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Wow, it's great to know that members have been doing quite some reverse engineering on the machine This is excellent news!

I'm vaguely aware of the guy that wrote the software on these machines. He only lives a few miles away from me. I have considered trying to get in contact with him in the past to see if he is open to the possibility of releasing the source code, if he even still has it. But then you would need the compiler too. Perhaps for a small amount of money he could be persuaded? He's got nothing to lose now.

Thoughts?

I think that this should be our top priority. If you could get in contact with him and find out if he still has the source code and if he would be willing to share it for some fee or no fee at all would be fantastic. I would definitely chip in. Getting a compiler for the source code is easy.

If we could get the source code and understand how the machine works internally, then it opens up so many possibilities to fix the software and even modernize the hardware.

But if the source code for the software is no longer available, then we would need to pursue plan B which would be the reverse engineering of the ISA communication. I'll look into getting an ISA bus analyzer.

Have one annoying problem. Some feeder lanes occasionally pull back the tape after index. It looks as if the "click" does not happen. Is this mechanical issue? This does not happen if I manually index feeders, only during automatic placement.

Mike, mostly I had to tweak CDFs with threshold adjustment to get consistent imaging. Had quite a bit of fiddling with micro USB connector as it's a very non standard shape.

If I specify to check the tool 5, it will always do that when I enter the pick and place UI, but it will always place no matter if it measures the tool correctly or not. I suspect that placement is somewhat better when the tool is measured correctly, but I need to prove this theory

RV software expects the ISA board to be directly accessible, wondering how Jason was planning on forcing the software to use different communication. If I remember correctly, ISA is addressed by referencing memory locations, but it's been a very long time ago since I looked into specs.

First thing that comes into my mind as a replacement for the ISA board could be something like RAMPS board. Very widely used in 3D printers to drive stepper motors, however not sure if the motors or the RV1S/RV4S could be driven by the board.

I think that any changes to the hardware which drives the machine would render the original software unusable as it's bound to hardware. Oh, if I could only get my hands on the source code for the RV software

Good point regarding imperfections in the hardware and as a result the requirement for the calibration grid. I might pursue this approach as I found bits of information in this forum regarding the requirements for the calibration jig and the position of the grid.

I'll see if Jason has any info.

Mike, that's how I've been doing: double sided tape in various positions on the board to test the placement. This way I tweaked the CDFs and found out placement issues.

phonoplug, seems that your suggestion probably worked at least with the bottom side of the PCB which has a lot less components, but a micro USB socket which needs very precise placement. Had to push a few components here an there into their correct positions, but probably just a vision correction problem which needs more tweaking. I'm placing mostly 0603s. Everything looks good after reflow.

Wondering whether checking tool 5 before placing components is crucial for correct placement...

It's programmed as a complete board.

I'm setting up the other side of the board and will try to apply the rotation. Should this be based on guessing?

I've set up my machine now to place the boards so don't want to mess it up.



Bottom left fiducial is the first one, top right is the second reference. Components next to first fiducial are placed correctly, but the whole panel is shifts gradually as displayed near the second fiducial. Fiducials are set up with tool 1. I have to move the bottom fiducial down by 10thou and top fiducial by 20 thou to right and 25 thou down in order to get correct placement all over the board.

I also calculated the exact position of the two caps placed at the top corner in reference to the bottom left fiducial and moved the machine to the exact location from bottom left fiducial as the reference point. The position was exactly where the component was misplaced.

The original software RV1S came with is OK, but has it's own annoyances as most of you probably know. Primarily I'm a software developer and I'm very keen on building custom software for the machine. My biggest concern is that the full calibration method for the machine is unknown and I suspect I have calibration issues with my machine which make it quite complicated to use it.

Mechanically the machine is very simple, the arm movement can be controlled with some very simple inverse kinematics, image recognition for components/fiducials can be done with OpenCV. My only concern is communication with hardware. I can very easily sniff out the communication on COM ports, the imaging board should also be possible to hook into and get image data, but the ISA board is a complete mystery to me. Does anybody have any clue about the communication protocol with the ISA board? I've read somewhere in the forum that one of the members have reverse engineered the board and was wondering if there is any information about the communication that could be shared?

With currently available software libraries that cover gerber file reading, image recognition it should be possible to turn this machine back into a very usable tool with ability to recalibrate and utilize it to full potential.

I recently purchased RV1S and learned pretty much everything about the machine from this forum. Thanks for an invaluable resource!

I have a problem with the machine, there is X/Y distortion when placing the components. I have a 145mm x 120mm panel I'm placing and I can see that there is placement error as the components are being placed closer and closer to the edge of the PCB. The distortion happens both in X and Y axis. I managed to overcome this issue by offsetting the fiducials, but there are still issues with placement. Any suggestions on how I could fix this or is this the dreaded calibration issue?

Also I can't use the fiducial camera, because it seems to be making the distortion even bigger as I suspect it's not calibrated correctly, however I've read on this forum that it's possible to use the machine without it and I've successfully done it.