This is more about openPnP but to learn more about the machine itself see kzread.info/dash/bejne/jHetr5d8l6rMibg.html

Dude! I watched your lightplacer build when I was first starting to build my PnP and hadn't really caught up on your channel until now. I've since finished my machine and just ran my first small run. I came up against every single issue that you listed! Spot on man... I knew you would mention bumping the table and all the parts going flying. I did that luckily after the run, so all the more expensive ICs and parts were still covered. I'm chasing down some final inaccuracies that are driving me nuts, but I can do 0805s and have some success with QFNs. Thanks! I have some videos to catch up on.

@PsychogenicTechnologies

3 жыл бұрын

Great job on getting in running--man, I've bumped and jiggled components out of place so many times, I don't want to remember. The worst was a run for someone else's boards, and they'd provided just enough overhead to get by of some pretty specific components... i.e. I wound up sorting a bunch of resistors and stuff and refilling the strips manually. Thankfully, they were 0805, but still, uuuf! Hope you work out the accuracy issue. In my case, the machine was well squared but I had to play with the backlash a lot to finally get it happy. Then, the bottom vision in openpnp has its issues (especially with these cams) but still does a hellova job most of the time.

@criznach

3 жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies Are you using backlash compensation? I haven't tried that yet, but I did just tighten my belts and recalibrate. One other problem I'm having is the auto feeder setup is mis-detecting my tape holes consistently by about 1/2 mm in the same direction. Every single time...

Your work looks very professional, nice job dude

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

Salut! Thanks man :) Years ago, I was doing toner transfer and etching PCBs in-house: it was fun, gave "instant" gratification (very labor intensive but had boards in hand the same day) and it worked. But with time and, you know, actual clients with real production requirements I've built up a process that gives clean and reliable results--and look pretty sweet, too :)

@burstyou4290

4 жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies oh cool, I actually never made my own pcb but someday I will do it :) And now with the placing machine are you still making some pcb yourself or do you use pcbway or jlc pcb ?

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

It's fun to do but is a bit messy... maybe I would use a mill now, rather than chemical etching. But really, now the boards I make are either too fine-pitched (small parts) or have too many layers (I've done 2 layers in-house, but 4 I wouldn't even try)--and usually both. So, yeah, I use fabs (usually chinese, pcbway is pretty good) for the PCBs themselves.

@burstyou4290

4 жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies wow I didn't even know that you could do 4 layers pcbs at home, thanks for the information i'm gonna take a look at that

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

Oh nono, what I'm saying is I've done 2 but wouldn't even try doing the 4-layer boards that I need now. Even two was a pain! (might be possible, I dunno... just don't want to commit the energy to try ;-) )

Hey man thanks for the vids. They've been very informative. I'm trying to decide which road to go down? I feel like it needs to be openpnp all the way. Would you recommend a liteplacer machine with openpnp or a DIY frame with openpnp? Also, did you change your cameras out for something more openpnp friendly? In one of your videos you mention the liteplacer cameras have trouble with openpnp?

@PsychogenicTechnologies

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the feedback! Sorry it took a zillion years to get back to you. Have you decided and gone for it. My recommendation is openPnP, for sure. The LitePlacer does the job, no problem, and the YUV problem is pretty much gone with recent versions--I use the default settings and it just works (at least for white and black tape, clear tape is still tough, until I put a fat black marker to it... wouldn't be awesome for a reel, but in these quantities not an issue).

Very cool video! I'm sure that you have already seen the series of videos made by Stephen Hawes' on his fully open source PNP. I'm building one too and was looking for some practical use showcasings of OpenPNP. :)

@PsychogenicTechnologies

3 жыл бұрын

Hey, thanks! Yeah, sure have seen them--am a bit envious of that guy's awesome setup! He makes some cool stuff, pnp-related and otherwise.

good work dear friend. what are you using the vacuum pump. Is there a pump for blowing?

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks! The pump is whatever came with the LitePlacer kit--looks to be a very generic 12V vacuum pump. There is no system to put positive pressure/blow, but as soon as the solenoid switches, you can hear those pops as the seal breaks (in the video there is a sequence around the 05:17 mark). That, plus having some sticky solder paste to land on, has been enough to ensure even small components are released > 99% of the time.

Would love to get an updated "openPNP on the Liteplacer run" tour, and also curious what kind of oven (reflow? multi stage?) you use? I used to work as an operator on a MYDATA machine as well as sometimes the panasonic MK series with the industrial feeders which I think you'd love. I did pre and post oven inspection and manual touch ups too. So seeing this tech has gone open source just blows my mind.. Thanks for sharing and making such great videos, very inspiring

@PsychogenicTechnologies

Жыл бұрын

Hey exhe! Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked. I actually do have some pending updates--lots of footage, little time to put it together--of most interest being how I optimized performance a good deal (I'd been running it at, let's say, conservative speed for instance and newer OpenPnP really shines in making thing smooth and snappy). For reflow, I used a good old toaster oven (with a basic temp sensor and PID) for the longest time, until I upgraded to an IR oven (it's an upgrade, but still just a basic chinese unit... mostly great, but I find I miss the toaster oven in cases where I have some tall black plastic on the board, for instance). In short, it works well (with open source firmware burned in--the default was complete crap that couldn't even count seconds correctly) but to make it tops I'd have to work on circulating the air in there a bit to even things out... hasn't been worth the trouble, so far, and will probably upgrade the unit before I ever get around to it, but you never know. In any case... open hardware, open source: it's blown my mind too, ever since I discovered Linux @ uni, to have such amazing power just shared with everyone--it inspired me to release my first open source way back when, and I've enjoyed participating in this grand distributed project ever since. As for the feeders... yeah, that still the biggest painpoint for me with LitePlacer. Was recently convinced by someone to get back into the habit of contributing videos, and though I've yet to handle my giant stack, I did break the ice this weekend with a totally unrelated post on my most recent relaxing weekend project. Thanks again, cheers!

@exhebece5480

Жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. I couldn't help but notice how some T-SHIRT reflow ovens seemed to be a single stage version of the 3 stage ovens we'd use in board reflow on the old assembly line I used to work at. I never even considered an ER unit. We'd run this temp sensor pack through the oven wth the board. With these thin wire leads hooked up to various "zones" on the boards we plan to run. Then we'd tune the 3 different reflow zone temps to give us the cleanest result. I thought you might like to know that, if you ever plan on running a continuous line through your "oven" process

Awesome video, as always! Any tips on how to add lighting underneath the desk so that Liteplacer's cameras get an even exposure? I will also place mine underneath my working desk. Also, are you using OpenPNP exclusively, or also Liteplacer software? Thanks!

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

Hi--and thanks! Actually, in addition to the LED ring on the cam, I created a quick add-on by stringing a series of blue LEDs (in the hopes of helping HSV masking) and potted them in hot glue. Then I tied the ring up in parallel to the 12V for the original LED ring. Far from perfect, but it did help--you can see it here: inductive-kickback.com/uploads/2020/08/ringoop.jpg I should probably do a vid of all these little mods on the machine...

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

Oh, and to answer your other Q: I've moved to using OpenPnP exclusively. Easier to have a single system to be familiar with, does what I need, lets me script what it doesn't have in Python (and if that doesn't work then the core is Java, which is still ok), and works well.

@equitimer

4 жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies Thanks for the reply! I have given up on the Liteplacer software because the optical nozzle recognition is almost useless. So I'm trying OpenPNP....but although I've installed the software I just can't get the PC/software to connect to the tinyG... Do you have any tips? I get the error message "Timeout waiting for response to G21 ; Set millimeters mode". I've put the machine-xml file found here wiki.apertus.org/index.php/File:Machine.zip in the .openpnp folder. I have no idea as to how I can proceed... Thanks!

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

@@equitimer Oooh... yeah, have really been meaning to publish this info... short version is that you there was a good deal of messing around to get my GcodeDriver happy... a quick look at that machine.xml looks ok, though. However, which _version_ of openpnp are you using? My config is under ~/.openpnp2 -- if you're lucky, it's just that dumb :-)

@PsychogenicTechnologies

4 жыл бұрын

or maybe just port/baudrate etc settings... connect to the TinyG manually, using a terminal. Issue a "G21 M9" or somesuch and see what happens...

Nice! Would you make a tutorial on how to set-up open Pnp A-Z?

@PsychogenicTechnologies

3 жыл бұрын

Hi, and thanks! That might be a pretty good idea (though it's been a while, now, so I'd need my own refresher!) I put in some extra deets at inductive-kickback.com/2020/09/openpnp-with-liteplacer-pick-and-place/ but these are the very-liteplacer-specific things. Is that what you're using? Once you've got openpnp talking to the system in a sane manner, it all becomes pretty standard (or at least covered by the openpnp user manual). Have you been through the process? Planning to? Is there a particular snag or any area your most interested in?

@ingDemurtas

3 жыл бұрын

@@PsychogenicTechnologies Thanks for the answer. I've been running a TVM802 and I am building my own machine, using a MKGEN-L as motion controller + OpenPnP. I am interested into how set up OpenPnp for a custom machine build.

@PsychogenicTechnologies

3 жыл бұрын

@ingDemurtas Well that sounds cool. I can't say that I know the answer to this... How do you talk to the MKGEN-L? Is it just standard GCode? If that's the that case, the setup should be very similar to using the TinyG+LitePlacer, just a question of setting up the GCodeDriver and putting the correct commands in the various calls (MOVE_TO_COMMAND, etc).

Please help me, what is name of motherboard used in pick and place machine and can communicate with openpnp? Please help me 😭😭

@PsychogenicTechnologies

2 жыл бұрын

Oh, sorry didn't see this until now. The lightplacer uses a TinyG, but there are many options... see the openpnp docs for what it supports.

Does it worth to have all this headache? I mean, you can buy a basic PnP from China for about only 3.000 to 4.000 dollars

@PsychogenicTechnologies

Жыл бұрын

Funny you should ask that, as I recently put out a video with a whole other set of headaches (which I mostly created for myself) with a chinese PnP (kzread.info/dash/bejne/mmyuj9Kxj8fLd84.html ). So, to answer your question: I don't know. Why not get china to do PCBA entirely, rather than deal with any PnP? It all depends where you set the line. For my part, I've learned much and even enjoyed the process, and it's not always as difficult. But whatever, I often prioritize things over convenience... only a matter of preference. I'm curious to know which path you take, and how it goes. Have fun either way :)

good, if i hv is more good