SMALLSMT Vision Placer Pick & Place machines

[Simon]

what about those that can't code that particular platform. This is the stumbling block for linux, it's like saying you have to be a mechanic to drive a car and then wonder why no one is buying your car.....

[Koen]

Yes, horses for courses. If it doesn't suit you, buy your manufacturer's software and its support package.

[Kjelt]

The whole point is that with OS, you can solve problems yourself, and adapt it to your needs if you want.

True, but then you created your own branch from the baseline and assume the company has C++ sw engineers on board.
If your changes are not accepted you can merge every new release of the SW.
If you extend that thinking you can better also built your own HW machine, since if something breaks down you know how to fix it and can fix it asap instead of waiting for a spare part to arrive from China and a technician to replace and install it. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

The whole point is that with OS, you can solve problems yourself, and adapt it to your needs if you want.

True, but then you created your own branch from the baseline and assume the company has C++ sw engineers on board.
If your changes are not accepted you can merge every new release of the SW.
If you extend that thinking you can better also built your own HW machine, since if something breaks down you know how to fix it and can fix it asap instead of waiting for a spare part to arrive from China and a technician to replace and install it. 

But you have some control, as opposed to no control with proprietory  software.

[mrpackethead]

Yep, that is why i bought a commercial E-CAD solution, in the hope that I would not be at the mercy of hobbyists.

I bought altium.. And i'm at the mercy of them, and they have somethign in excess of 2500 issues that need resolving!

[Smallsmt]

But Altium is still a usable professional software. I used from 1994 on and there is no other software package at this price point on the market offering this functionality.

[Simon]

I tried KiCAD, there were problems that no one was in a hurry to fix and development has gone in phases. At one point I was left in a mess with the libraries and gave up because they changed stuff that affected me with no warning. As things stand I do need a program where the footprints are picked with the part. As much as I disliked that method of working at the start I see no other way now and prefer to have well defined parts for a BOM. KiCAD is not yet at professional level as far as I am concerned. We can argue about the woes of commercial companies for the rest of our lives. I have plenty of issues with circuit studio and they know about it but here and now the workflow and functionality is pretty much exactly what I want.

[SMTech]

I think there are far fewer genuine open source success stories than people like to make out and most of not all of them have a major commercial backer driving them forwards. The "but I can fix it/see the bugs/tweak it" argument is a fallacy in most cases, it takes massive resources to make meaningful contributions to packages of any level of complexity and nobody can audit even a fraction of most of them singlehandedly. Linux demonstrates this brilliantly well, on servers where it goes up against commercial Unix and expensive mainframes it gets the money and focus to deliver results,. Desktop, whatever people might like to argue otherwise, is a mess of rival splintered factions pulling in different directions and never finishing anything. Libreoffice is another, despite being a piece of software most people might want to use (as they don't need or even know about the fancy stuff in Office) but it still looks and behaves rather like Office97 but perhaps less stably.

There are multiple commercial eCAD packages out there at multiple price points, all of them do more than KiCad, with that complexity come quirks & bugs but they move forwards at a reasonable pace, they implement changes and fixes and new features at the same time as improving performance and usability. I'm not sure KiCad can say the same. I have one client who uses KiCad, they break pretty much every DFM rule of thumb you might care to think of and even their pick and place data is a complete mess, admittedly, they are a little eccentric but I think KiCad needs to share some of the blame.

Any client doing a lot of design work or complex/high speed stuff IME is using either Cadstar or Altium, Labview Protel seems to clear up in the level below that and the rest pick up the dregs. Despite the massive popularity of Eagle on forums like this one it doesn't seem to do a great job of breaking outside of it Hobbyist niche.

Without one of the chinese manufacturers picking up OpenPNP, in a proper and open manner, and throwing some weight behind pushing it forwards, I don't see how it will ever become what people expect or want it to.

However for many purposes open formats are more important than open source, My Essemtec machine stores all its data in perfectly readable XML files &/or easily readable databases. So if I want to I can access, read, alter and share that data (albeit in an unsupported manner) with other systems.

[mikeselectricstuff]

However for many purposes open formats are more important than open source, My Essemtec machine stores all its data in perfectly readable XML files &/or easily readable databases. So if I want to I can access, read, alter and share that data (albeit in an unsupported manner) with other systems.

100% this - if can avoid most of the horribleness of Chinese (or other) Pick/Place software by writing my own importer, that probably has more benefit than OSS, assuming the software is stable enough to work reliably once it's placing parts.

 

[Koen]

Open source != free. Your definition of success != other's definition of success. I like OpenPNP. It's small, it works, it's successful to me. I don't care about it being widely supported, being a reference, being the best. If people who can't contribute code/machines/tests wish for features or support, I'm sure other contributors would gladly do it against an invoice. https://www.gofundme.com/help-openpnp-grow

[Simon]

This is the problem, it's free so what do you want for nothing? well then don't try to tell me it's the best thing since sliced bread. I once found myself on the KiCAD developer list and i was not impressed.

[mrpackethead]

But Altium is still a usable professional software. I used from 1994 on and there is no other software package at this price point on the market offering this functionality.

L    Altium is seriously bug ridden.   2500+ issues in bugfix..    Usable?  mmm random crashes.....     The point is that just becuase you pay for it, does'tm make it any good

[Simon]

Well sadly people like altium are now relying on "commercially locked in syndrome" and that is sad. People particularly companies will pay for their secretions regardless of what they are but then there are no laws that govern usability of software and no legal person would ever understand.

I have had various bugs found in Solid Edge completely ignored because only me or too few people had found them. The most notable was clearly poor management of the software standards and whoever coded the viewer used different properties to define background colours. I set my screen view colour to be off white to make it easier on my eyes and that was fine in the main program. Collegues opening the file and making prints and PDF's did not get this show up on the outputs and neither their screens if i remember correctly. But in the viewer used by management who did not need the actual program it showed up as the permanent background as the fields were treated differently. In fact If i remember correctly it was a Windows setting i used to alter window backgrounds as a display thing only.

[Smallsmt]

But Altium is still a usable professional software. I used from 1994 on and there is no other software package at this price point on the market offering this functionality.

L    Altium is seriously bug ridden.   2500+ issues in bugfix..    Usable?  mmm random crashes.....     The point is that just becuase you pay for it, does'tm make it any good

My Altium Designer 16 never crashed.
I am doing simple 3D PCB design and schematic entry no problems so far!

[sam512bb]

But Altium is still a usable professional software. I used from 1994 on and there is no other software package at this price point on the market offering this functionality.

L    Altium is seriously bug ridden.   2500+ issues in bugfix..    Usable?  mmm random crashes.....     The point is that just becuase you pay for it, does'tm make it any good

Good day Day,

I would say something is amiss here.  I have been using Altium for several years now on Win 7 pro and I have never had it crash, etc.  As for bugs... it does have some Idiosyncrasies , but nothing that actually caused me any grief.  What version are you using and on what platform?  How complex are you designs?  In my case I am usually 4-6 layer with the occasional 8-year.

The only gripe I have is the rather pricey maintenance fee... Consequently I decided to stay at an older version, as I refuse to pay $1800 per year for updates/maintenance for items I do not need... does anyone really use Altium VHDL, etc?

Cheers,

Sam

[mrpackethead]

I have to admit that the random crashes stopped in version 17.     In version 14/15 it was so painful it was just scary.    Theres still a lot of bugs in Version 17.    ( 2500+ of them )..   

[sam512bb]

I have to admit that the random crashes stopped in version 17.     In version 14/15 it was so painful it was just scary.    Theres still a lot of bugs in Version 17.    ( 2500+ of them )..

Good day Mr.PacketHead,

Gotcha.  I decided to stay at Version 10.  This version has been super stable and any bugs present have not caused me any grief.  Altium has been bugging me for years to buy into their maintenance plan, but given the ever increasing yearly maintenance price, the possibility of new release issues, and that the newer releases really would not make me more productive (e.g. current limitation is my noggin)... I decided to stay where I am at.  At some point I may need to upgrade, but given the savings I have experienced from not paying the yearly fee, I can simply buy a new" seat then.

If the current and past few releases are causing your grief, see if you can downgrade to version 10.  This is assuming ver 10 has the feature set you are needing.

Cheers,

Sam

[Simon]

I think the soil is rich for a competitor to altium that will either adopt their format for all file types or have a comprehensive importer. Altium is a shit head company that does not seem to care or realize that it is pissing people off. Even the bean counters can appreciate a cheaper program that will deliver like for like and be able to work natively with Altium formats.

[Gary.M]

I stopped at 99SE! Still doing what I need.

Sent from my MI 8 using Tapatalk

[Simon]

well I am stuck with a bastardised CS.

[SMTech]

Interesting, we don't maintain ours either... We moved on form 99SE (I think) because changes form Vista onwards meant it behaved badly (because it was a very naughty program that made changes to its own program directory IIRC).
However our main gripe is the epic upfront cost and zero options to pay/lease it any other way. I know some people hate "renting" software, but we really like it, saves scrabbling around for a big chunk of cash and reduces it to a predictable overhead.

[Simon]

Interesting, we don't maintain ours either... We moved on form 99SE (I think) because changes form Vista onwards meant it behaved badly (because it was a very naughty program that made changes to its own program directory IIRC).
However our main gripe is the epic upfront cost and zero options to pay/lease it any other way. I know some people hate "renting" software, but we really like it, saves scrabbling around for a big chunk of cash and reduces it to a predictable overhead.

The problem is that invariably renting can be dearer, it depends.

[SMTech]

It can, but when (and this seems to be true for a lot of CAD / media programs in particular) the developer doesn't let you upgrade infrequently without paying for any service updates that happened in between, you are basically renting it and the savings get quite small. (plus almost no software licence grants you ownership either)

[IconicPCB]

MIchael,
What is the limit on height of components the feeders can dispense ?

[Smallsmt]

What is the limit on height of components the feeders can dispense ?

Push feeder can feed components up to 5,6mm height.
The height of components in CL Feeder depends on cassette design.
If you pickup parts from trays or strip feeders 12mm height is normal because we calculate to move parts in 2mm z distance over max. 6mm tall parts.
Maximum 16mm part height should be possible.

Regards
Michael