Technically it uses a PCB origin point for X/Y (bottom right corner of your board) and then one fiducial and one component. That is how I believe they basically triangulate the board for alignment. It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough in my use cases.
That sounds crazy. If you can do one fiducial then you can do two.
Unless your software people have such poor maths skills that they can't figure out how to compensate for board rotation... Wouldn't surprise me.
Dave, have you spoken with Ramzi at Embedded Logic Solutions? They are the local NeoDen distributor. They seem to be limited by NeoDen in the support they can offer,
Does that mean NeoDen are somehow preventing them providing support to customers?
Going off my experience (not from Neoden mind you) of setups like this with Chinese suppliers..
If the supplier guys know the problem or can work it out, you are dealing with them directly.
If they can't work it out, they just go back and ask the Chinese company and get the same level of support as the end user going direct to China. It is just routed through them, the supplier.
Of which the Chinese support can be summarised as "the machine and software works fine, you [customer] are doing something wrong".
And nothing you say will change their mind otherwise. It looks to be a cultural thing over there that any foreigner who uses their kit, is the problem not their hardware or software. It is you.
Of which the Chinese support can be summarised as "the machine and software works fine, you [customer] are doing something wrong".
And nothing you say will change their mind otherwise. It looks to be a cultural thing over there that any foreigner who uses their kit, is the problem not their hardware or software. It is you.
In my experience it is more likely they simply have no idea on how it should work. More often than not the engineers don't speak any English so you are left with a totally non-technical person (typically somebody from the sales or PR department) trying to translate in between. Things get worse if the party you are dealing with, is just shoving boxes to outside of China from some manufacturer inside China.
Dave, have you spoken with Ramzi at Embedded Logic Solutions? They are the local NeoDen distributor. They seem to be limited by NeoDen in the support they can offer,
Does that mean NeoDen are somehow preventing them providing support to customers?
Spares have to come from NeoDen
Dave, have you spoken with Ramzi at Embedded Logic Solutions? They are the local NeoDen distributor. They seem to be limited by NeoDen in the support they can offer,
Does that mean NeoDen are somehow preventing them providing support to customers?
This is exactly the problem - EMLogic cannot get any parts to fix may machine, because Neoden will not send them any parts. The list of un-resolved HW issues on my machine date back to 3 months after purchase (21 months ago) and none of them have been resolved. apart from 1, where Neoden replaced a blown board with another blown board, telling me they had tested it first... total BS, they sent a 3rd which did work... I was down for almost 2 weeks with them making excuses. the entire time they blamed me.
Here is a list of outstanding issues on my machine Neoden refuse to address:
- Incorrectly working rear camera/lighting module (cant use the back left hand side feedes as vision wont work moving left to right over the camera)
- Incorrectly working front camera/lighting module (have to run the brightness at 3x the default to get it to see parts - but unfortunately blows out other brighter parts). Bad or failing vision.
- Damaged rear communications controller board (visible blown caps on the board - scorch marks)
- 5 unworking or incorrectly working 8mm Neoden electric feeders- in warranty - wont replace.
And as of yesterday...
- un-working pick and place head # 6 due to a faulty controller board in the PnP head unit preventing air control on head 6 - no way to shut off the air, and it's blowing all over the board and I'm trying to PnP, pushing small components out of place
Seriously folks - Don't buy a Neoden - it's not that their hardware is that bad, but they don't stand by it - they wont fix HW issues - they wont replace faulty parts, and it's all proprietary HW, with no docs, no part numbers, and everything is conformal coated.
Seon
Unexpected Maker
Seriously folks - Don't buy a Neoden - it's not that their hardware is that bad, but they don't stand by it - they wont fix HW issues - they wont replace faulty parts, and it's all proprietary HW, with no docs, no part numbers, and everything is conformal coated.
Seon
Unexpected Maker
Thans Seon, I think I'll pass on the Neoden then. It's shame, it's a new model that on paper look great for the price.
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
They are also huge and usually have big power and air requirements.
Yes, my two Universal Instruments Genesis machines are 3500 kg each and the space, power and air requirements are considerable. Though the higher end Neoden stuff starts to get closer in price to used mainstream brands. There's a Juki in Melbourne on Australian ebay for a few thousand.
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
These things are cheap for a reason. Luxury cars can be very cheap to buy after just a few years use, but can you afford to even keep one supplied with fuel, let alone its other ongoing costs?
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
I guess this would be in reference to what I wrote
I have a NeoDen TM240A which has no vision and terrible feeder system. It is also starting to shows its age, and I need to do some maintenance.
The NeoDen TM240A was something I acquired second hand for next to nothing (a habit of mine). I've had it almost 6 years, so I'd guess it was 8+ years old. That isn't particularly old for a "real" PnP, but I'd suggest it is for a small budget desktop machine which has had next to no maintenance due to lack of spare parts. The vacuum pump and drag feeder mechanism probably both need replacing, if I can be bothered to find or fabricate replacements.
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
They are also huge and usually have big power and air requirements.
Good day Dave,
It depends on the older machine. My Juki/Zevatech machine (PM575) weighs around 450 kg, but have built in rollers so you can move it around before advancing the levelling feet. The unit runs off single phase voltage from a standard residential electrical circuit. Over here that is 120VAC on a 15A circuit and the overall draw is low. Air requirements are modest in that you can use a small compressor. The machine can be loaded on all 4 corners with a mixture of feeders... 8/12/16/24mm, shaker tubes, trays, etc with an automatic tool/nozzle changer (max 8 ). Max feeder count is 128 - 8mm feeders. Sadly, the software is DOS based and so is a bit clunky to use. However one of your countrymen has created a great windows based software (PCBSynergy... which is free) that allows for direct importing of Altium (and other format) PCB files to the Juki/Zevatech format. So the only DOS software you need to use is for setting up and operating the machine. The unit is a tank with fantastic quality and workmanship, however, it is old (but there are companies/people that continue to support the machine) and so one should be technically skilled in case anything does arise. The two SMT negatives are the max component height restriction and the smallest part is 0603, although I have heard some have been able to go as low as 0402. Price-wise... these can be found for as little as $2K US with feeders. I was thinking that if I had the time I would update the unit to OpenPnP, etc as the core infrastructure (gantry is servo based) is really impressive.
Cheers,
Sam
One thing to keep in mind with Neoden - they don't use their machines in production, and from my experience, have very little knowledge of production requirements outside of making LED panels... so they make really weird and bad design choices on their machines.
For example, on the K1830, you can't use 12mm + electric feeders on the back, because they don't fit. If you mount them, they sit angled up, and the door wont close! You can only fit 8mm electric or have to go pneumatic. 12mm+ electric only fit on the front, and their excuse as to why they felt that was ok was that they felt it's easier to access the larger feeders from the front?!?!?! So they stupidly removed our option to use both sides of their PnP with full electric setups!!!
Core Electronics in NSW (Australia) got slammed with that, as Neoden happily sold them all electric feeders, and did not bother to tell them they could not use any of the 12mm+ sizes on he back.... infuriating.. and still not fixe on current K1830 machines. They did make the door smaller, so it doesn't rest on the feeders, but the feeders still sit janky on an angle (so pick is not perpendicular to the nozzle)... and they feel that's an ok compromise !!!
They also sold them large electric (42mm I think) that they had never even tried on their machines.... and of course, they did not work!
I had lots of problems with my cameras failing to recognise DFN and WSON components after 3 months of recognising them perfectly fine... they tried to blame oxidisation on my parts and other silly things, but it turned out to be (and still unresolved) a camera lighting module issue... but when I asked them to prove to me it's my parts and not the camera, by showing me a machine of theirs mounting the parts correctly, they admitted they had never tried any parts like those on their machines before. There was a list of components they had never tried to mount n their machines before they started shipping them!!!!
You gotta eat your own dogfood if you are going to sell machines like this.
If I sound a little salty about all of this... I am. I gave them 18 months to fix all of these issues... I never publicly outed them, I kept giving them more and more videos and evidence of my issues, and they kept stalling and side stepping HW related issues... and ultimately, after 2 years, they fixed nothing.
Seon
Unexpected Maker
I also realized one issue with feeder position calibrations. I think the motor steps are not calculated correctly therefore the positions gets off slightly at each movement, especially when it moves from one edge to another.
I believe there is a SW issue. All the time I adjust the positions of the feeder, they get slightly off after couple of movements.
Caner
The message that mentions a Neoden machine showing its age...I wonder what that age is? Given that 90s machines from Panasonic, Fuji, universal, Philips/ Yamaha etc are still putting down parts after every feeder lane has put down many millions of parts and some of those machines are very cheap used on ebay.
They are also huge and usually have big power and air requirements.
Good day Dave,
It depends on the older machine. My Juki/Zevatech machine (PM575) weighs around 450 kg, but have built in rollers so you can move it around before advancing the levelling feet. The unit runs off single phase voltage from a standard residential electrical circuit. Over here that is 120VAC on a 15A circuit and the overall draw is low. Air requirements are modest in that you can use a small compressor. The machine can be loaded on all 4 corners with a mixture of feeders... 8/12/16/24mm, shaker tubes, trays, etc with an automatic tool/nozzle changer (max 8 ). Max feeder count is 128 - 8mm feeders. Sadly, the software is DOS based and so is a bit clunky to use. However one of your countrymen has created a great windows based software (PCBSynergy... which is free) that allows for direct importing of Altium (and other format) PCB files to the Juki/Zevatech format. So the only DOS software you need to use is for setting up and operating the machine. The unit is a tank with fantastic quality and workmanship, however, it is old (but there are companies/people that continue to support the machine) and so one should be technically skilled in case anything does arise. The two SMT negatives are the max component height restriction and the smallest part is 0603, although I have heard some have been able to go as low as 0402. Price-wise... these can be found for as little as $2K US with feeders. I was thinking that if I had the time I would update the unit to OpenPnP, etc as the core infrastructure (gantry is servo based) is really impressive.
I want something that fits on a bench.
I just cleaned up my bunker and have bench space. I don't want to take up floor space.
https://odysee.com/@eevblog:7/2022-10-16-Bunkercleanup:3?lid=683479174b8295da964769487c4f1dd8a8bacc49
Machine within the bench size diameter and budgets is somehow not a market these Chinese pick and place machine wanted to further invest anymore. This is probably due the high quantity these machine would sell but at a very small margin. This in return brings back a very tall order to support them. Add that slight language barrier (I say slight because they all somehow speak English to a certain extend) Charmhigh for example told me they ain't making new bench machine back in 2019. So does QiHe that has the TVM802 model for so many years but now only concentrate on the larger full body machine. QiHe though as you guys might have seen on the TVM802 thread on this forum does have software upgrade from time to time although not that frequent. But if anyone would insist on such sized and budget machine, I would recommend looking at ZhengBang as their existing benchtop machine is not bad. I was considering their ZB3545TP and studied all their software videos (probably the most intuitive and simple software on P&P I have ever seen) before ended up with other larger machine from HWGC. The rest of machine in the similar range wouldn't come close to it at least on paper. But, how much of support from ZB is not something I would know although I did met them personally back in China once. But if this is the machine size and budget that you need and can afford, you have to accept the fact that you will need to learn to work around it. Else it might just ended up as another unit on EBay or Craigslist.
Machine within the bench size diameter and budgets is somehow not a market these Chinese pick and place machine wanted to further invest anymore. This is probably due the high quantity these machine would sell but at a very small margin. This in return brings back a very tall order to support them. Add that slight language barrier (I say slight because they all somehow speak English to a certain extend) Charmhigh for example told me they ain't making new bench machine back in 2019. So does QiHe that has the TVM802 model for so many years but now only concentrate on the larger full body machine. QiHe though as you guys might have seen on the TVM802 thread on this forum does have software upgrade from time to time although not that frequent. But if anyone would insist on such sized and budget machine, I would recommend looking at ZhengBang as their existing benchtop machine is not bad. I was considering their ZB3545TP and studied all their software videos (probably the most intuitive and simple software on P&P I have ever seen) before ended up with other larger machine from HWGC. The rest of machine in the similar range wouldn't come close to it at least on paper. But, how much of support from ZB is not something I would know although I did met them personally back in China once. But if this is the machine size and budget that you need and can afford, you have to accept the fact that you will need to learn to work around it. Else it might just ended up as another unit on EBay or Craigslist.
Thanks.
Looks to be around AUD$10k, no idea if that includes feeders.
EDIT: Seems to be compatible with Yamaha feeders
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005002731566827.html
I want something that fits on a bench.
I just cleaned up my bunker and have bench space. I don't want to take up floor space.
https://odysee.com/@eevblog:7/2022-10-16-Bunkercleanup:3?lid=683479174b8295da964769487c4f1dd8a8bacc49
Understood. However, the "heft" is somewhat needed in order to keep everything in its place when the gantry is moving at speed (around 2metres/second). The original desktop PnP machines tended to drop components, etc when operating at a reasonable speed. I recognize that speed is not the focus for all, but mass matters at times.
Desktop has it charms, but it is a double edge sword. My machine is around 1m square and about 1.4m tall and so it is not overly big and fits nicely in a small room I have.
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That said, look around at what you can find with an older unit. If you cannot find anything,then perhaps it is worth to take a chance on this Neoden YY1?
Cheers,
Sam
I want something that fits on a bench.
I just cleaned up my bunker and have bench space. I don't want to take up floor space.
https://odysee.com/@eevblog:7/2022-10-16-Bunkercleanup:3?lid=683479174b8295da964769487c4f1dd8a8bacc49
Understood. However, the "heft" is somewhat needed in order to keep everything in its place when the gantry is moving at speed (around 2metres/second). The original desktop PnP machines tended to drop components, etc when operating at a reasonable speed. I recognize that speed is not the focus for all, but mass matters at times.
Desktop has it charms, but it is a double edge sword. My machine is around 1m square and about 1.4m tall and so it is not overly big and fits nicely in a small room I have.
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That said, look around at what you can find with an older unit. If you cannot find anything,then perhaps it is worth to take a chance on this Neoden YY1?
If there was a small footprint floor standing unit at a good price in Sydney then I'd be very tempted. They rarely come up for used sale though.
This place in Melbroune sells used PnP machines.
https://www.resurface.com.au/used-equipment/pick-and-place
Resurface is Hawker Richards - You'll need a 3rd mortgage and possibly to sell one of your kidneys to afford one of those machines 
Ah, didn't know that, thanks.
Yeah, sell a kidney.
I think maybe I should just assemble the old LitePLace kit I have!
Might wander down to the bunker now and see what shape the kit is in...
This place in Melbroune sells used PnP machines.
https://www.resurface.com.au/used-equipment/pick-and-place
Resurface is Hawker Richards - You'll need a 3rd mortgage and possibly to sell one of your kidneys to afford one of those machines
Ah, didn't know that, thanks.
Yeah, sell a kidney.
I think maybe I should just assemble the old LitePLace kit I have!
Might wander down to the bunker now and see what shape the kit is in...
I think you should just buy a YY1 - if they sell enough of them, they wont be able to abandon their customers. If they do abandon you all, hopefully there will be enough of you out there to come up with a plan to maybe get OpenPnP working on it, or at least find ways to solve issues Neoden wont fix.
The risk is low on the YY1 in terms of investment, so maybe just take the chance. You wont find anything else in the price range you want that is worth buying instead, new or used, IMHO.
BTW - I'm in Melbourne
Seon
Unexpected Maker