No tape feeder, how to?

[flying_fred]

Hi all,
after some fighting I'm trying to ramp up (well, that's a big word ) the LitePlacer for the job I bought it for, namely a small batch of 10 boards with 200 components per side, loads of 0402/0603/0805 and others semiconds, MSOPs, SC70/SC75, etc...

The first attemps are worrisome, and certainly not on par with Juha's "Hello world placement" video.

One step after another I tried to place some 1206 ceramic caps : all is perfect.
Next step, place 9x0603 resistors.

Woah, I didn't expect the outcome: at first resistor pick, all 8 others are scattered around the tape...
It seems the tape needs to be fixed along all its length and I surely didn't expect that

I've seen that some of you routinely use it for some respectable work.
How do you proceed with the tape problem?

Thanks,
Fred

[JuKu]

Hi Fred,

First, having no strip feeders is in my opinion, one of the two big shortcomings of the machine now (the other being support for small pitch ICs). I'm working on both, but in the meanwhile:

Sounds like you are using a holder of some sort? The machine tries to measure the pickup height of a tape when it uses it the first time. This will cause the nozzle to press down on the tape, and if it is not supported well, it presses hard before the switch triggers. When releasing, the tapa bounces back and that is not good. I use double sided tape to fix parts on the table, and that works well - but as said, not optimal, as it is not that easy to change tapes and the positions need to be redone every now and then.

Please see if you can do the same or can arrange bottom support in your holders(?). You can also set the pickup height manually. The TinyG manages acceleration very well; if you set it up so that the nozzle touches the part very gently, the acceleration of the nozzle is approaching zero, minimizing any bounce. Or perhaps (depending on the part and the nozzle) the vacuum could do the last 0.0x mm, so that the nozzle doesn't touch the part at all? (I haven't actually tried the latter, just throwing out an idea).