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Great tip Mike. Thanks!! 

Thanks, yes it did double pick and correct but when we remove the tray and put a new one in we don't always get it back in exactly the same place so we have to reset the references - looks like we will have to make a jig for the trays.

Feeder is locked so its not trying to self correct and error stack.

After this job i will see what's going on and post. My head scratch is that all the x and y dimensions for the feeder are correct but it still progressively gets more and more off center.

We are placing a load of thin quad flatpacks 10x10x1 in waffle trays. We made an 8 x 8 tray and set the 1st and 2nd refs, but the picking gets progressively more offset the further we get from the refs. The x and y pitch for the waffle tray when we 'made' it is spot on, so i am wondering if the machine software for the waffle tray is limited to a specific size or a specific number of y direction 'lanes'.

If we set up each individual position bias (64 of them !) then it picks spot on, but then we need to fit in the next tray 

Anyone experienced this?

I have just found an installer soft for something called "Genesis". It was on some stuff I got from dc a long time ago. It appears to be the next version of the RV software by a company called Versatek, however it seems to be for a different machine - not the RV, but using the same feeders.

It installs on my win10 64bit machine. Not sure where to post it because its an exe file.

Any 3 x 24 feeders left?

Hi all,

I am looking for a couple of 24mm feeders (ie 3 x 24 / 2 x . Any condition - working or not working.

Tks

Yes!!! So simple! Too long away from the coalface.

I found some of my notes that i made a number of years ago when DC did some adjustments on one of our RV4's and i have written them up. They really follow on from the camera calibration routine (need to be done immediately after doing that).

Cheers

We had a little problem on placing variations on a multi biscuit v scored board. Although the placement was spot on on the first biscuit, it progressively got worse as the machine placed parts on each progressively distant biscuit from the first.

On going over some old notes that i made 10 to 15 years ago when getting some training from DC, i came across this note for step and repeat boards. "Try just using the first fiducial point only - step and repeat compounds any errors".

We have not tried this approach, just wondered if anyone else had some success with it?

The quick fix for us was to make a dedicated jig that held the board in its index holes and gave us a few thou board to board positional repeatability and turned the fiducial correction off. Not an elegant solution though.

Cheers

This is a method that we have used when fixing the light ring on the fiducial camera to re-align it, or to get it to align with the arm picking tip when we have removed it.

Put a small blob of Prestik on a a PCB mounted in the machine. Poke the tool tip into the blob very gently using 10th increments. Switch to the fiducial camera and you will see just how much you are out by.

You can only adjust in x/y directions when the arm is in a specific position. The reason is you have to imagine three separate planes or grids (one for the fiducial camera, one for the fixed camera and one for the OTF camera) that all have to be related back to the master grid which is the arm placement grid. This step sets the fiducial camera to the placement tip.

Hope this helps someone.

Hmmm, for some reason it didn't post the pdf's. 2nd try.

Cheers

Its been a while since i posted, but i have had to stick my nose in our RV4's to sort out a little problem and so got caught up again in the forum

I did get my outstanding calibration bits from DC so i now have a complete original calibration kit - except the 4 spot lights that were placed in each corner of the machine to illuminate the grid. I have attached the pictures of the bits as calibration parts1 and calibration parts2. Somewhere on the forum is a pile of drawings in some obscure cad format that gives the dimensions, but for clarity i have attached them in pdf.

I was totally thrown by a drawing that showed orientation of the camera holder somewhere on the forum - but it appears wrong. I know that the fiducial camera was used when doing the calibration and know that the mirror needs to be held up with a cable tie or similar. I believe that the stepper motor is removed and the camera adaptor fitted ON TOP of the rotating bit (shown in Fitup of camera holder). The camera then looks down through the spindle, after removing the plastic plug. The camera is then held and adjusted with the hex head screws to get perfect concentricity.

Cheers

I will look at fabricating something along the lines of your board camera setup if I cant recover the original.

I have had a little play with one of the RV's and also taken a look at some of the cal data files. I may have to eat my words on the fiducial camera setup grid - but I cant get my head around why you have to calibrate the fiducial camera on the grid. I also remember DC showing me a little trick in setting the fiducial camera with Prestik.

Spiyda, have you tried to run the grid calibration with the fiducial camera and if so how did it work out?

After a long absence from the forum I am now back.

We acquired some of the calibration kit from a sale of RV's that we purchased for spares. I also had some good discussions with DC regarding the calibration procedure which was explained to me in some detail.

We were missing the camera that aligned with the centre of the nozzle spigot - it is vital that this camera is aligned 100% coaxially with the nozzle spigot and plumb vertically.

Illumination is also critical. We were told we were missing two sets of three bulb spotlights, which were secured on the left and right side of the RV at the top. However, I see no reason why a circular illuminator could not be used.

Unfortunately, I was asked by someone if they could borrow my camera mount from the calibration set as they had to perform a calibration on a customers machine. The item was never returned - and I have never forgot about it.

In any event the most important item is the screen. Attached are some pictures of my screen as supplied initially by DC.

The base looks like Aluminium plate about 8 mm thick and powder coated white. The film is a photoplot secured with black electricians tape. There are two al bars underneath, one with dowel holes.

Some of the dots are yellow, I don't know why yet. There is a bunch of tape in one location that could signify a start point.

I will measure the sizes accurately and post shortly.

There was a lot of postulating about two sets of data points and if it could relate to the fiducial camera, and to be honest I do not believe it does. This is my understanding of the calibration data and how it relates to the real world, I could be wrong but I don't think I am and would argue the point with anyone:-

1)There are three horizontal 2D co-ordinate planes. The first is the real world plane which is the machine base or table. The second is the calibration grid co-ordinate plane - this is related to the real world plane by two dowel pins. Provided the calibration grid is square and aligned with the real world x and y axis when looking in plan view it should not matter if this is not exactly positioned as to adjust exactly the calibration would be an x and y amount. The third is the arm or nozzle tip plane. This is related to the calibration grid by a 2D set of data points (x' and y'), so for each dot on the cal grid scanned by the calibration camera there will be an offset of x' and y'. This would be related to the real world plane by (x+x',y+y').

2)I do not believe there is a need to calibrate the fiducial camera on the cal grid - even though I was told that it should be calibrated that way. Why do I say this? Well the fiducial camera is fixed to the same plane as the nozzle, so nozzle calibration will automatically calibrate the fiducial camera - the fiducial camera being placed a set distance from the centre of the nozzle, say x" and y". So this would be related to the real world plane by (x+x'+x",y+y'+y"). I have set the fiducial camera using the 'prestick' method as shown to me by DC with no problems whatsoever.

Of course when not calibrating there is another horizontal 2D co-ordinate plane, that being the PCB board.

I will start playing around with the calibration settings again and see what else I can find.