You can read it also at http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=98 ... 2591a9ac4a, but here it is in forum format:
LitePlacer News, Autumn 2015
Maker Faires!
I'm showing the machine at the World Maker Faire in New York next weekend, September 26 and 27. Also, you can see the machine at the Maker Faire European edition, which is held in Rome, October 16th to 18th. If you are coming to these, please come by to see the machine and say hi! These Maker Faires are awesome events, you won’t regret taking the time to come. There will be so much cool stull to see that I won’t be offended if you pass my stand – but you will miss the show special deals!
New software
Although the next software revision I still in beta, I wanted to get that out before the travelling I need to do during the autumn. You can read the full release notes, but here are some highlights:
Faster operation
The most criticized thing on the LitePlacer is the low speed. The new software has a fast placement mode which measures the start and end point of component tape, and calculates the in-between part positions from that. Also, the system now uses stored values for pickup and placement heights. These two improvements significantly speeds up the machine, up to 500 components per hour (around seven seconds per part). In my opinion, this is more than enough for a prototype machine. To get a feel for it, here is a short video:
https://youtu.be/fKI0XoCVmLI
Production friendly features
I built liteplacer for prototype builders. This shows in low price and first time build friendly software features, but also in lack of feeders and relativey slow operation (still way faster than hand placement, mind you!). Still, quite a few people use it in low volume production. To make life easier for this, the software now support panelized boards. Another requested feature is to support tape trays: You might want to have parts for board A and board B on a movable platforms, so when you switch the board you are building, it is easier to change the parts used as well.
And more:
You can read the full list of new features here.
Have a nice autumn!
Best regards,
Juha Kuusama
http://www.liteplacer.com