Question from competition :-)

[jarekk]

Hi,

I am building similar machine. Well - similar idea, but target a bit higher ( with the price at least 3..4x). But with placement simulator, feeders ( automatic and vibratory) etc.

I can show some of my ideas / attempts, but wanted to ask you first - as it is your commercial forum and my pictures/machine/ideas might steal your show a bit

[JuKu]

I'm cool with this.

1: at that price, you are not really a competitor, but rather, an alternative.
2: By coming here, it looks like you are open for co-operation. 1+1 can sometimes be 4.

So, what are you up to?

[PeterST]

Let me guess :

PP04.png (25.85 KiB) Viewed 9101 times

[jarekk]

Well, wrong guess

DSC00496.JPG (189.11 KiB) Viewed 8975 times

I have to make short series from time to time. I was looking for professional machine and I actually bought one. But I was not happy - it was semi-automatic ( no motorized feeders), also took much time to set it up and the design was extremely complicated ( no chance to repair it).

As I design electronics for CNC machines I decided to build my own machine.
I wanted simple mechanical and electrical design. That is why most parts are just cut from 10mm alu sheet and most electronics is off the shelf ( motor controllers, Arduino Due etc.)
There are quite many 3D printed parts. The software is QT/OpenCV based, so Linux/IOS/Windows is supported.
All the processing is done in LUA scripts executed by main program.

Vibratory feeder:

DSC00498.JPG (89.46 KiB) Viewed 8975 times

Automatic feeder ( some pictures of early prototype - this one is not the final one as it had accuracy problems)

DSC00500.JPG (146.69 KiB) Viewed 8975 times

(there seems to be limit to 3 attachements )

[jarekk]

Some software pictures

pp2.png (85.46 KiB) Viewed 8975 times

pp1.png (36.07 KiB) Viewed 8975 times

[mawa]

Jarek,

could you please explain the benefits of displaying the PCB layout in your UI?

What actions can/must be done with this view?

[jarekk]

Well, the gerber preview serves two purposes:
- (less important) - you can panelize your - you just provide board count in X/Y as well as distance between them
- you can pick any single item on gerber preview ( usually vias) to configure them as fiducials or "assembly points" ( usually this means board corner - which you later on put in known place on your machine)
- you can simulate placement using gerbers, pick&place coordinates and built in library of standard components - to judge if the program is correct

See Volker Boesmens manual - https://www.vbesmens.de/images/Download ... l_V017.pdf page 18 - I plan similiar feature

[JuKu]

> you can pick any single item on gerber preview ( usually vias) to configure them as fiducials

Neat idea.

[jarekk]

I know. I used to have professional pick and place machine with such features - it helped a lot.

Unfortunately the gerber preview is quite heavy ( even for QT), so it requires quite powerfull computer.