Messages

Ah interesting, let me try those.

A.

BTW the best quote I have atm is ~£7 each in 100-off.

A.

I'm getting some quotes for these and it seems they need to be made in a big-enough quantity, e.g. 100-off, to be economical. Anyone interested? This is the 'RVT07' design:

http://www.anagram.net/nuts/Versatronics/Nozzles/RVT07.pdf

Alan

OK ... I ran up a couple of designs - one with a hollow to fit the dome and one with an o-ring (see below). I used the hollow one and as that seemed to work OK-ish I didn't get to use the o-ring one. That worked OK although I had to reset the pick location a couple of times and nudge the finished result around quite a bit. In hindsight I should have locked the pick location as the "pick location adjusting logic" will have been unstable with this shape of nozzle and component. This was all slightly nerve-racking as there were £350 worth and nearly 1,000 of the special IR LEDs on a board

Alan

For assembly, I'm planning to Araldite the two aluminium pieces together, then drill and tap to M4 and bolt the stainless table on with M4 hex stainless countersunk.

For the 6mm locating dowels on the machine, I'm planning to ream the holes for 8mm OD bushes (actually 10mm OD as 8x6mm bushes don't seem to be available anymore) e.g. item 779-2060PL here:

http://www.wdsltd.co.uk/product/5257/plain-drill-bush-to-din179-standard-wds-779/

If the laser cut location holes are not an exact fit on the locating dowels on the RVS bed, I plan to drill the second hole for the bush slightly larger, mount on the RVS and pick-up the exact position for the second bush and glue in place.

Alan

OK sorry for slow update - for anyone interested, I think the easiest way is to put the CAD files here:

http://anagram.net/nuts/Versatronics/cal%20table/

- the dxf file is the one used by the laser or waterjet place for input into their cutting software.

I ordered from alco engineering (e.g. simon@alcoeng.co.uk), and the cost was:

1 off (720.0 x 550.0 cut to shape inc cutouts/holes) x3mm SS304 DP1 £63.51

2 off (400.0 x 305.7 cut to shape inc cutouts/holes) x8mm Aluminium £23.88 = £47.76

plus VAT & delivery.

Alan

For future reference FYI this was approx £80 + VAT. Made out of 2x8mm aluminium risers and a 3mm stainless table to give 3/4" It'll be properly heavy...

I should say the chance of me starting out on the calibration holy grail any time soon are slim, but I might just get the parts in place for when I get a little more time (maybe 2020?).

A.

Hi,

FYI I'm sending out some stainless and aluminium to be laser cut and and will add in a cal bed and support to the order. Let me know if you want one. I'm guessing about £60.

Something like this: http://anagram.net/nuts/Versatronics/Cal%20Bed.pdf

Alan

Ah interesting re Intelligent Drives - I bought some Versatronics feeders from them recently and didn't even clock that they were a P&P vendor. I see ID is run by 'Neil Buck, Software Developer' rather than David Clements. I spy 'VivoSMT' on some of their images. Maybe the ghost of Versatronics still lives

Thanks guys for the responses:

>>> You should be using tool 2 for 1206. turning off "merge moves" can sometimes help.

Yes I am using Tool 2 and I'm running on slow speed and have turned off merge moves. Is there a way to figure out whether the parts move on the nozzle - I've tried the slo-mo camera on my phone but without much success so far as I can't manually pan the camera fast enough to capture the nozzle action?

>>> Your "top-right" isn't as bad as I've seen my machine do sometimes, even when set up well

Interesting - I don't quite understand why as when I did a quick and dirty test with a dial indicator it looked like the machine could step 1 mil fairly reliably. I know that doesn't make for overall accuracy but still.

>>> One thing you could check is the condition of the belts

Ah thanks - didn't think of that - quite possible.

>>> something the next machine found very easy

OK now I have to ask, what was the 'next machine'

>>> is simply to try moving the PCB to a different place on the bed. I've seen this reduce big fid offsets in the past

Hmmm, oh dear, does this mean we really have to figure the calibration at some point?


FYI I was thinking about the problem and came to the conclusion that maybe the machine is only figuring an X, Y, R adjustment from the two fids. That would be consistent with some of the GUI and much simpler than figuring out a general transformation from theoretical position to actual position. To make two fids fit exactly it would need to include some magnification factor. If my theory is right, that means that the 1st fid gives say an X, Y adjustment and the 2nd just contributes the R. It would also mean both fids could not be fit exactly.

With this though in mind, I kind of averaged the fid adjustments, rather than fitting the 1st fid exactly - if that makes any sense. That made the overall adjustment a bit more sensible.

Alan

Hi,

I'm doing the procedure described by Mike below i.e. fudging the fid positions to make the placement work accurately. Everything is working good, except for the 2nd (i.e. top right) fid, which seems to have a mind of it own. These are 1206s btw.

So - bottom left is good:



...but top right is bad:



And no amount of shifting and 'use current position' seems to help. Anyone come across this or throw some light?

Bonus question - surely all these machines are not so out of alignment that the fid cameras are 0.5mm / 20 mils or so out? Does anyone have a machine where you can align the fids directly with the camera without adding these offsets?

Alan

>>>
Without recent calibration (which is still under investigation) there will probably be offsets between the fid cam and nozzle, and these will vary with fid position, however these are consistent for a job, so if doing multiple panels then the fid cam is definitely worth using. For a 1-off panel, less so.
In either case start at the "nominal" fid posiitons, do a test place of the top-rightmost and bottom-leftmost parts (use  tag/omit), and tweak the fid positions by looking at the placement errors. I can generally get these bang on after 2-3 attempts, judging the offsets by eye & correcting.
e.g.
after setting up fids to nominal positions with nozzle in Setup PCB, omit all, un-omit tl/br corner parts.
Use Fid correct, manually move to centre fids in camera, and test place the two parts with DS sticky tape.
Eyeball the offsets and add to the nominal postions when re-fidding.
e.g. if BL part is 10 thou high, and TR one is 25 to left, start with fid at centre of cam, and then move it  up 10 for the , 25 to the left for the second. Repeat until test placements are OK. Note offsets on a post-it & use the same offsets for each subsequent panel.

Don't bother with the auto fid correct unless you find you never have any offsets - just move it manually and "use current position"
<<<

OK thanks, will report back.

Alan

Anyone tried placing domed 1206 LEDs before:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/ir-leds/1736274/



Specialised tool? Some other way?

TIA, Alan

Curious, it does look dodgy now I read it more carefully. It seems an odd pick to run a scam on - apart from anything else, demand is pretty low and the price isn't that great

https://london.craigslist.co.uk/tld/d/versatronics-rv4s-pick-and/6617607776.html