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Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

sparkfun.com

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Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#41

Post by jabl »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #7
hoopladler wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hobbyist, I'd like one. You could do projects using hundreds or thousands of devices that are -at the moment- out of reach not for reasons of price, but rather because it would take too long to assemble the devices in question. For instance, tagging and tracking wild animals, or getting really granular local climate data. Electronics just gets more interesting the more it moves away from the monolithic device ap…

Hundreds or thousands of something is typically not a hobbyist venture. Also remember that placing parts is only one step of the process. If you're going to automate assembly by purchasing a P&P, you should also be ready to do high-volume stenciling and have a fast oven. In any case, the time spent aligning the machine and setting up reels can be a significant fraction of the time to just place parts manually. In som…

> I've soldered literally thousands of through-hole boards and SMT is much faster and easier to do by hand.

Sorry for going off-topic, but do hobbyists actually solder SMT's manually nowadays? Or does everyone use some kind of off-the-shelf/DIY reflow oven? And if so, are stencils obligatory or is it feasible to just apply paste manually?

I've been thinking of getting back (or well, properly starting if you will) my electronics hobby, but I've ever only done through-hole components. At least based on tutorials on the web, it's possible to hand-solder SMT's with some practice. But given how small e.g. 0603's are I guess that might involve an unhealthy amount of swearing..

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#42

Post by icebraining »

cjsuk wrote: post #34
ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am waiting for the emergence of nano factories. Basically vertically integrated businesses like Sparkfun that can design and manufacture a very wide range of products on site, sufficient to capture the value at the exploratory front end of product design and development.

I’d like to see that but I think the turnaround and unpredictability of third parties adds a lot of risk to a product development cycle. If you look at lead times for PCBs and population for example it can be a 30 day turnaround minimum for every cock up you make on a prototype. During that time your engineers may be dead in the water. To get around that you can pay a 20x premium to have your boards shipped fast. Two…

I'm curious, what prices are we talking about? Around here I'm seeing prices of PCBs in 2 working days for under 70€/PCB - it doesn't seem that expensive if you only need a few boards for development.

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#45

Post by cjsuk »

icebraining wrote: post #42
cjsuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see that but I think the turnaround and unpredictability of third parties adds a lot of risk to a product development cycle. If you look at lead times for PCBs and population for example it can be a 30 day turnaround minimum for every cock up you make on a prototype. During that time your engineers may be dead in the water. To get around that you can pay a 20x premium to have your boards shipped fast. Two…

I'm curious, what prices are we talking about? Around here I'm seeing prices of PCBs in 2 working days for under 70€/PCB - it doesn't seem that expensive if you only need a few boards for development.

Those are likely pretty trivial boards which you place parts yourself. I do that at home with crap equipment. It's not quite as easy if you have to have someone to place parts for you, which is required without significant investment if you are placing BGA / 0201 / 0402 packages reliably etc.

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#46

Post by goty2 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #20
abetusk wrote: post #12

To me, here are the most relevant bits of why they chose the CHMT36VA over others: Let me say that the needs or SparkX are slightly odd. We need to build 10-50 of a design and see how it sells. As it sells we may need to build 100-500pcs. If a design needs more than 500 pieces then it immediately gets moved over to our proper SMD production lines with much more capable machines. SparkX needed something small and quic…

I am waiting for the emergence of nano factories. Basically vertically integrated businesses like Sparkfun that can design and manufacture a very wide range of products on site, sufficient to capture the value at the exploratory front end of product design and development.

It is unlikely to happen. Software makes it easier to reconfigure things. It will almost always make sense to rent time on a better machines. Few people run their own public facing arm servers at home, because you can rent better performing and easier to manage servers online.

Proximity and flexibility still matters somewhat though, so there might still be a market for a pick and place machine between this type of machine and a professional one. In China there are pcb factories offering assembly for a low fee. They have a multiple pick and place machines with common components after each other.

The reason it seems like a good idea is people don't see things like the time spent tweaking as a cost. It is also to some extent true for laser cutters and 3d printers.

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#47

Post by iliis »

jabl wrote: post #41
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds or thousands of something is typically not a hobbyist venture. Also remember that placing parts is only one step of the process. If you're going to automate assembly by purchasing a P&P, you should also be ready to do high-volume stenciling and have a fast oven. In any case, the time spent aligning the machine and setting up reels can be a significant fraction of the time to just place parts manually. In som…

> I've soldered literally thousands of through-hole boards and SMT is much faster and easier to do by hand. Sorry for going off-topic, but do hobbyists actually solder SMT's manually nowadays? Or does everyone use some kind of off-the-shelf/DIY reflow oven? And if so, are stencils obligatory or is it feasible to just apply paste manually? I've been thinking of getting back (or well, properly starting if you will) my…

We mainly do SMT at our hackerspace, as it is really is fast and easy to do by hand using a hot-air gun (e.g. [1]). Use a syringe to deposit solder paste (we have one which uses compressed air, very convenient! Something like [2]) and a binocular to see what you're doing and you will be golden.

[1] http://www.aoyue.eu/aoyue-int998-smd-rework-station-hot-air-... [2] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/220V-AD-982-Semi-Auto-Glue-D...

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#48

Post by rkangel »

jmrobles wrote: post #43

Do these machines solder the component? Or is it then necessary to put the PCBs in the oven? thnks!

The process for industrial assembly is:

Put solder on the pads. This can be done with a solder mask - a thin sheet of metal with holes cut where the pads are. Solder paste is scraped over it and then the mask is lifted off, leaving solder on the pads.

Place components. This can be done manually or with the pick and place machines described here. The solder paste is sticky so there is something to hold the components in place once placed.

Reflow. This is done by putting the now populated board into a special oven. This oven will put the board through a particular temperature curve ('profile') which melts the solder then lets it cool. The surface tension of the solder on the pads helps here - it pulls components that are a fraction off into perfect position (assuming the pick and place got it close enough and that solder is on pads where it is meant to be).

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#49

Post by rkangel »

icebraining wrote: post #42
cjsuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see that but I think the turnaround and unpredictability of third parties adds a lot of risk to a product development cycle. If you look at lead times for PCBs and population for example it can be a 30 day turnaround minimum for every cock up you make on a prototype. During that time your engineers may be dead in the water. To get around that you can pay a 20x premium to have your boards shipped fast. Two…

I'm curious, what prices are we talking about? Around here I'm seeing prices of PCBs in 2 working days for under 70€/PCB - it doesn't seem that expensive if you only need a few boards for development.

I'm betting that's a 2 sided board? PCB process technology seems to have a fundamental time limit that's a multiple of the number of layers.

We're building prototypes of a complex bit of consumer electronics for consumer testing. We can do full industrial design, mechanical design, electronic design get the components made, assembled and delivered in 6 weeks. The fundamental limiting factor on how fast we can do it is the time it takes for the PCB to be made. From an electronics point of view, schematic capture and layout can be done in a week, and board assembly can be done in a day (if you're in a hurry) but there's nothing we can do about the 3 week lead time on the PCB because it's 8 layers with blind laser drilled vias.

Re: Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine

#50

Post by SlowBro »

I worry about phoning home if the company goes offline. When phoning home, sniff the packets. I wonder if mother China is sending exactly the same authorization packets back to the device every time? If so it should not be terribly difficult to spoof the DNS on your own network and set up a small server to provide the necessary answer to turn on the machine.
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