Neoden 4 pick and place

[TheSteve]

Also since were talking about 2 vs 3 Fudicals on PCB boards I figured I would share these pictures of a Evaluation board that I have here from TI.

TI has a company called Krypton do all their Evaluation board designs and manufacturing. Krypton assembles tons of boards for TI and use state of the art machines to do it.

If you look at all 6 of the EVM boards I have from TI you will see they use 3 Fudical marks on both the front and back of the boards.

I think having 3 is a great idea - the boards we use generally have one in each corner, not symmetrical though so a backwards board will not detect properly. However we have not been able to get the Neoden 4 to work properly with 3, it always places parts with an error. If we use two in opposite corners it works quite well. It is totally possible we are doing something wrong but what that is eludes us and since 2 is technically enough that is what we use now.

[Jefferson]

Fiducial 3 pcs in the standard way, everybody does it's simmetrical. See att.
Why not simmertical?

[thommo]

Icahn,

I have made a bad assumption in my comments, and would like you to clear it up for me if you don't mind.

I always considered that in the set up menu, of the 3 options;

Single
Panelized
Manual

you were working with the 'Single' option. Is this correct?

For those without knowledge of NeoDen's GUI, 'Single' means you have decided to use a single set of fiducials or mark points for a set of boards on a panel - typically placed on a panel's external borders, as opposed to using fiducials which may be specific to each board and measuring each board individually.

In my view it would be better labelled as
Panelized -
Individual - measure each board in the panel separately
Manual - no fids or marks


If you take a close look at the still photo in your last post and zoom in on j5 and compare it with j6 , there is considerable difference in the hole positions compared with the pads. This is what you have to deal with when you don't have proper marks or fids unfortunately. There certainly appears to be 0.2mm in there, and that's over a couple of centimetres, not 10.

[thommo]

Fiducial 3 pcs in the standard way, everybody does it's simmetrical. See att.
Why not simmertical?

I think there may be some confusion here Jefferson.

If your illustration had a 4th fid, it would be symmetrical. What this drawing shows is asymmetric.

But it does form a right angle, which is a good thing.

[thommo]

Ichan,
You are correct in that it appears to read those through holes as mark points.

In your video, did you notice the final adjustment move/correction the vision system made on your 1st mark point?

It appears to identify the centre correctly at first, and then makes a final move which, appears to me to be off-centre. Do you see this too, or is it just me?

[TankSparks]

With 2 FIDs it can still be asymmetrical,   I put mark point 10mm from the edge and on the other side its 15mm from the edge,  if board goes in wrong it will not find FID and give error.
Also note that Neoden sample files only use 2 FIDs.   I do have FIDs in all 4 corners but just using 2 of them on the Neoden.


 

[thommo]

TankSparks - do you guys do your own panel layouts for board manufacture? eg - supply a fully panelized board layout to you PCB supplier?
If so, what application do you use?

With 2 FIDs it can still be asymmetrical,   I put mark point 10mm from the edge and on the other side its 15mm from the edge,  if board goes in wrong it will not find FID and give error.
Also note that Neoden sample files only use 2 FIDs.   I do have FIDs in all 4 corners but just using 2 of them on the Neoden.

[rwb]

Thommo , here is a piece of software that will allow to you create panels from a single file. I received a email about this software a few months ago.

http://www.pentalogix.com/single-design-panelizer.php

Not sure if its what your looking for but I figured I would post it in case it's useful. 

https://youtu.be/0ValVipYIvw

[Ichan]

Here is my test on panelized board yesterday.




For panelized mode marking points (fiducial), just define it on the first board (left bottom on the machine), before this i define it on all board which just did not work.

Using this mode will localize the placement error within board boundary, not accumulated across panel.

The video above untrimmed, still some more to tweak
- at 1:38 it fail to find the mark point, i do not know why - helped it manually.
- at 2:07 some retry picking part on feeder 4, i found later that the nozzle not aligned good to the center of the pocket.
- at 2:30 feeder 16 on the back doesn't peel (like what TheSteve said), seems the feeder box and peel box not perfectly inline.

Below is the photo of the result, not like before the placement error is much better and about the same on each board.



Next i will try to:
- adjust the data coordinates to solve the dimmension error.
- add a dummy first chip with a more accurate refference (now the first chip is R10)
- use via as fiducial, i think smaller diameter is better.

About a week delay from the plan for now...

-ichan

[ServoKit]

I think at this point I would have decided to have the machine only do the 1206 and SOTs, they will orientate properly during soldering anyway. Then do the fine pitch stuff manually - just to get the boards out of the door.

Regards, Axel

[TankSparks]

TankSparks - do you guys do your own panel layouts for board manufacture? eg - supply a fully panelized board layout to you PCB supplier?
If so, what application do you use?

I make my own panels,  I use Diptrace, it does have a panelize feature.

[mrpackethead]

Theres an important lesson here.  Dont' buy a new PNP machine so you can complete a project, there is a learning curve!

[Jefferson]

also I agree. A few points that bothered me:
1) The high price, poor description of N4; You can buy JUKI XJ-100 for this price, which is much better!
2) Looking for their little part of 'professional, if we look IPC-9850. Many don't correspond.
3) Stated high parameters of the new product, which isn't achieved quickly. Support sales good, bad engineering.

[mrpackethead]

1) The high price, poor description of N4; You can buy JUKI XJ-100 for this price, which is much better!

Where can you buy a Juki XJ-1000 for sub USD10,000 ?
 

[Jefferson]

yes friend bought JUKI XJ-100 not JUKI XJ-1000, paid a little more, but in good condition and with support. We need to hunt for a good pro machines only.

[mrpackethead]

yes friend bought JUKI XJ-100 not JUKI XJ-1000, paid a little more, but in good condition and with support. We need to hunt for a good pro machines only.

Sorry I meant a XJ-100.  But now you say its more expenive, and sounds like it was 2nd hand.   Thats just not a vialble option for everyone. there is'nt a stack of $10,000 Juki machines with feeders lying around sir.

[Jefferson]

... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.

[mrpackethead]

... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.

I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.

[TankSparks]

@Ichan
I pointed out your problem,  reread my post #738, 

[mikeselectricstuff]

... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.

I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.

Production machinery tends to go through specialist brokers a lot more than ebay, as many users will want to buy with support.
And there aren't exactly huge numbers of machines to start with .

[MTNELECTRONICS]

A bit of an update:  I have now produced dozens of panels (thousands of boards) with the machine, and I can say that it has been working great for me now that I understand the "ins and outs" of the machine.  I have been placing quite a few 0603 and even some 0402 and the placement accuracy is excellent---good enough that I don't have to worry about it as long as it is set up correctly.  It has taken some experimentation and experience to get the feed, pick, and place settings to where things are reliable enough to let the machine run with hardly any intervention.  You really have to spend some time and tune in each part to get it to the point of excellent reliability; some parts work well with the default settings, but many require some significant adjustment. 

I have been using 3 fiducials on the panels ("single" panel fiducial in the software), and I don't get any placement offset, but maybe I am setting things up in a different order than you are.  I always use "manual" mode, even though I import the coordinates (offset in excel) and then mark the fiducials manually in the machine the first time without moving the board.  I have not had as good of results using fully imported coordinates of the panel + fiducials.  It seems like for some reason the angle/offset of the board does not get updated correctly if the board is not perfectly straight.  Backwards, I know.     I have also done some panelized boards where each panel has its own fiducials, and they are also accurate. 


I have had one peel box burn up and quit working.  I replaced it with a spare and went on my way, but I haven't contacted them yet about it.

[rwb]

Thanks for the update @MTNElectronics 

Great to hear the machine has done it's job for thousands of boards now.

Can you share any pictures of the boards your producing? Just curious.

Also I would need to place IC parts with .5mm pitch pin spacing. Are any of your parts using .5mm pin spacing and if does the machine handle placing them right just fine once you have it dialed in?

Also what version of the machine software are you using? 

Has Neoden ever contacted you about updates to their software?

[Ichan]

I pointed out your problem,  reread my post #738,

TankSpark, i already test it as on reply #742 - tried to set the X to be the same for left-botom and left-top also same Y for left-top and right-top, the problem is still.

I am pretty optimistic today, seems using fiducials in panelized mode and scaling my data to fix the dimensional difference will make my day, hopefully .

I am now setting it up to use all the components.

A bit of an update:  I have now produced dozens of panels (thousands of boards) with the machine, and I can say that it has been working great for me now that I understand the "ins and outs" of the machine.  I have been placing quite a few 0603 and even some 0402 and the placement accuracy is excellent---good enough that I don't have to worry about it as long as it is set up correctly.  It has taken some experimentation and experience to get the feed, pick, and place settings to where things are reliable enough to let the machine run with hardly any intervention.  You really have to spend some time and tune in each part to get it to the point of excellent reliability; some parts work well with the default settings, but many require some significant adjustment. 

I have been using 3 fiducials on the panels ("single" panel fiducial in the software), and I don't get any placement offset, but maybe I am setting things up in a different order than you are.  I always use "manual" mode, even though I import the coordinates (offset in excel) and then mark the fiducials manually in the machine the first time without moving the board.  I have not had as good of results using fully imported coordinates of the panel + fiducials.  It seems like for some reason the angle/offset of the board does not get updated correctly if the board is not perfectly straight.  Backwards, I know.     I have also done some panelized boards where each panel has its own fiducials, and they are also accurate. 


I have had one peel box burn up and quit working.  I replaced it with a spare and went on my way, but I haven't contacted them yet about it.

Begging to see it in action please...

-ichan

[kayvee]

... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.

I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.

Equipmatching.com and smtnet.com are your best places to look.

[mrpackethead]

... perhaps second hand, there is the basic support, this market is very good.

I searched ebay... coud'nt find a single machine.

Equipmatching.com and smtnet.com are your best places to look.

SMTnet.   "There were no results for xj-100 in any of the components on SMTnet. Suggestions:"
Equipmatching.com  "No results found for specified criteria."

If they are the best places, then there is little hope..