the machine doesn't do what it was advertised for

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/mechatronika-mx80/

Just look at the camera (or search it for camera).

I guess CHM buys the CL Feeders from another company and they are what they are... you will have to fiddle around with them or modify them.
If you want better pneumatic CL-Feeder you have to take more money into your hands.
Don't expect an airplane for 10k, but that said we have paid 40k and got absolute shit from Poland (and did not expect that either) Their answer is just the same as CHM - but CHM is cheap you can also fix it by yourself.

[zerohimself]

Don't get me wrong, I expected some tinkering.. you can't get a $50k machine for 15k.

But i also expect it to somewhat work.. I would have bought feeders elsewhere if i had known they were so problematic.And i'm still find with buying feeders elsewhere, I just want to know that I am purchasing decent feeders. At this point, its like playing roulette. I can order feeders, and hopefully it's a well working feeder, and not a pile of dog crap that looks like a feeder...

I understand what I bought, this thread is looking for potential fixes in the event that I actually have problems (or to help anyone else having problems!!).

Can anyone suggest some better feeders? (I also understand I can "hack" electric feeders in. But it seems like exactly that.. a hack, i'm not going to buy any super expensive electric feeders, until it is a last try type of scenario. If i am going to spend that kind of money on feeders, i'll get a machine designed to use them)

[MR]

Before focussing on the feeders you should see that you can get the homing work properly this is a critical issue. Having to re-adjust the feeders every time after powercycling is really annoying (we had the same issue with our machine...)

Try to disable your chm video, and talk again with them about homing support

the big disadvantage of your machine is that it's closed source and you really depend on the attitude of the manufacturer. If they really drop you the machine is more or less worth nothing.

We have tried a lot with our manufacturer (Mechatronika) but finally gave up and reverse engineered the machine because those guys were never up to fix anything. While the reverse engineering wasn't difficult writing our own application for the machine took time (but also included a warehouse management system and so on).

You still have the option to go for OpenPNP, but need to reverse engineer what you have.

[IconicPCB]

MR..
You bought a Mechatronika not from the manufacturer,,, you bought a SECOND HAND machine of previous generation .
You then took posesion of the machine and had it upgraded.
And then you decided you knew it all and did not avail yourself of factory training.

That is Your starting point. Ignorance led euphoria.

I have a Mechatronika machine and can not complain. It does have some idiosyncracies but then again so does my SMALSMT machine.



Please stop spreading fables even after extensive exchange of information with Mechatronika factory. 

As for electric feeders...Mechatronika already uses electric feeders, no need to invent the wheel.

[asmi]

I understand what I bought, this thread is looking for potential fixes in the event that I actually have problems (or to help anyone else having problems!!).

Can anyone suggest some better feeders? (I also understand I can "hack" electric feeders in. But it seems like exactly that.. a hack, i'm not going to buy any super expensive electric feeders, until it is a last try type of scenario. If i am going to spend that kind of money on feeders, i'll get a machine designed to use them)

Why don't you see what you actually get first, before you start looking for solutions for problems which do not yet exist?

[MR]

MR..
You bought a Mechatronika not from the manufacturer,,, you bought a SECOND HAND machine of previous generation .

that's what they want to make it look like now, we have sent it to them for a full upgrade they ripped out all the electronics including motors and rebuilt the machine. Even the explicit new camera is just a 2006 camera (and they told someone they really upgraded it, look at the manual jumpwiring on the chinese 10$ camera)

There's nothing left of the 2006 machine inside. Look at the post and check what we have ordered from them - a complete rebuild to their latest model. And the reason for the faulty parts are loose screws in the machine (even the driving unit below the pick and place table was loose, the gear for the belt had a big play and the new servo installation had big problems with that. And those loose screws were installed by them during the "rebuild" and are super hidden so you have to take apart the entire machine. That issue caused an oscillating portal (the worst that can happen .. an absolute no go for such machines)

This makes our story problematic, not that the machine was old. If only the old machine is unworkable really nothing we could say but the story is different and not related to the old machine. All that is left from the old part is the frame. Here itself we have paid 10.800 EUR for the upgrade which completely failed.

You then took posesion of the machine and had it upgraded.
And then you decided you knew it all and did not avail yourself of factory training.

That is Your starting point. Ignorance led euphoria.

I have a Mechatronika machine and can not complain. It does have some idiosyncracies but then again so does my SMALSMT machine.



Please stop spreading fables even after extensive exchange of information with Mechatronika factory. 

As for electric feeders...Mechatronika already uses electric feeders, no need to invent the wheel.

with massive problems with plastic tapes (which is also confirmed by other users, after pointing it out directly), they're push feeders under the hood. 
The problem here is that the box feeders are just 2 stepper motors and solenoids for 16 feeder lanes. If one of them jams up - all 16 lanes might be dead (oh and we also paid over 2000 EUR for a full service on those unreliable parts). You can manufacture such feeders yourself for far below 1000 EUR. Single feeders however, eg. cl feeders if one of them is troublesome you take them out for a service (which you always have to care about).
Another thing... bypass capacitors on the pick and place head electronics.. there are none next to the Microchip Microcontroller. And if you touch nearby grounding with a little bit charged finger it will just crash (again look at the camera quality this is how that company works).

We have told that manufacturer and they have ignored it.

however please if you want to have a discussion about them go to the mechatronika mx80 thread and read the entire history properly. We have fully analysed their pick and place machine and wrote our own application for their machine and are able to build our own machines now.

Serious (small scale) pick and place machines should have:
- the option for outputting some air through the nozzle
- invisible nozzles (black) to the camera to make optical recognition easier
- in case the distance to anything is relevant there should be a laser module onboard
- a proper power on self calibration option

it's all not rocket science and not related to expensive machines either.
If you really want to have a look at expensive machines look at ASM, Juki & co there you will find cutting edge mechanical engineering. But those stepper pick and place head machines are really very easy, they're nothing more than hobbyist machines - all of them. The difficult part is again - only the software.
We have learned our lesson (unfortunately too late so we lost a lot money).

[MR]

Can anyone suggest some better feeders? (I also understand I can "hack" electric feeders in. But it seems like exactly that.. a hack, i'm not going to buy any super expensive electric feeders, until it is a last try type of scenario. If i am going to spend that kind of money on feeders, i'll get a machine designed to use them)

You are in the area of cheap machines, don't expect high quality it's all hacked together (otherwise you wouldn't have those results no?)

Buy a bunch of electrical feeders from china and have a look by yourself they're easy to understand.
Understand your machine and you should be okay with it.
You can also go to your local electronic store and get a bunch of those stepper evaluation modules, the chinese electrical feeders are no different than that. Some weak/small stepper motor, some gears if you're lucky some sensors to monitor the position of the sprocket from time to time and that's it.

The feeders of our machine are controlled via a 5v and 3v line (one of them RX/TX), the protocol is similar to an infrared controller and we first interfaced it with an STM32 Controller, however we later on decided that USB is a better choice for us so now we control our feeders via USB.

Again have a closer look at the homing because this is seriously annoying, you don't want to re-adjust 60 feeders everytime you powercycle.
The pneumatic feeders - you probably have to modify them you might look for someone who has tools for working with metal.

I also don't get it why manufacturers don't just try to fix their issues but it seems to be industry standard on those mechanically low end machines and small smt companies (which your one and mine definitely are). And the default answer will be
- but thousands of customers are fine with it,
- you're the only one and so on.
- we have told you not to buy initially (that they have told us I guess they mistake us with someone else because we never had such a discussion but the boss clearly remembered oh yes)

It's good that you put the video online to show that you don't accept that (but it should be the very last resort of course...; we also gave our manufacturer time to fix but they didn't care either).
Our ex-manufacturer is also reading this forum here and I guess they're angry and try to write fake letters to some potential customers/distributors about that they're so superior and this guy on the internet is just writing wrong and bad things about them. All that still won't make issues go away, only some engineering work will solve that.

[zerohimself]

Why don't you see what you actually get first, before you start looking for solutions for problems which do not yet exist?

Good point!!, but i'm also preparing for the worst.. I don't want to get it, find that I have crap feeders, only to wait a month or two for more crap feeders, and then wait another month or two to hack some kind of electric feeder solution together..
If i can find some "different" feeders to have on the way now, it could have me a lot of troubleshooting time.

Spending some extra money to have a month head start is money well spent.

[riccardo.pittini]

I'd say no worry you will be fine with CHMT  (of course depending also on your expectations and experience).

We used CHMT48VB for small batches of pcbs (50-100pcs, with QFN and 0402), the machine needed a bit of tuning (mostly slow down acceleration/speed and feeders calibration).
Of course chinese support is not the same as professional inline machines... but it's all about how much you want to spend . So if you are ready to tweak it a bit, learn how to use it, set it up properly, and be reasonable (like not expecting 10000cph.. ) you will be fine.

[seon]

I'd say no worry you will be fine with CHMT  (of course depending also on your expectations and experience).

We used CHMT48VB for small batches of pcbs (50-100pcs, with QFN and 0402), the machine needed a bit of tuning (mostly slow down acceleration/speed and feeders calibration).
Of course chinese support is not the same as professional inline machines... but it's all about how much you want to spend . So if you are ready to tweak it a bit, learn how to use it, set it up properly, and be reasonable (like not expecting 10000cph.. ) you will be fine.

I have more experience with CHMT than most. I made my 36VA do things it's not supposed to be able to do, and I pushed out over 9000 boards with it running at 100% speed - 0402 and sot883!

When you get delivered a dud CMHT, it makes no difference how good your experience is, or what your expectations are. Maybe you didn't watch the video?

Here's a new video showing the issues with locking the feeders - and how it makes no difference to the parts bouncing.


Is this my lack of experience? or again, are my expectations too high that a Pick-n-Place can do the Picking bit as well as the placing bit?

Seon
Unexpected Maker

[seon]

Before focussing on the feeders you should see that you can get the homing work properly this is a critical issue. Having to re-adjust the feeders every time after powercycling is really annoying (we had the same issue with our machine...)

Try to disable your chm video, and talk again with them about homing support

the big disadvantage of your machine is that it's closed source and you really depend on the attitude of the manufacturer. If they really drop you the machine is more or less worth nothing.

We have tried a lot with our manufacturer (Mechatronika) but finally gave up and reverse engineered the machine because those guys were never up to fix anything. While the reverse engineering wasn't difficult writing our own application for the machine took time (but also included a warehouse management system and so on).

You still have the option to go for OpenPNP, but need to reverse engineer what you have.

No, homing is the last thing I need to fix. The machine can be left on for days, I don't care...  fixing the homing still leaves me with an inability to pick up parts, so that is the TOP priority for me. No pickup == no placement == no assembly.

Seon
Unexpected Maker

[MR]

No, homing is the last thing I need to fix.

maybe your machine is more predictable, you also need to be sure that the position of the pick and place head ends up where it is supposed to be after eg. 1 hour of operation. Not that the pick and place head shifts eg. 0.5mm (like our Mechatronika did) after some time. Mechatronika should get an award for building in servos with linear encoder and still getting it wrong. 

For us the homing issue was the most important issue as it was connected with reliability, everything's possible with incomplete machines.

[SMTech]

They don't seem to have chimed in yet but I'm sure other users on this forum with copycat pneumatic feeders have mentioned little tweaks on their feeders to make them reliable. Whats odd tho' is the whole point of the retractable cover is to stop this happening clearly some tolerances are wrong or the copy has been simplified, dampening removed yet further for cost saving. To my knowledge big name machines don't have per feeder pressure/flow adjustments you would tweak according to the feeder/tape loaded in that position, if they did it would take hours to setup a feeder change on the machine instead of unplug one trolley and wheel in another. Electronic control of that would also be super expensive and lose most or all of the saving from having pneumatic feeders. I think you'r homing in on the right areas, pitifully bad feeders and a questionable rack that they mount to.

I don't get the push for electric feeders from people on here or Charmhigh (even tho' for the record I would use nothing else) pneumatic feeders worked fine for many machines for decades, they are still a supported option on many 'proper' machines which accept both types as standard (Hanwha and Yamaha for example). Electric feeders bring benefits like being "SMART", having programmable pitch, controllable feed rates and being much faster, that certainly helps with light parts in shallow plastic tape but this shouldn't really be an issue with a SOT23 for example.

Of course at some level this does emphasize why those of us who rely on a machine for day to to day operations don't buy critical equipment direct from China. Our Essemtec may cost 4-5 times as much but the local support would have installed it, and they  stay on site until it was running and would be back here quick sharp if it failed. That option is also there with those Chinese brands that have local representation, they cost a little more than this Charmhigh but not that much more, less if you add in the parts and time that have gone into debugging these issues. Although there is the caveat there that the one time Neoden seller in the UK ditched them pronto after their experiences with them, the level of niggles and tweaks and build issues they saw was so far out of what they considered acceptable and yet some people clearly just accept them as that's the way it is.

Minor homing shifts would presumably tune themselves out after a pick or 2 as long as the Z is vaguely correct. Much like todays 3d printers I don't think missed steps was really an issue you have to worry about (unless your PSU or driver is crap/faulty) and none of these machines have linear encoders until you get to the big ones.

[MR]

Oh by the way regarding homing again.

The staging camera is also a fixed position if you get the coordinate wrong the optical correction might turn the item to the wrong side. Of course that's very critical for us since our machine has 3 cameras on the bottom.

So again pay attention to homing, in our case also the nozzle changer was affected by those issues (but I guess you don't have a NC in that machine).

[riccardo.pittini]

Hi Seon,

It's always what you pay for, they are not a 100k machine (or more) + support that comes with it. Chinese support is not as "western support", if you want something out of it you have to be very kind if not you get a door slammed to your face and that's it (sometimes too kind.. but it will pay off). Try to be more kind and gentle with them and they might help you (especially avoid accusing).

Regarding your systems:
- I saw your placements with the model 36VB, they were not really great. In the 36VB there is a factory calibration menu that you can reduce accelerations and this one gives the greatest gains (also for jumping components /we also had similar issues). We didn't retouch the boards, they came out good (but acceleration was a main thing to get great results).
- Regarding your new toy the 560p4, check for factory menu (ask CH) and try to reduce accelerations (always a good rule especially for small components). Check that
- The feeder bounce issue that you have, try to consider to add a small pad-damper in each feeder, in the spring loaded mechanism that pushes the tape forward and click back (either some springs are too strong or you just need a bit of damping). I'm pretty confident that this will improve your results.
- I would not worry much about the feeder anchor point as long as you calibrate it tight in the front picking part, that's the area that should not move, the back can move a bit up and down.

Let us know your improvements

EDIT:
A bit of googling and ... this will help you.. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/how-is-your-yamaha-feeder-doing/

[SMTech]

Sorry OT, I've gone back to YT and looked at some of the recent travails of @seon and boy has he had a run of bad luck, 2 different p&p's not working as they should, and an oven that's almost impressive.

Like many others I just don't see how at least some temporary outsourcing wouldn't be worth it. Some of the reasons given include:

• Cheap chinese assemblers having a 50% fail rate - I think you'd have to choose a very cheap AND very bad one to manage that.
  
  
• 6-8 week leadtime in Aus, OK 6-8 week leadtime isn't uncommon over here either but there's also bound to be plenty that will do it quicker.
• £1500 setup - only if you're being ripped off. where I work, we'd charge you £150 to source a stencil as a one-off fee and if you were feeling miserly you could send us the JLC/other one with your boards. We build "loading reels" time into our costs for the batch its a good part of where your economy of scale can kick in, but looking at the boards in question we're not exactly talking a huge BOM.
• Even longer leadtimes in China - I bet if one talked to a few Australian CEMs with their own Chinese factories that story would change. Also there are lots of them and lots of agents for them, just how far out are the lead times and prices from what is wanted?

At least 2 of the official resellers have the inhouse capability to build sell and distribute, maybe there's another business model.

[mairo]

Abit off topic, but could not stop myself as MR keeps naming Mechatronika/Poland  in pretty much every post.

MR, I am not saying you did not had bad experience with them, but I can tell for myself that I had nothing but good experience with theirs service and machines. Being customer to them since 2006 from two continents. I have had experience with everything from high end Fuji/Hitachi/Panasonic/ASM, down to mid level Samsung/Yamaha, down to low cost APS Novastar/Mechatronika/Neoden (no I am not a machine distributor).

 Up until NeoDen S1, if anyone would ask me what low cost machine to buy I my self would not look to anything but Mechatronika M10V, would not even waste my time with the 2k-8k machines, altho everyone has different needs and situations..

[MR]

that's good, can you take off the top camera cover and take a picture of what they have installed in your machine?

I have had experience with everything from high end Fuji/Hitachi/Panasonic/ASM

And then you are satisfied with block feeders which jam with some plastic tapes from time to time? Or don't you have plastic tapes?
2 other customers also confirmed that they have issues with plastic feeders, how about you?

We don't want to fiddle around with feeders they should just work, and obviously Mechatronika Block feeders are just some overpriced toys with 2 steppers inside (do you know the price of standard nema stepper motors? ... 10-15$); Their Block costs 3000 EUR.
I would not complain if everything would have worked as announced but they failed in every aspect including reliability, accuracy and willingness to support their product.

Mechatronika put their bet onto the wrong horse, they thought that we cannot handle their software but the reason was their Hardware. So it backfired with a lot negative feedback and us analysing the entire build (and there's a lot critics from our side after understanding everything).
The gantry and pick and place head cannot compete with Chinese builds. Mechatronika's frame is massive which make it look worth more but under the hood there's still nothing that justifies all those prices (especially taking into account that this company is from Poland which is significantly cheaper than western European countries).

You seem to have an M10V (the slowest version) we have an MX80 (with delta servos applying more force to the installation), the problem was an incomplete installation of the gantry and not stiff enough pick and place head in 2017. There's not even a servo installed I think on your machine?

We're doing our own CL-Feeders for that machine now even machining them from scratch is cheaper than their off the shelf block feeders which contain 2 stepper motors for 16 lanes (which are sold for 3000 EUR! awesome profit for 2 steppers, some aluminium and some nasty electronics, the protocol is similar like an infrared controller as mentioned earlier)

Even though this is about another manufacturer, potential buyers should read this and alike posts carefully.
If you buy expensive in the mid range have a look at all the electronics inside the machine.
There's just a main processor, some motor drivers some output for switching the pneumatic system and some inputs for various sensors.
If you buy used ask for photos of the controller electronics (as they might also serve as evidence if you ship the units to a manufacturer for an upgrade and the manufacturer is trying to commit some fraud).

The X/Y drive on our machine is just an off the shelf Delta controller, you can buy it yourself for around 2000 EUR including linear encoder and get a pretty good speed with it.

A pick and place head (like charmhigh/Mechatronika and others manufacture) is very cheap, to give an example, you can buy pnp heads from aliexpress they will be shipped with a 50W controller whereas the Theta just needs a few Watt and you can get away with cheap modules from an electronic store.
The Z Axis is also not so expensive (closed loop). Even the Z axis will be far from 50W.
Where I would look for quality would especially be the pneumatic switches and vacuum generator modules.

Feeders: no rocket science either here, 24V and some pulse for forwarding the component. Some build in STM8 controllers which you could easily interface.
The chinese pick and place machines are very close to DIY, should be fun to modify them to get more out of them.
The polish one isn't much different but extremely overpriced.

Again Juki/ASM and others play in a different league, look at their pick and place heads (not the gantry is the point - but the pick and place head... those single and chinese multiheads are very easy to build).

[asmi]

Can you discuss your Mechatronika stuff elsewhere?  It is not relevant to this thread.