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I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

dayworkx.com

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Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#31

Post by skholinn »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #7
girvo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very very cool :) And is _way_ better than when I'm forced to do this by hand, I'll say that much haha

There are e-waste companies with inert hot-air centrifuges. Essentially, they extract the RoHS solder, clean it, and resell re-certified product back to manufacturers. The chips simply drop off into a bin, and no ethical company will sell customers used silicon. There were a few folks that ended up getting a few years in prison for that con (small China groups would sand and laser mark old chips with modern lot codes…

exactly!! we aim to have comprehensive and transparent protocols of testing after the extraction which is exactly what is hard without general purpose robotics. if you have any pointers on how to make that happed or any pain points from your experience please send me a note to sava@dayworkx.com !

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#32

Post by skholinn »

femto wrote: post #8
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are e-waste companies with inert hot-air centrifuges. Essentially, they extract the RoHS solder, clean it, and resell re-certified product back to manufacturers. The chips simply drop off into a bin, and no ethical company will sell customers used silicon. There were a few folks that ended up getting a few years in prison for that con (small China groups would sand and laser mark old chips with modern lot codes…

I can't see a problem, as long as the chips are not fraudulently resold. Beyond not using a resource in the first place, reuse is the gold standard in sustainability. As an engineer, I wouldn't use second hand components for prototyping. When prototyping you need to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible. I'd consider using second hand components in production, provided there is a cost advantage, supply is reliabl…

the way we see it is that with robotics and coding agents we can offer much comprehensive and traceable tests. anyone can send any hardware they have, we help understand what is reusable, how to verify it and ship the parts back.

curious—what specific failure modes or uncertainties would you want eliminated before you'd consider using recovered parts, even just in production?

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#33

Post by skholinn »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #17
natpalmer1776 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a member of the genetic tree, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest Autism. It seems a lot like Autism.

Not really, and most autistic people I've met are very focused individuals. Met one guy whose whole world was the Unreal engine source, and unless you were talking about that specific area... could care less who you were. Be kind to yourself first, and maybe get outside for a walk. Best regards =3

thats guy sounds very interesting, Unreal engine is fun

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#34

Post by skholinn »

femto wrote: post #22
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't see a problem, as long as the chips are not fraudulently resold. In general, most components are only rated for 2 to 4 re-flow heating cycles before internal damage occurs. On some components the initial re-flow cycle brings the component into the rated tolerance, and for others the PCB forms a bimorph cantilever that physically fatigues the chip contacts/leads. Production yields are only part of the Infant…

That's a fair point: that heating due to repeated (de)soldering can cause degradation.

We want to get the data on that. The more boards we process the better we know the failure rates. Do you have an intuition of what exactly degrades?

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#35

Post by ac29 »

jollymonATX wrote: post #20

So I send in massive 60 drive jbod pcbs and you pay me more than 55c/lb? That's current clean pcb rate at any recycler. Boards are ~8lbs ea. Usually just tossing them unstripped to a muncher that pays 35c/lb for the whole 55lb jbod works out way better for time labor.

No, the idea is you pay them to extract components worth a lot more than 55c/lb.

Its not a scrapping system.

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#36

Post by Ccecil »

skholinn wrote: post #30
girvo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very very cool :) And is _way_ better than when I'm forced to do this by hand, I'll say that much haha

thanks! how often do you have to do it by hand and how long does it take it?

I am not the poster...but I can say for things like the A4982 stepper drivers it would take me about 1-2min/chip to do it by hand with hot air with a preheater. [1]

In one particular case where we had a BOM mixup on a batch of 500 boards @5 chips per board this would have saved me a ton of time. I did 2500 chip swaps by hand...

If you need any help with the project let me know. This is something I would love to help develop hardware for.

[1] https://youtu.be/rZCczA-PX5w?si=_BPojbLMsTLjsDCw

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#37

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #7
girvo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very very cool :) And is _way_ better than when I'm forced to do this by hand, I'll say that much haha

There are e-waste companies with inert hot-air centrifuges. Essentially, they extract the RoHS solder, clean it, and resell re-certified product back to manufacturers. The chips simply drop off into a bin, and no ethical company will sell customers used silicon. There were a few folks that ended up getting a few years in prison for that con (small China groups would sand and laser mark old chips with modern lot codes…

> no ethical company will sell customers used silicon

Since when? My first EE job was in 1988 and back then "pulls" -- components pulled from circuit boards were an easy way to get cheap parts. We'd get mailers every week from various companies listing what they had available. The electronics recycling industry was/is huge.

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#38

Post by Joel_Mckay »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #37
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are e-waste companies with inert hot-air centrifuges. Essentially, they extract the RoHS solder, clean it, and resell re-certified product back to manufacturers. The chips simply drop off into a bin, and no ethical company will sell customers used silicon. There were a few folks that ended up getting a few years in prison for that con (small China groups would sand and laser mark old chips with modern lot codes…

> no ethical company will sell customers used silicon Since when? My first EE job was in 1988 and back then "pulls" -- components pulled from circuit boards were an easy way to get cheap parts. We'd get mailers every week from various companies listing what they had available. The electronics recycling industry was/is huge.

> Since when?

The moment people switched from socket based chips, and BGA over 1 square inch in size.

Let me fix that for you: "The electronics [3rd world counterfeiting] industry was/is huge."

You should already know the unmentioned reasons by now.

I am a sentient turnip... thus, my obligation to respond ends with the safety warning. =3

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#39

Post by girvo »

skholinn wrote: post #30
girvo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very very cool :) And is _way_ better than when I'm forced to do this by hand, I'll say that much haha

thanks! how often do you have to do it by hand and how long does it take it?

Rarely! But it takes me a few minutes per component, sometimes more because I'm quite bad at electronics and always afraid of damaging things haha

Re: I'll buy your electronics to feed our robot

#40

Post by femto »

skholinn wrote: post #34
femto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point: that heating due to repeated (de)soldering can cause degradation.

We want to get the data on that. The more boards we process the better we know the failure rates. Do you have an intuition of what exactly degrades?

My intuition in this area is based on chips having a specification on maximum soldering temperature and duration. I'm not sure to what extent that is cumulative. I gather the vulnerability is the bonding of the gold whisker wires to the pads on the silicon, but you would want to check that.

Apart from the absolute temperature, chips have a recommended heating/cooling cycle, including heating/cooling rates. That suggests that differential expansion is a factor, which would likely be cumulative (more cycles = more likelihood of fatigue and damage).

The above is intuition, not the hard data you want.

I think what you are doing is a great idea (effectively demanufacturing). I'm hoping you can solve the practicalities, which as far as I can see are quality assurance and being able to guarantee a steady supply of components and a price point below new.

Any plans to retape the components so they can be put though a pick-and-place machine, or are you looking more towards manual rework? I can see that there is room for innovation in efficient ways to get components off boards at volume, as most component removal is in the form of manual rework.

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