Low Cost Pick and Place Machine

[Ice-Tea]

To be honnest, I fear the engineer who goes "I bet we can do that cheaper and better, fast". More often than not, there's a reason for a certain price and you'll find yourself figuring out the hard way just why the established brands are expensive and seemingly over-engineered...

[ProtoVoltaics]

Mike, thanks for the feedback, we have made some of the changes you mentioned already. As I stated the video was version 2 of our feeder from a few months back. The interconnect has been changed, and we haven't had a problem with vibration yet. We do think there are more iterations needed as well.

Ice-Tea, fear us then, because our goal is always to do it better 

[Alphatronique]

Hi  ok the feeder was really great     , but need more structural support on tape exit in X,Y,X axe   ,usually it also use small metal tab that cover the pocket
for avoid part  jump out of pocket whit machine vibration  ,and that start to be not really low cost to manufacture  ,easy cost more that 200$ to manufacture

wly not try to use GSM of fuji type feeder  ?  have ton on market and work not so bad  and cost < 150$  even sometime < 80$

also you may look how mydata make it feeder box  1 motor set  drive 16 reel , use electo magnet ,for select witch clutch engage and advance desired reel
so this permit to reduce electronic and motor  O0  , it also use eccentric Gear for control acceleration/deceleration of tape advance

have fun

[ProtoVoltaics]

Alphatronique, glad you liked the feeder!

We have a plastic piece that the part goes into where we pick up from to support the part from vibration. This plastic needs redone though. We plan on having a piece that can be put together that will work for all tape size not just 8mm tapes.

We have access to a 4000W laser cutter. The price for us to make these is actually pretty cheap. We were planning on selling these feeders somewhere in the $150 price range.

[Alphatronique]

Hi

you will probabely not like the idea  but you may reduce the tooth gear for tape feed and pick pat on top of the gear

this have advantage that tape hole and gear fix the tape in X ,Y ,Z direction  ,then it permit to have only 1 part exposed whit covert tape removed
that was a must since it avoid that part jump out of pocket (think 0402 or smaller in future) 
but on your situation for low volume  user what to use very short cut tape on feeder  that another must to have for low volume
whit gear  5-8 cm back  need extra 20 to 30 part on tape for compensated the lenght from supply gear to pick point and once tape shorter part was no longer usable on feeder
 on my machine i may pick part up to last tape pocket , trust me on low volume that a must   

[iampoor]

Do you have any target specs your trying to reach? And a ballpark price estimate?

[ProtoVoltaics]

We don't really have any target specs for right now, because we have already passed the ones we had set  . Unofficially, my new goal is to place faster than 1000 CPH while maintaining our current precision/accuracy.

Originally we set out to make something better than the machines we have seen so far in the low cost "DIY PnP" market. We believe we have passed all of these goals so far. These goals were things like place faster than ~500 CPH, place 0.5mm pitch parts, have feeders (for David), and auto head changing to name a few. 

As for price we don't have a price yet, but we should have a price set in the weeks following the National Maker Faire on June 12-13. So, maybe last week of June or first week of July. Shortly after that we are planning to start our KickStarter campaign.

Will keep you updated on all things here as they happen. I have been kind of quiet lately as I prepare for these maker faires. We are leaving for one in Cleveland Ohio in just a couple hours actually, so I'm still packing for that! Then, next weekend we have the National Maker Faire. Should have some good photos/videos from the faires!

[ProtoVoltaics]

Just got back from the National Maker Faire. We had a great time meeting everyone and introducing our machine to people who want to do small batch manufacturing. We got some amazing feedback from people who had bought Fire Pick Deltas and other PnP machines. These trips to the Maker Faires have been incredible valuable. For this reason we are planning to continue going to more!

We got our first production units in, so it's time to do a timed build. This will let us see how many man hours goes into building the unit and then we can set a firm price for the units! Things are going to start moving fast for us again now that we are home so keep checking in to get all the latest updates.

[ProtoVoltaics]

We've had a breakthrough in our computer vision software. We had been using a template matching system. This new CV we have developed is much more accurate, and is not influenced by things such as changes in light. We are very excited about the applications for this alone!

Back onto the Pick and Place. We are currently finishing up our first few production models, and I am excited to finally get pictures of them out in the world. They are so much prettier than our garage model prototype (I still love the prototype it looks so Steve Wozniak in the garage. Hence garage model)

We have been working very hard to get this product ready for a KickStater campaign and we will start that campaign in the next two weeks. we will have many new photos, and much better videos than what is currently available on our YouTube when the new units are complete.

[ProtoVoltaics]

Hey everyone! Just got our invite to the Orlando and Milwaukee Maker Faires. Unfortunately, the Milwaukee and the World Maker Faires are on the same weekend, so If we get invited to the World Maker Faire we will be missing Milwaukee.

If you are In the Orlando area be sure to check us out at the Orlando Maker Faire on September 12th & 13th!

We are currently finishing up our first production models here are a few pictures of the progress.

[eneuro]

I wonder, how do you deal with SO-8 packages like this NXP I2C RTC clock, which... have no dot to mark pin 1 ? 



In comparision another package at similar size has nice dot on pin 1 



I had to look into this RTC datasheet and make photo to find out that this NXP I2C RTC clock is marked by cut left edge, but it looks like so many ways to confuse pick & place machine 

Do you have some training images of packages like this to recognize those small ICs orientation?
Looking for simple manual pick & place now to be able at least quickly place elements for prototype PCBs.
Good microscope is a must, else no chance to see anything...

Improbable, how you are able pick & place those tiny chips at such speed? 

[mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder, how do you deal with SO-8 packages like this NXP I2C RTC clock, which... have no dot to mark pin 1 ? 



In comparision another package at similar size has nice dot on pin 1 



I had to look into this RTC datasheet and make photo to find out that this NXP I2C RTC clock is marked by cut left edge, but it looks like so many ways to confuse pick & place machine 

Do you have some training images of packages like this to recognize those small ICs orientation?
Looking for simple manual pick & place now to be able at least quickly place elements for prototype PCBs.
Good microscope is a must, else no chance to see anything...

Improbable, how you are able pick & place those tiny chips at such speed? 

Orientation of parts is normally done by their orientation in the tape or tube - there are too many variants to reliably use pin-1 markings. And this would also need a downward looking camera, whearas most of the vision needs to be upward looking to see the pads. 

[eneuro]

Orientation of parts is normally done by their orientation in the tape or tube

Unfortunatelly, removed this NXP RTC part from tape... to make photo while I'm interested in simple made at home pick & place machine with image software written in OpenCV and after a while, hopefully found this cut edge in its datasheet.
Just trying to figure out which image processing tips from camera have to be performed to recognize those tiny chips, especially without dot marks on pin1. I was lucky, there was side light when made this photo, so this cut edge was visible, but I can't see it under small magnification in room ambient light at all

[ProtoVoltaics]

Hello Eneuro,

Thanks for the question. Right now our computer vision does correct for the orientation of these parts, with or without the pin 1 marking. Sometimes we have seen that these style parts are oriented differently in the part tape, so we had to make our vision able to detect and correct for this.

It would have been a lot easier to do this if they were all oriented the same direction in the tape, but in the end having vision that can correct for this becomes the far better solution.

We have fallen behind on updates as we have been having really bad weather and power outages. I would like to have you a video soon showing you placements of parts similar to what you have shown.

[ProtoVoltaics]

We have fallen behind on our estimated schedule due to weather. Weather has plagued us for the past three weeks with power outages. We are inches from the finish line, but we've had such bad weather these last inches seem like miles. We are back on track now, and hope to continue to have valuable updates moving forward.

We've updated the design of our feeders. These new feeders are about half the size as they previously were, and are still capable of holding full sized reels. We also fixed communication between the feeders. We are so close! We hope to have a video of the PnP placing an entire board in the new few days. Fingers crossed for good weather, and no other unforeseen delays!

[eneuro]

Fingers crossed for good weather, and no other unforeseen delays!

What about solar PV panels-free energy from the Sun

Anyway, I wonder how you catch those tiny packages? It is by means of vacuum pickup probably, but did you already showed how your pick up tool looks like?
Just designing my custom vacuum pick up tool and always nice to see how something was made to do not broke open doors 

What do you think about this DIY Manual SMD Vacuum Pick And Place Tool ?

however, for my pick up I need slightly more complicated design, while idea is to have USB microscope visual camera right in the center as top view above placed package...

[eneuro]

We've updated the design of our feeders.

How many feeders do you have?

I already saw available your machine videos, however can not spot something this another pick & place machine does after 5 mins-what those lights turned under some ICs positioned above does?  Some kind of IR preheating bottom side of the chip? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CRSLbo_8nTQ#t=443

Those chips are additionaly rotated in this strange process, before some kind of lighting comes from the bottom, than  ICs are placed on PCB 

[ProtoVoltaics]

We've updated the design of our feeders.

How many feeders do you have?

I already saw available your machine videos, however can not spot something this another pick & place machine does after 5 mins-what those lights turned under some ICs positioned above does?  Some kind of IR preheating bottom side of the chip? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CRSLbo_8nTQ#t=443

Those chips are additionaly rotated in this strange process, before some kind of lighting comes from the bottom, than  ICs are placed on PCB 

We make feeders that we plan on selling. They are manufactured here, so we have as many as we can make.

The process that you are seeing isn't to heat the bottom of the IC. It is to illuminate the bottom of the IC. Below the lights is a camera that is looking up at the bottom of the IC. This camera corrects for the rotational error of the IC, so when it is placed all the leads from the IC are correctly placed on the pads of the PCB. 

[ProtoVoltaics]

Fingers crossed for good weather, and no other unforeseen delays!

What about solar PV panels-free energy from the Sun

Anyway, I wonder how you catch those tiny packages? It is by means of vacuum pickup probably, but did you already showed how your pick up tool looks like?
Just designing my custom vacuum pick up tool and always nice to see how something was made to do not broke open doors 

What do you think about this DIY Manual SMD Vacuum Pick And Place Tool ?

however, for my pick up I need slightly more complicated design, while idea is to have USB microscope visual camera right in the center as top view above placed package...

We use vacuum tips from pick up pens as our pick up tools. We have different size pick up tools that our machine can automatically change if it needs to pick up a different size part.

[ProtoVoltaics]

We have been invited to Maker Faire Atlanta! If you are in the area we hope to see you there!

[eneuro]

It is to illuminate the bottom of the IC. Below the lights is a camera that is looking up at the bottom of the IC. This camera corrects for the rotational error of the IC, so when it is place all the leads from the IC are correctly placed on the pads of the PCB.

Thanks 
Anyway what about placing elements at choosen angles lets say 45 degs or any given angle ? The same camera for correction is used?
It looks like it slow downs things, since each IC which require higher precision placement have to be taken into this corner for correction 

For example here below, for each  D1..D12 diodes (LEDs) need to be placed at different angle 


Do you support placements of elements at given angle- not only aligned horizontal or vertical ?

[tggzzz]

It is to illuminate the bottom of the IC. Below the lights is a camera that is looking up at the bottom of the IC. This camera corrects for the rotational error of the IC, so when it is place all the leads from the IC are correctly placed on the pads of the PCB.

How would that work with a board like this https://entertaininghacks.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/designsparkpcb.gif where red is the topside and blue the bottom side? Note that the bottom is mostly a ground plane.

Would it work at all with a 4 layer board, where the inner layers are mostly power planes?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Anyway what about placing elements at choosen angles lets say 45 degs or any given angle ? The same camera for correction is used?

You do the vision first to establish the offset and rotation of the picked part, then rotate it to the correct orientation, preferably during the journey from camera to placement position

[ProtoVoltaics]

Anyway what about placing elements at choosen angles lets say 45 degs or any given angle ? The same camera for correction is used?

You do the vision first to establish the offset and rotation of the picked part, then rotate it to the correct orientation, preferably during the journey from camera to placement position

Correct. It is as mikeselectricstuff says. 

[ProtoVoltaics]

It is to illuminate the bottom of the IC. Below the lights is a camera that is looking up at the bottom of the IC. This camera corrects for the rotational error of the IC, so when it is placed all the leads from the IC are correctly placed on the pads of the PCB.

How would that work with a board like this https://entertaininghacks.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/designsparkpcb.gif where red is the topside and blue the bottom side? Note that the bottom is mostly a ground plane.

Would it work at all with a 4 layer board, where the inner layers are mostly power planes?

tggzzz, I'm not sure I understand the question. Could you explain a little bit more?