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Quick update. I found the seals were not good enough and needed to buy some better sized orings. Also the plastic strip that held the orings in place did not seem to be good enough and I was get air leakage.  Maybe not flat enough being printed. Luckily I had a metal version which I had originally ordered when I got a cnc part made. That seemed to seal really well. It's possible the plastic part can be designed better but at this point I am looking to get a reliable solution first.

Will update again in a few days once I have done more testing. I have a production run to do and I think it will work fine. It will be a good test for it.

https://youtu.be/VvHzG_25vmQ?si=xrThrERIj5esG8DR

https://youtu.be/g13YQmZrvnA?si=hA0OolJYt6kcuEg6

The cl feeders seem to work really well. They take up more room than the versatronics feeders though. I am considering having a standard Rv feeder for common 8mm paper tape values and then use the cl feeders for job specific values that need changing more often. Least for now anyway.

It seems you can create an Rv feeder with 16 lanes. I was thinking to create bank A or B as a 16 channel feeder for the CL block. The custom electronics will take care of index count for 12 and 16mm tape components so that all lanes can have a default index count of 1 in the Rv software.

The other thing is for the cl feeders to work with rvs they need air to them all the time and then a quick pulse to close off the air to move the tape forward one index.

Happy to share stl files if anyone interested in them.

I originally got a aluminium plate machined but they made it wrong and I did not want to wait weeks for a new one so I tried a 3d printed variant and it seems to work.

The image on the printer shows the main body and a thin plate. The plate holds an o-ring in place which makes a seal when the feeder is mounted.

I used a brass inset to create a thread for the push fit air inlet.

The body is bolted to a 2040 piece of extrusion which is mounted to the RV bed.

During the process of building my OpenPNP machine I decided to get my new feeders working with the RV. I have jobs I still do on it and it's only the feeders that presented the biggest issue to me. Waiting for a few bits of air pipe and couplers but the mechanics is done and the electronics.

Hopefully will be testing it by the end of the day

I think the other way to solve it is to recreate the original feeder type with the correct indexes and then recreate your feeder.

Mike if you think you might not build them I might buy them off you if you want?

They are a bit of a faff to put together and then getting them calibrated turned out to be even more of a faff. I got there eventually but I have to say the printed parts I used did not seem to marry with the kit of bits. Few screws did not fit, some left over. Had to use a couple of my own, etc. But it did work.

What did you order? Do you know what you have? lol

Someone also found Yamaha CL clone feeders from a company called https://www.itechsmt.com/ They are 50$ each and appear to be decent. But you need an air solenoid as well and a compressor. But potentially the most straight forward route.

Trev

(Mike : edited to correct link)

Hi Mike, how did you get on with the feeders? I managed to get one built up. It was quite tricky to get working properly but it seems nice. Have attached a link to it working with 0402 parts.

I will test this feeder some more but I think I will buy more from him.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zPJujUt2Y-c


Trev

I have one here. They come really well packaged in kit form but it takes him a week to ship usually and a few weeks before they arrive. I have not had chance building it yet.

There is a version I am also going to build based on this design by the same company.

https://youtu.be/xfu4Jbbh21I?si=5K80VvTfmLfV7-yk

You are likely right about the amount of effort it would take to convert.

Regarding feeders having you seen this video? The fella sells the parts as a kit and all that's needed is to print the plastic parts. I think the weak point of it is the life of the servo but the design is excellent.

https://youtu.be/mWer4ytN0Tg?si=IxvxFDR7ZpRtLsQz

Hi Mike

You can set a useable area but I do not know if that is any more than a rectangular size or if with SCARA there is more complex configuration. OpenPNP deals with top and bottom cameras and fully includes them in calibration setup. It even has vision based fiducial homing points to enable perfect starting positions go the machine. This is different to board fiducials

The motion geometry would be taken care of by the motion controller board; the Duet3D XD in this case. You would feed it x and y co-ords and it would move I think.

This is something I found on setting up the board for SCARA. It is related to a 3d printer but the movements are what's important. OpenPNP takes care of the rest.

https://docs.duet3d.com/User_manual/Machine_configuration/Configuration_SCARA

Openpnp would support the on the fly camera but I am not sure if it would support it whilst making movements. It likely just treats it like a second up camera. 

I find the RV so frustrating at times. Today I built some boards and after about 20 the vision on a couple of parts had changed a bit. It started the day fine and the light was constant through out the morning. I just never know when I will get an issue.

Plus the feeders are a pain. Then the waffle trays forget the orientation sometimes and you have to refill and rotate 2 or 3 times before it sorts itself out again. You cant go lower than 0603 and fine pitch is really tricky.

Then the issues with the screen going funny.

There have been days where the machine has really hammered along all day. Then some days I lose a few hours messing around with things I should not need to. I fixed the feeder issue for 0603 leds but then you get tape slip. Then vision sometimes struggles. You cant change the cameras on these easily. Then it relies on old computers. Openpnp works from most laptops and just a control board. No DSP cards. No massive psu boxes.

Hi.

In my progress with openpnp I came across scara which I think is the coordinate system style the rv uses.

It seems you could use a duet3d xc board which would drive the current stepper drivers and enable the rv to be used with openpnp. The duet board supports scara.

The only thing I think might be an issue is the calibration map the Rv has to do to calibrate itself. I am not sure if that would be easy to implement.

Shame really as it would transform these machines.

Trev

At the moment I am keeping them for the new openpnp machine I am building. Sorry.

I have posted on here that I am building an OpenPNP based machine. I have quite a few spare parts for RV1 and RV4 machines that I will now look to sell on to people that could do with them.

I have some RV1 and RV4 machines that would best be used for spares. The RV1 machines I think are fully working but these machines are old and likely need a service etc and might have some faults I do not know about so they are best being sold to someone that knows what they are doing or would enjoy the project.

I even have full sets of motor drive modules.

Let me know if anyone wants anything.

Trev