I got myself a Juki RS-1R

[EEVblog]

Haven't watched the video yet, what is the control software like? Is it "next level" polished compared to the chinese ones?

Yeah, it’s worlds apart. Feature rich, mostly intuitive (I have to unlearn some things before I can relearn) and the documentation is insanely detailed. Too detailed in fact. 5+ different manuals.
It has some quirks too. All software does. But I was able to understand it well enough to be manufacturing by day 3.

Wow, nice 
You get what you pay for I guess.

[Reckless]

There is so much more going on with this machine than anything I’ve previously used, so I’m taking it slow. So long as I’m manufacturing I’m ok with the baby steps

Seon
Unexpected Maker

That's one thing I hate about most newer machines, the added complexities.  If I am spending 6 figures I want everything super fast, super easy, super simple.  It needs to be intuitive and customized for my operation.  Newer machines are generally designed for huge operations with 1000 of features not single operator production.  I would go nuts if it took me 3 days training to get a board out.  It should be super fast to load a program, load components and run production. 

That's totally not what I said..   3 days to get a production run going from 3 palettes of stuff sitting on a truck, not 3 days of training Machines don't take 5 mins to unpack and setup.

How can a new machine be delivered to you customised to your operation, right out of the box? That makes no sense. How can any machine be delivered like that?

I never said the machine operation was too complex or difficult - I said, I have a lot to unlearn and re-learn, coming from 4 Chinese machines with limited to non-existent functionality and no reliability, to a machine that allows me to go super deep in per component picking, identification, manipulation and placement - if I want/need - or have it just to it all for me if I want.

For instance - The USB-C connectors - I could have just pushed them down into the board more - that's the only way to do it on my previous machines.... but that's not the right way on the Juki - though it is "a way"

On the Juki I can set the "boss height" of the component - the height of the peg legs and any pins lower than the 0 position of the part where it touches the PCB. Then the laser curtain knows to ignore that when it's measuring the height, and it allows me to treat the connector as if it has no peg legs. then I can place it exactly at the board height without pushing it down roughly to get the pegs in.

One way takes no learning or effort, but is bad for the flex of the PCB and means I can't run the part too fast - the other takes time to learn and understand, and setup, but allows me to run that part at full speed and not have to worry about it bouncing off or flexing the PCB.

Seon
Unexpected Maker

My apologies, you are correct, we usually lose a day in unpacking, putting together, leveling a machine depending on size and weight.  Being a brand new machine is even more cumbersome.  I am sure there is alot to unlearn coming from chinese machines and I bet Juki software is intuitive.  You also made a very wise decision to buy into a platform where you have local support even though it cost an arm and a leg.  Australia's SMT market is much different than North America.  Over here we have much larger aftermarket support available so used machines are much more viable.  The entire SMT market in North America is probably 100+ times Australia.

My issue was less with your experience and more with mine.  My attitude to buying business equipment is that it should make my life much easier not harder.  I have seen most softwares overcomplicate the whole process.  I sat through a presentation from ASM (DEK/siplace) that was being pitched really hard to me.  I prefer to program cad data directly on the machine without having to buy any software and that was not possible.  They required a separate server to program CAD data with an extensive list of expensive components in order to program a board. I have also seen this with other manufacturers trying to force you into their expensive software platforms and drive cost an extra $100k+ more by upselling these software packages that are really good for super large departments.  Weeks of expensive training are required just to learn a particular ecosystem.  Reminds me of ERP software to control the business but the software is such that one update obsoletes perfectly good condition equipment.  Now for a large CMS this makes financial sense as they lose much more money in lost time for 100 employees but for a small 1-5 person CMS/OEM it doesn't. 

[seon]

Ahh, ok, that makes more sense - yeah, I agree that the big boys are all about pushing their entire Ecco-system and tools to control everything - at massive additional $ investments.

Interestingly, Juki also used to be like that with their last "server software" but now offer it in a new form called JANets - where it's modular and you only need to buy what you need, or don't buy it at all. The RS-1R actually has everything on the machine you need to import pos files and setup projects, but I actually bought the basic JANets software for the purpose of being able to setup projects offline, and to get a server side component database, so I only ever have to setup a component once and all projects can leverage that.

It allowed me to get 10-12 projects setup in days, even before my machine arrived, and trust that I had not messed up any components, and now I'm setting up my remaining projects and new ones offline at my desk, rather than having to power up the RS to do it. Of course, I can make changes on the machine and that's translated back to the database, and all of the actual production files live on the server (my choice) so they get backed up and versioned.

It's a pretty cool system, but alas, it runs on Windows and I'd rather it didn't

I bought a small Risen 7 Mini PC that runs it all, and it sits in my network rack and I can access it remotely to work on it - even from home.

I obviously have nothing to compare any of this to, other than the Neoden and CHMT products, and they were so lack luster and prohibitive compared to what I have now, I wonder sometimes how I even managed to get stuff done

Seon
Unexpected Maker

[Reckless]

Ahh, ok, that makes more sense - yeah, I agree that the big boys are all about pushing their entire Ecco-system and tools to control everything - at massive additional $ investments.

Interestingly, Juki also used to be like that with their last "server software" but now offer it in a new form called JANets - where it's modular and you only need to buy what you need, or don't buy it at all. The RS-1R actually has everything on the machine you need to import pos files and setup projects, but I actually bought the basic JANets software for the purpose of being able to setup projects offline, and to get a server side component database, so I only ever have to setup a component once and all projects can leverage that.

It allowed me to get 10-12 projects setup in days, even before my machine arrived, and trust that I had not messed up any components, and now I'm setting up my remaining projects and new ones offline at my desk, rather than having to power up the RS to do it. Of course, I can make changes on the machine and that's translated back to the database, and all of the actual production files live on the server (my choice) so they get backed up and versioned.

It's a pretty cool system, but alas, it runs on Windows and I'd rather it didn't

I bought a small Risen 7 Mini PC that runs it all, and it sits in my network rack and I can access it remotely to work on it - even from home.

I obviously have nothing to compare any of this to, other than the Neoden and CHMT products, and they were so lack luster and prohibitive compared to what I have now, I wonder sometimes how I even managed to get stuff done

Seon
Unexpected Maker

Looking forward to the day everything goes cloud based software that is system agnostic and self updating, no server to manage and files stored in cloud.  Great to hear Juki backed off controlling its customers.  Hopefully other manufacturers follow suit.  The whole attitude really says alot about how these companies view their customers.  Reminds me how BMW is trying to make heated seats a monthly subscription option. 

[jmelson]

Wow!  Very impressive.  In 2020, I bought a Quad QSA30A from an auction for the opening bid.  It needed a lot of work, and I was pretty close to throwing in the towel a few times.  It only has 3 nozzles, but has flying vision with line-scan cameras that look at the shadow cast across the part.  It has 3 servo motors for Z on each nozzle and 3 steppers to rotate each nozzle, so it can do the vision alignment while the head is in motion from the feeder rail to the board.  Does your Juki have flying vision?  I seem to see an up-looking camera in the middle, behind the conveyor, but the head doesn't seem to pause there for vision.  During the intiial calibration, it seemed to use that camera to measure the nozzles, though.  The nozzles look too close together for handling large parts.  The biggest I use are 20mm FPGAs, so they are about 28mm across the diagonal.  My nozzles are about 62mm apart, which is more than needed to prevent the parts bumping.

My QSA30A is basically a Samsung CP30 with Quad electronic feeders and Quad Quadalign alignment cameras.  I run mine at the default 60% speed setting and that seems fast enough for me.  I can do a realistic 4000+ components/hour including nozzle change and conveyor time.

Quite cool!
Jon

[Reckless]

For instance - The USB-C connectors - I could have just pushed them down into the board more - that's the only way to do it on my previous machines.... but that's not the right way on the Juki - though it is "a way"

On the Juki I can set the "boss height" of the component - the height of the peg legs and any pins lower than the 0 position of the part where it touches the PCB. Then the laser curtain knows to ignore that when it's measuring the height, and it allows me to treat the connector as if it has no peg legs. then I can place it exactly at the board height without pushing it down roughly to get the pegs in.

One way takes no learning or effort, but is bad for the flex of the PCB and means I can't run the part too fast - the other takes time to learn and understand, and setup, but allows me to run that part at full speed and not have to worry about it bouncing off or flexing the PCB.

Seon
Unexpected Maker

Does it have gripper force control for oddform components?  Very few machines have this capability. 

[MR]

Does anyone here know more about the Cyberoptics modules?
Did anyone control them directly?

There are a few linear CCD arrays out there, eg. barcode scanners are using some of them, I wonder if cyberoptics also use a single pixel linear array or multi-row CCD sensor.
The advantage I see with that is that it's possible to measure the height automatically.

I only use staging cameras on my machines at the moment (and enter the component height manually into my database).

[seon]

Wow!  Very impressive.  In 2020, I bought a Quad QSA30A from an auction for the opening bid.  It needed a lot of work, and I was pretty close to throwing in the towel a few times.  It only has 3 nozzles, but has flying vision with line-scan cameras that look at the shadow cast across the part.  It has 3 servo motors for Z on each nozzle and 3 steppers to rotate each nozzle, so it can do the vision alignment while the head is in motion from the feeder rail to the board.  Does your Juki have flying vision?  I seem to see an up-looking camera in the middle, behind the conveyor, but the head doesn't seem to pause there for vision.  During the intiial calibration, it seemed to use that camera to measure the nozzles, though.  The nozzles look too close together for handling large parts.  The biggest I use are 20mm FPGAs, so they are about 28mm across the diagonal.  My nozzles are about 62mm apart, which is more than needed to prevent the parts bumping.

My QSA30A is basically a Samsung CP30 with Quad electronic feeders and Quad Quadalign alignment cameras.  I run mine at the default 60% speed setting and that seems fast enough for me.  I can do a realistic 4000+ components/hour including nozzle change and conveyor time.

Quite cool!
Jon

28mm parts are no problem for the RS-1R - it's 17mm between nozzle tips, and if a part on nozzle 2 (for instance) is an 0402 resistor, then it can basically fit a 30-32mm part on nozzle 1. The machine is smart enough to optimise this quite nicely. I've yet to have to use the camera for anything to date.

The RS-1R doesn't do usual "on the fly" like other machines do - Juki have a fully proprietary laser curtain system that measures things on the fly with lasers, no cameras/mirrors/shadows etc.

it's insanely fast and incredibly accurate down to 0.001mm - It also uses the same laser system to accurately measure a parts height, again to 0.001mm.

Cheers,
Seon
Unexpected Maker

[MR]

Lasers still need some kind of CCD sensors on the other side to be recognized, just have a look at barcode scanners I somehow guess it's similar.
eg.
https://twcn.rs-online.com/web/p/image-sensor-ics/2616260

Would be nice if someone who knows more about the Cyberoptics modules could write more about it.
I think saw the Cyberoptics branding on your machine, so Juki just sources that knowledge from Cyberoptics I guess?

I've implemented optical recognition (cameras only) into my PNP Software back then it's not so difficult, using such a single row CCD sensor shouldn't be a big deal eg. if you rotate a square part at some point a dark shadow area will become smaller - once it reaches the smallest shadow size the component should be aligned afterwards the CCD shadow area will become larger again.

It would be interesting to know what they've implemented in HW and what in SW.

[seon]

Would be nice if someone who knows more about the Cyberoptics modules could write more about it.
I think saw the Cyberoptics branding on your machine, so Juki just sources that knowledge from Cyberoptics I guess?

No, I believe they partnered with Cyberoptics to make their proprietary system - It's not off the shelf in any way from what I have been told.

There's also no publicly available docs about it all either.

Seon
Unexpected Maker

[SMTech]

Does anyone here know more about the Cyberoptics modules?
Did anyone control them directly?

There are a few linear CCD arrays out there, eg. barcode scanners are using some of them, I wonder if cyberoptics also use a single pixel linear array or multi-row CCD sensor.
The advantage I see with that is that it's possible to measure the height automatically.

I only use staging cameras on my machines at the moment (and enter the component height manually into my database).

Essemtec used to use Cyberoptics laser centering, as did DDM Novastar, I think Fritsch still does, those probably are/were off the shelf solutions (to a point). I doubt you'd find much more about how they work without an NDA for a commerical project however. Same is probably true for Cognex, a popular choice on the vision side.

[jmelson]

Does anyone here know more about the Cyberoptics modules?
Did anyone control them directly?

There are a few linear CCD arrays out there, eg. barcode scanners are using some of them, I wonder if cyberoptics also use a single pixel linear array or multi-row CCD sensor.
The advantage I see with that is that it's possible to measure the height automatically.

I only use staging cameras on my machines at the moment (and enter the component height manually into my database).

I think the Cyberoptics was used on the Samsung CP series of machines.  My Quad QSA30A is built on the CP30 basic design, but with Quad electronic feeders and Quad's Quadalign cameras.  I am pretty familiar with the Quadalign cameras.  There is a diagnostic screen you can go into that will pull the image from the linescan CCD up so it looks like a digital scope trace, with vertical being shadow darkness and horizontal being position on the CCD.  There is a TI DSP chip that runs each camera.  The Quadalign uses some fancy aspheric optics to spread the laser beam out into a collimated line of parallel light, so the shadow that falls on the CCD array is the same size as the thing making the shadow.

As for how it works, it doesn't seem that they measure Z, except to measure the Z-zero of the nozzles at startup.  Then, you program in the best Z height to do the centering at, and whether it is centering the leads or the body.  I guess the difference there is that it can get a spot of light through between the body and the gull-wing leads, so it knows to use the outermost dark edge.  After pickup of the part, the nozzle is lifted to the specified Z for measurement, the part is rotated 45 degrees and then rotated back until the shadow is the narrowest. then that is the 0 degree alignment, and the centroid is calculated for centering,  Then, the part is rotated 90 degrees and the other centroid is computed.  I think at startup or after nozzle change it also examines the nozzle for runout and applies a correction.
These line-scan CCDs are fairly simple, but use some odd voltages.  They have a digital multiphase clock that clocks out the analog samples.  Those would then be sent to an ADC.
Jon

[jmelson]

28mm parts are no problem for the RS-1R - it's 17mm between nozzle tips, and if a part on nozzle 2 (for instance) is an 0402 resistor, then it can basically fit a 30-32mm part on nozzle 1. The machine is smart enough to optimise this quite nicely. I've yet to have to use the camera for anything to date.

The RS-1R doesn't do usual "on the fly" like other machines do - Juki have a fully proprietary laser curtain system that measures things on the fly with lasers, no cameras/mirrors/shadows etc.

it's insanely fast and incredibly accurate down to 0.001mm - It also uses the same laser system to accurately measure a parts height, again to 0.001mm.

WOW, very cool!
Jon

[seon]

I've posted a new video that shows more of the inside, and also shows an inner tray feeder mod I built, to free up the back static tray feeder position.
https://youtu.be/3IIEMZh2IxQ

Cheers,
Seon
Unexpected Maker

[Reckless]

Nice SMT line.  Impressive cycle times on Juki.  You are very courageous to be modding a brand new 6 figure machine.  I have heard of heads crashing and being broken by things being left inside machine. 
How would you rate the other Neoden equipment?  Oven, conveyors, board loader/unloaders?   Any issues with them?  The 12 zone oven has an interesting form factor.  I have heard bad things about the IN6, I assume IN12 uses same heater elements?

[seon]

Nice SMT line.  Impressive cycle times on Juki.  You are very courageous to be modding a brand new 6 figure machine.  I have heard of heads crashing and being broken by things being left inside machine. 

Well, it was suggested to me by Suba that it could be possible - I'd not have attempted it without guidance from them that previous Juki's were able to do it. But yes, always a risk adding stuff like this to a machine of this "value" - but that's why it's removable

How would you rate the other Neoden equipment?  Oven, conveyors, board loader/unloaders?   Any issues with them?  The 12 zone oven has an interesting form factor.  I have heard bad things about the IN6, I assume IN12 uses same heater elements?

Neoden don't make loaders/unloaders/conveyers/semi + auto stencil printers - they sell other 3rd party ones.  they only make their one PnP machines and ovens (and a few manual stencil printer options).

I have an original IN6 and had ongoing issues with it from day 1. It's still here on the side, as a redundancy, but I'd love to reclaim that space for a rework desk It's only barely able to reflow lead free.

The IN12C wasn't my first choice for a reflow oven - I'd like to have removed all Neoden equipment from my line, premises, life...    but finding a chain based oven that is more than 5-6 zone that is less than 3m in length is quite the challenge. I'd have loved to get an Essemtec but could not find anything on the second hand market, and new are INSANELY over priced in Australia (more than $80k for a new - super old- Essemtec oven) - so I had no real choice to go with the IN12C or get an unnamed no support Chinese "something else". Better the devil you know

The IN12C has been ok. I can handle 2-3 panels in it at a time with my designs, reflowing lead free, but none of my boards are heavy on big thermal parts.

The IN12C is quite expensive compared to other Chinese ovens...  but usability on them far exceeds other Chinese ovens.

Cheers,

Seon
Unexpected Maker
 

[Reckless]

The IN12C wasn't my first choice for a reflow oven - I'd like to have removed all Neoden equipment from my line, premises, life...    but finding a chain based oven that is more than 5-6 zone that is less than 3m in length is quite the challenge. I'd have loved to get an Essemtec but could not find anything on the second hand market, and new are INSANELY over priced in Australia (more than $80k for a new - super old- Essemtec oven) - so I had no real choice to go with the IN12C or get an unnamed no support Chinese "something else". Better the devil you know

I have sold BRAND NEW IN CRATE 14 zone Hellers and Essemtec ovens for less than the Neoden IN12.  I haven't really seen chinese pnp equipment and very curious by them.  I love hearing your experiences as it scares me the heck away from them.  Nothing worse than buying shoddy SMT equipment.  I almost bought a Neoden IN6 until I saw the poor reviews on here.  I have an obsession with small ovens.  When I started my 1st SMT line finding a quality small oven for lead free was a nightmare.  In good conscience I couldn't get myself to pay $60k+ for a 15 ft oven.  I do like splurging on a good pnp but not on feeders.  I got used to cheap feeders after someone dropped a brand new $2500 universal dual lane gold feeder in front of me. 

Neoden don't make loaders/unloaders/conveyers/semi + auto stencil printers - they sell other 3rd party ones.  they only make their one PnP machines and ovens (and a few manual stencil printer options).

My JOT and IPTE board unloaders were pretty expensive, curious about your chinese ones.  Can china make board loaders/unloaders?  We don't see them here at all in US.  Once one of my conveyors went down and I almost bought the neoden branded one for $500 but eventually made minor repair which fixed conveyor.  The neoden unit didn't look industrial grade but was cheap.  It had a very prosumer look to it. 

[MR]

Hey Seon,

can you write something about component placement / verification?
Are you loading the top paste layer into the Juki application to check if the parts will be rotated correctly?