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  • Author Author: rachaelp
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Lab Equipment Projects - Vacuum Pick and Place Assistant Part 1 - Overview

rachaelp

There's been a lot of talk on 's blog for his pick and place buddy recently and this gave me the motivation to get on with the very similar project I have been planning. There are some great ideas in that project and the subsequent discussions which will definitely enhance what I was planning and as a result of the inspiration from there have come up with a bunch of additional ideas for things I would like to add to my own. This will be the first blog of several as I go through the design and get it working. I have to fit this in around my main work so it may take a little while before it is complete.

 

The basic requirements for this project are as follows:

 

  1. Provide effective and controllable vacuum pickup for SMD components ranging from small surface mount passives to larger IC's.
  2. Give guidance to the user about which parts to place in which locations.
  3. Be reliable and easy to maintain.
  4. Be self contained (i.e. no need for external vacuum or compressed air source).
  5. Be relatively quiet in operation.
  6. Be integrated with my existing systems to ease use.

 

So today the chassis I ordered to complete the bulk of the kit needed for this project arrived. Whilst there are still things I need to add to the kit as I work through how it's all actually going to work, most of what I will need to get the initial prototype up and running are there. So here is a picture of the bulk of the items:

 

image

 

You can see I have gone for a substantial aluminium chassis. This is personal preference, I like equipment that has a really sturdy and well built feel to it so I went with a premium case. The down side is it makes sorting the mechanical parts of the project more challenging as cutting out holes in that thick brushed aluminium front panel is a lot more difficult than if it were a thin aluminium or plastic panel.

 

For the initial prototype I have got a cheap PSU from Amazon and I am using an Arduino for the simplicity of getting the thing working. Once it's all working I will probably spin a lot of the electronics into a custom PCB just so I can make it all neater and add in any customisations to the circuit that I want. I'll do a blog covering that process which will lead into some blogs I am considering covering EAGLE and how I set things up etc.

 

In the above you can see several pieces of the kit, some you'll know what they are for with regards a project of this type, others may be more of a mystery. I'm going to leave you guessing in the comments for a little while on that one just for a little fun image

 

This was just a brief overview, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Parents

  • I'm puzzled - I've been putting surface mount bits onto boards using the the same pair of stainless steel tweezers for the last 12 years. I can do 0.5mm pitch and 0603 easily (and 0402 at a pinch). I've never felt the need for a vacuum pick up (there is one on the soldering workstation but I never got on with it at all.)

    Where the vacuum pickup would help, perhaps, is when you need to solder 10 resistors of the same value to 4 boards, I used to ping all 40 onto the bench from the tape and of course some, (if you are really unlucky all) will be the wrong way up. If I picked slowly from the tape with a VP they would all come out the right way up.

    I solved this problem by tipping the parts onto a plastic lid (yogurt or cream, makes no difference), I can invert parts by tapping the lid with the tweezers - it's random of course but never takes long. The same technique works with SOT23 and even MSOPs.

     

    So, what am I missing, what does the vacuum pickup do extra ?

     

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    I don't often have parts flying although it does still occasionally occur, but generally I find tweezers reliable (I have a set of

    VOMM ones).

    As you say, unless there is an improvement in speed and reliable placement, then it isn't worth moving from tweezers.

    I suspect (just a guess) that existing vacuum pick-ups don't save a lot of time, maybe some improvement with many boards..

    But with some added features like indication of the part, qty and where they should go, and some decent illumination

    to get parts positioned just right first time, I'm wondering if time can be saved, and it might also more easily allow

    non-technical people to place the parts, i.e. offload the effort to someone else.

    Basically, somehow integrate the PC to do the stuff it finds easy, with the manual process which we have to do.

    I've yet to measure time between tweezers and vacuum pick-up, but I wanted to wait till I had some decent feature set.

    I think (just a guess) I'm possibly currently managing the same speed as with tweezers but with the added benefit

    of no tipping from carriers needed. I have not implemented any further bits yet. The end improvement could all still be in the

    noise, it is hard to know, I'm hoping more ideas for improvements could incrementally occur.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Here is a good YouTube video showing the benefits of vacuum assisted tools from MikesElectricStuff. It's full of all sorts of useful tips for manually building boards so worth watching even if you aren't interested in using vacuum tools.

     

  • in reply to rachaelp

    I used to see Mike at seminars (Atmel ones I think) but I haven't seen him for some years now.

    I can see the point of his pick off tape technique but I'm not sure it would work for me - I don't use paste for small parts so I would have to sort that out - either get a stencil printing machine or rework the cheapo Chinese past dispenser I already have. (Rework in this case would mean completely rebuild  - maybe the pressure regulator is OK - not much else is.)

    Food for thought.

     

    I liked machines we used to have years and years ago which shone  a light spot at the place to put the next component. You could drive that with the CAD system output.

     

    MK

  • in reply to rachaelp

    Nice video! Lots of useful tips and ideas..

    I agree, having a vacuum pen opens up possibilities, even if it augments tweezers or even blue-tack as the video shows image

    I'm helping some people with a prototype lab, here we were at the weekend trying to figure out oven temperatures..

    actually we didn't realize our photo was being taken, we were too busy looking at the numbers.

     

    image

Comment
  • in reply to rachaelp

    Nice video! Lots of useful tips and ideas..

    I agree, having a vacuum pen opens up possibilities, even if it augments tweezers or even blue-tack as the video shows image

    I'm helping some people with a prototype lab, here we were at the weekend trying to figure out oven temperatures..

    actually we didn't realize our photo was being taken, we were too busy looking at the numbers.

     

    image

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