
Unboxing Our New Desktop Pick and Place Machine - zbik
https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkx/blog/2586
======
abetusk
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 quick to setup.
        After evaluating all the various vendors we decided
        on the CHMT36VA. It seemed to be the best fit of
        low-cost and most flexible while being able to get
        the job done.
    

Right before it:

    
    
        ... the nail in the coffin for the Neodyn 4 in my eyes
        ... he says the feeders aren’t that great, they are
        challenging to load, and machine makes mispicks quite
        often. Why spend ~$10k on a machine when I can have a
        cheaper machine with less hassle? The CHMT36VA is far
        from perfect but I can work around the problems.
    

It's not that the CHMT36VA (the $2.8k PnP machine in question) is great or
competes with "industrial" pick and place machines, it's that it's optimized
for small to medium runs. To me, this is very much in line with "fail fast" or
"lean startup" philosophy but for electronics. SparkFun can make a small
experiment with minimal risk.

~~~
ChuckMcM
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.

~~~
jotux
Macrofab(macrofab.com) is pretty close to this, as is SeeedStudio
(SeeedStudio.io).

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Seeed is wonderful. I’ve run over $80k of boards through them and while I have
experienced one big error in a build they worked with me to fix it and in
general they have wonderful service considering I’m one person working out of
my apartment. Bigger shops charge way more or don’t work with me, and smaller
shops don’t do as much as Seeed does.

~~~
StavrosK
Can you tell me some details on what exactly they do? I've designed and
ordered my own PCBs from DirtyPCBs (recommended, I love them) but I've only
assembled them myself (I only needed one or two pieces) and I have no idea how
I would scale that to larger production.

Can you tell me what the basic steps are? Pricing information would be
appreciated!

------
jwr
Buying your own pick&place is quite similar to buying an FDM 3D printer. It
doesn't make any sense at low scale, unless you want to spend endless time
tinkering with the machine proper.

Pick&place, as well as 3D printing, begins to make sense at industrial scale,
with huge expensive machines. Sparkfun might be a borderline case, but I
suspect even they won't use these cheap pnp machines in the longer term.

If you are a hobbyist or a low-scale manufacturing operation, you are much
better off using MacroFab, PCBNG, Small Batch Assembly or AISLER.net for
electronics production, and Shapeways for 3D printing (SLS). Alternatively,
for quantities of ~10 of electronics devices, it makes sense to order your
boards and stencils from OSHpark or AISLER, place components yourself using
tweezers, and either use a modified oven or a hot air soldering iron for
reflow.

This is speaking from experience (as a hobbyist/maker, electronics design
engineer designing proof-of-concept and small-scale production devices, and
[https://PartsBox.io/](https://PartsBox.io/) founder).

~~~
lgbr
> It doesn't make any sense at low scale, unless you want to spend endless
> time tinkering with the machine proper.

For 3D printing this is becoming less true every day. 3D Printers are now
extremely cheap, where sub-$300 printers make sense at low scale usage. A
typical print from an outsourced printer like Shapeways might cost you about
$20, and once you factor in the cost of the material when you print yourself,
it only takes about 20 prints for the printer to pay for itself, and you have
the added benefit of having your print in an hour rather than a week.

~~~
donkeyd
Exacly! I have an FDM printer (~$300) and it's great to have it at home. When
I design something, I can do a partial print at low quality to check for
clearances within an hour. Then I can modify the design and print an optimized
version. It makes for a really short feedback loop and if I mess something up,
I don't need to pay the base fee again. And I'm a true hobbyist, I don't do
anything hardware or CAD related professionally.

Also, it's just lots of fun to work with the printer.

~~~
goty2
That is still, as you say, a hobby though. The future of hardware design is
decreasing the difference between prototype and production. Similar to what
containers have done for software.

3d printed parts and PCBs can be done in as little as 12 hours. You can then
without any modification do small production runs anywhere from ten to a
thousand pieces (which isn't unrealistic outside consumer hardware). You could
even 3d print moulds and do injection moulding.

I think partly why people say that hardware isn't iterative enough is that
they are doing it the wrong way. They spend too much time on prototyping,
which means they then have to make everything perfect for a large production
runs to average out the costs.

~~~
milesvp
I think you may he missing the parent's point, which is he's using the printer
to speed up his design loop. This has heen one of the biggest driving forces
I've seen in the commercial use of 3d printers. Sure you can outsource your 3d
printing to get much better and higher volume printing, but when you're
designing you don't need volume, and often don't need quality either. Quick
turn around often is key in design work, and having an in house printer can
really reduce total turnaround time.

~~~
goty2
I am disagreeing with the parents point (or not really because they were
talking about doing it as a hobby, which is great).

Yes, you can do design prototype revision A, B and C, then do production
prototype A, B and C, and finally production version A, B and C. But then you
have spent a significant amount of time and money refining prototypes and
adding features. That forces you to large production runs with huge risk,
because you have already made the investment. What I am saying is that you
should just make the production prototype with less features and ship that.
Because that is how you go to market quickly, which is usually the larger
point of such development.

This is also why Shenzhen wins over hackerspaces (which are also great btw)
but that is another story.

------
zdw
Interesting that for such an inexpensive but specialized hardware device it
still has a "phone home on boot" feature.

Given what this device does compared to a 3d printer (xyz axis movement,
suction head, part reel incrementer, webcam + identification software), it
seems like a sufficiently motivated hobbyist could come up with something
passably similar in the same price ballpark.

~~~
vonnieda
I'm the founder/author of OpenPnP, which exists to do exactly this. I've been
working on the project for about 6 years now and I'm happy to say that lots of
hobbyists, small companies, maker spaces, etc. have built and are running
OpenPnP based pick and place machines.

It's a harder problem than it seems, as I've found out over the past 6 years.
While the basics are quite similar to a 3D printer, PnP has some unique
challenges. 3D printing can be relatively inaccurate but still produce a good
output since you are working with a pretty "oozy" substance to begin with. PnP
has to be pretty accurate across it's entire work surface, though. If the
machine is 0.1mm off at any point in it's travel that creates a likelihood
that a part will be placed incorrectly. Feeders are also, mechanically, a lot
more difficult to get right than it seems like they would be.

In any case, we're having good luck and a lot of success, so if you are
interested in DIY / Open Source / Hobby pick and place, please come check it
out!

[http://openpnp.org](http://openpnp.org)

~~~
eggsome
For those interested, here is a video/demo of OpenPnP from LCA2016:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BGVYnaOs8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BGVYnaOs8)

(great project by the way!)

~~~
stryk
No way is that the same Aussie chap from SuperHouse? (he used to [?] do
excellent video guides on DIY hacking those cheap Sonoff wi-fi enabled
electrical relays)

------
utopcell
There are definitely somewhat mature DIY alternatives such as LitePlacer [1]
and there is ongoing effort towards an open-source software stack for PnP
machines [2], but for this area to really pick up, sub-$500 kits are probably
necessary. One could argue that hobby-level 3D printing would have gone
nowhere if 3D printers were at a ~$3,000 level.

[1] [https://www.liteplacer.com/](https://www.liteplacer.com/) [2]
[http://openpnp.org/](http://openpnp.org/)

~~~
Animats
Has anyone seen a Liteplacer in action? All the info I can find on it is from
the seller.

LitePlacer is designed for one-off jobs. It gets its parts from cut tape, not
reels. It uses its vision system to line up on the parts tapes, so the tapes
don't have to be precisely positioned. It's quite slow for a pick and place
machine, but far faster than doing it by hand.

Doesn't put down solder paste, though.

There are a lot of low-end pick and place machines, but few critical
evaluations of them.

~~~
Kliment
I've seen it in action - it works but you have to be quite careful when
building it. There's a bunch of gotchas and it changes over time so you have
to be very very sure you're looking at the instructions for your actual kit.
Also it isn't self-contained - you need a computer attached to it the entire
time you run it. Still, the price point is amazing and it does what it says on
the tin. (I don't own one but I've seen it in use).

------
catherd
I'll be interested to see if they are using it a year from now. Everyone I
know who got the previous generation of similarly priced machines (like the
Neodyn TM220/240A) no longer use them. Mostly due to the accuracy being not
good enough for 0603 or similar sizes.

Computer vision really is the answer, but from reading the article it sounds
like the CV on the CHMT36VA isn't great for parts that aren't 0603 and it's
not open/easily hackable to be better.

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

~~~
rkangel
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).

~~~
stephen_g
Just a note - the solder mask is actually part of the PCB, in the past often
green but now all sorts of colours. It covers up the tracks and copper fills
etc. that you don’t want solder on.

What you’re referring to in the first paragraph is just called a stencil.

------
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.

------
aetherspawn
Can someone clarify, does this do paste? Or would I still need to cut stencils

~~~
gh02t
No, you have to cut a stencil and apply paste before you put it in the pick-
and-place.

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peter_retief
would love to have it but could justify that cost. my birthday is in september
if anyone is curious...

