Don Latham said to Discussion I do not see why a small pick and place assist system could not be built on a 3-d printer.
Lots of problems to be solved... How do you take loose parts or cut tape or tape reels and get the right part out, and into the chuck, oriented in the right direction? How many different kinds of parts, sizes, shapes, pin counts, IC footprints, can you handle at once? How do you know it is the correct part? How do you know where the "+" end, or "pin 1" is? How do you know that there actually is a part in the chuck? How do you know the part in the chuck is oriented the way you expected it? How do you know where the footprint on the circuit board is located? (to a few thousandths.) How do you know the part left the chuck and ended up where you intended it to be? Commercial systems have answers to all of these questions. In many cases involving intelligent vision systems. Once they are all answered, then you have a PCB unique set-up / programming effort to instruct the placement machine all about today's specific board and parts list to be assembled. I can usually build one or two boards by hand about as fast as an engineer can do the placement machine specific PCB programming and verification. --- Graham == On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:52 AM, Don Latham <d...@montana.com> wrote: > I do not see why a small pick and place assist system could not be built > on a 3-d printer. > Don > > > On Jun 24, 2016, at 8:32 AM, Attila Kinali <att...@kinali.ch> wrote: > > > > On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:16:34 -0500 > > Oz-in-DFW <li...@ozindfw.net> wrote: > > > >> 1. Pick and place machines use a lot of floor space (even for the > >> "small" ones are more than 1/2 a bench.) > >> 2. Even the best ones require pretty continuous tuning. If you aren't > >> using them continuously each new run is a new and different > >> experience. Often unpleasant for the first few scrapped boards. > > > > The trick is to use semi-manual pick&place machines for low volumes. > > Ie machines that you do not program, but guide by hand. This allows > > faster and more accurate placing of components than would be possible > > with a pure manual process, but does not have any of the complexity > > of the fully automated solutions. The components do not need to be > > 100% exactly centered, as the surface tension of the molten solder will > > pull the parts into place (which is also the reason why the copper inside > > the solder resist mask should be symmetric). > > > > These machines are still all pretty expensive (IMHO, the cheapest > > start from around 2kusd IIRC), but with the continuous growth of the > hobbyist > > market, and that market becomming more and more professional/proficient, > > the production volumes of these machines will for sure rise and thus > become > > cheaper. I am pretty sure that we will see hobbyist marketed pick&place > systems > > build upon open source based control systems in the next couple of years. > > There are already a couple of DIY systems out there, that look quite > good. > > e.g > http://vpapanik.blogspot.de/2012/11/low-budget-manual-pick-place.html > > http://www.briandorey.com/post/Diy-Manual-Pick-and-Place-Machine-part-1 > > > > > >> Solder stencils make **all** the difference. > > > > Oh, yes! Please, do not try syringe dispensers! These fail more often > than > > they work. Also pay the additional couple of bucks to get a steel stencil > > instead of a kapton one. Especially if you make more than one or two > boards > > or those with fine pitch. > > > > Attila Kinali > > > > -- > > It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All > > the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no > > use without that foundation. > > -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson > > _______________________________________________ > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > > and follow the instructions there. > > > > Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. > Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things. > Virgil > ------------------------------- > "Noli sinere nothos te opprimere" > > Dr. Don Latham, AJ7LL > Six Mile Systems LLC, 17850 Six Mile Road > Huson, MT, 59846 > mailing address: POBox 404 > Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 > > VOX 406-626-4304 > CEL 406-241-5093 > Skype: buffler2 > www.lightningforensics.com <http://www.lightningforensics.com/> > www.sixmilesystems.com <http://www.sixmilesystems.com/> > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
