- Welcome to Mike's Forums.
Recent posts
#21
For Sale/Wanted, Suppliers / RV4s on Craigslist, NE London
Last post by Mike - April 05, 2025, 04:40:30 PMRV4s on Craigslist, NE London
https://london.craigslist.org/app/d/london-versatronics-rv4s-pick-and-place/7839766605.html
https://london.craigslist.org/app/d/london-versatronics-rv4s-pick-and-place/7839766605.html
#22
RV Hardware / Warning! Don't unplug feeders ...
Last post by Mike - April 04, 2025, 11:00:24 AMSo after a 2AM repair session to get the machine working for a job that _HAS_ to be done over this weekend....
I discovered what an utterly terrible idea it was to mix mains and RS232 on the feeder connectors.
Job was all set up for PCBs arriving next day, decided to move a feeder, and suddenly, all feeders not working.
I figured it would be a serial port issue, ran feedertest on a laptop to verify the feeders were OK, then troubleshooting the dead PC serial port.
Mine is the type that has the two COM ports on the DSP board, and instead of proper UARTs, they use 87C51 microcontrollers for some bizarre reason. For a 9600 baud tx-only interface FFS - what planet were they on?
It took out not only the RS232 driver but this MCU. Luckily I had a pile of scrap boards ( Thanks Cubik!), and I got one to work with armtest, verifying that it had a good MCU for COM1.
All the DSP boards I had which didn't hang the PC seemed to have the same fault, so clearly a definite issue.
One thing I found - the feedertest utility doesn't seem to work through the DSP board UARTS - I initially tried to bypass the DSP board and run via the PC COM ports - I had feedertest running via the PC COM port but not in RVPlace. I'm not sure if the ports on the DSP even act like normal COM ports.
I assume there is some way to get the RV to not use the DSP card ports and use the PC ones - anyone know details ?
I was getting too desperate and sleep-deprived to wait through yet more WIN98 reboots to experiment.
I can't understand why they did the feeders like this - only one ever needs power at a time so a 24V supply from the main box would have been a much better solution - cheaper, safer and would allow cheaper connectors. Not to mention using RS232 and +/- supplies for the receivers when RS422 would have actually used fewer wires and no need for oddball bipolar supplies.
I guess there is probably some history there but it boggles the mind how they came up with such an obviously terrible design given that the rest of the machine is pretty reasonable.
I've now put a local mains power switch in line with the feeder cable, and a tranzorb on the serial line.
Rant over...
I discovered what an utterly terrible idea it was to mix mains and RS232 on the feeder connectors.
Job was all set up for PCBs arriving next day, decided to move a feeder, and suddenly, all feeders not working.
I figured it would be a serial port issue, ran feedertest on a laptop to verify the feeders were OK, then troubleshooting the dead PC serial port.
Mine is the type that has the two COM ports on the DSP board, and instead of proper UARTs, they use 87C51 microcontrollers for some bizarre reason. For a 9600 baud tx-only interface FFS - what planet were they on?
It took out not only the RS232 driver but this MCU. Luckily I had a pile of scrap boards ( Thanks Cubik!), and I got one to work with armtest, verifying that it had a good MCU for COM1.
All the DSP boards I had which didn't hang the PC seemed to have the same fault, so clearly a definite issue.
One thing I found - the feedertest utility doesn't seem to work through the DSP board UARTS - I initially tried to bypass the DSP board and run via the PC COM ports - I had feedertest running via the PC COM port but not in RVPlace. I'm not sure if the ports on the DSP even act like normal COM ports.
I assume there is some way to get the RV to not use the DSP card ports and use the PC ones - anyone know details ?
I was getting too desperate and sleep-deprived to wait through yet more WIN98 reboots to experiment.
I can't understand why they did the feeders like this - only one ever needs power at a time so a 24V supply from the main box would have been a much better solution - cheaper, safer and would allow cheaper connectors. Not to mention using RS232 and +/- supplies for the receivers when RS422 would have actually used fewer wires and no need for oddball bipolar supplies.
I guess there is probably some history there but it boggles the mind how they came up with such an obviously terrible design given that the rest of the machine is pretty reasonable.
I've now put a local mains power switch in line with the feeder cable, and a tranzorb on the serial line.
Rant over...
#23
RV Software / Re: Waffle or static feeder
Last post by Mike - March 19, 2025, 09:12:26 AMIn RV Setup, create & save a feeder type, passive with the pitch and #slots required.
Then create & save an instance of that feeder.
Add that feeder to the job, and place it in a centre location
Fill the first slot with the part.
I'm not sure of the "official" way to fill the rest of the slots, which is why I made my "fillfeeder" utility which will copy the first slot to the rest ( need to exit RV Setup to use this)
In the part cdf, select "lock X" and "Lock Y", which stops it adjusting the pick position based on vision results
I've noticed that for some reason you sometimes see duplicate feeders after adding passive types, not sure why this happens, and I don't do it often enough to remember if this causes issues, but it usually works out OK.
Then create & save an instance of that feeder.
Add that feeder to the job, and place it in a centre location
Fill the first slot with the part.
I'm not sure of the "official" way to fill the rest of the slots, which is why I made my "fillfeeder" utility which will copy the first slot to the rest ( need to exit RV Setup to use this)
In the part cdf, select "lock X" and "Lock Y", which stops it adjusting the pick position based on vision results
I've noticed that for some reason you sometimes see duplicate feeders after adding passive types, not sure why this happens, and I don't do it often enough to remember if this causes issues, but it usually works out OK.
#24
RV Hardware / Power supply
Last post by spiyda - March 10, 2025, 01:06:04 PMMy machine was misbehaving again,
traced the issue to the PC power supply ( it was ancient )
The symptoms if anyone gets the same, were occasionally failed boot up and occasional failure to run apps... Once it was placing, it seemed to rum OK.
It seemed more like a corrupt disc, but despite various attempts to fix it, the problem persisted until I swapped out the PSU
These old machines take a bit of nursing sometimes.. !
traced the issue to the PC power supply ( it was ancient )
The symptoms if anyone gets the same, were occasionally failed boot up and occasional failure to run apps... Once it was placing, it seemed to rum OK.
It seemed more like a corrupt disc, but despite various attempts to fix it, the problem persisted until I swapped out the PSU
These old machines take a bit of nursing sometimes.. !
#25
RV Software / Waffle or static feeder
Last post by spiyda - March 08, 2025, 11:38:48 PMI'm trying to set up a very simple feeder
It is strips of a reel of LEDs too wide to fit any of my feeders ( about 1 inch wide)
the component pitch is 12mm and the strip I can mount is about 20 units long..
I can't seem to find the documentation on how to set these up..
I've had a play but don't seem to be making progress...
Any tips ?
Chris
ps, after the rewire and a new PC power supply, the opd lady is performing faultlessly. !
its just me thats need a hand !
It is strips of a reel of LEDs too wide to fit any of my feeders ( about 1 inch wide)
the component pitch is 12mm and the strip I can mount is about 20 units long..
I can't seem to find the documentation on how to set these up..
I've had a play but don't seem to be making progress...
Any tips ?
Chris
ps, after the rewire and a new PC power supply, the opd lady is performing faultlessly. !
its just me thats need a hand !
#26
For Sale/Wanted, Suppliers / RV4S on eBay
Last post by Jason - February 17, 2025, 10:49:13 PM #27
General SMT / Re: Wave soldering (ok not qui...
Last post by Mickyblueeyes - January 23, 2025, 12:20:57 PMHi yes getting hold of germanium is quite hard, i bought one sample on ebay which turned out to be wrong as it didnt melt (probably silicon), to use the germanuim i have a small furnace which gets to around 1100 deg into which i melt the solder then when at full temp I add the germanium to around 2% by weight.
So not as simple as just dropping it in the bath, the germanium does reduce the dross but it doesnt stop it. Whether its worth all this effort i dont know.
So not as simple as just dropping it in the bath, the germanium does reduce the dross but it doesnt stop it. Whether its worth all this effort i dont know.
#28
RV Hardware / Re: Feeder controller board re...
Last post by trev - January 17, 2025, 11:18:34 PMHi. Did you get my messages?
Quote from: Greasemonkey on December 19, 2024, 12:11:38 PMHi Trev,
Thats a good question.
I am thinking initialy I am after a few boards to try out and tinker with.
If this works out well then I would probably want to retrofit most of our feeders down the line.
I have a cache of chinese arduino megas collecting dust in my stores from old venture which would be ideal.
We still use our RV a lot for certain jobs and I am on a bit of a mission to fix or improve a number of the known issues we suffer with the feeders which prevent an operator walking away from the machine while it is running.
It would also be nice to add some features to the feeders which would make life easier.
#29
RV Hardware / Re: RV4S PCB Pinouts
Last post by dogboy - December 31, 2024, 10:23:39 PMHi Mike,
Ah ok, thanks for the reply.
Maybe I will hook up the old pc and run the armtest test. I have a Saleae logic analyser so maybe I can have a look at what data is being sent back and forth and work out what's going on.
I also want to see how the opto-board detects the slots in the drive wheel. One side has two slots and one side has one slot. I assume the micro on the board detects the sequence of one or two slots as a rotation home flag or rotational end stops as such, like the equivalent of a end stop on a linear system.
I was thinking I could make a replacement PCB with a PIC micro to auto detect the slot sequence and and have three pins which would represent the home position, and two more for the equivalent of a rotational end stop in either direction.
I am only looking at this for use with a Duet 3 board and OpenPNP, to see if I could use the exiting RV4 boards for these signals or if I need to use something else.
Thanks again, and I wish you all and happy new year. I hope 2025 is a good year for everyone.
Paul
Ah ok, thanks for the reply.
Maybe I will hook up the old pc and run the armtest test. I have a Saleae logic analyser so maybe I can have a look at what data is being sent back and forth and work out what's going on.
I also want to see how the opto-board detects the slots in the drive wheel. One side has two slots and one side has one slot. I assume the micro on the board detects the sequence of one or two slots as a rotation home flag or rotational end stops as such, like the equivalent of a end stop on a linear system.
I was thinking I could make a replacement PCB with a PIC micro to auto detect the slot sequence and and have three pins which would represent the home position, and two more for the equivalent of a rotational end stop in either direction.
I am only looking at this for use with a Duet 3 board and OpenPNP, to see if I could use the exiting RV4 boards for these signals or if I need to use something else.
Thanks again, and I wish you all and happy new year. I hope 2025 is a good year for everyone.
Paul
#30
RV Hardware / Re: RV4S Driver Belts (and Ope...
Last post by Mike - December 31, 2024, 12:04:33 PMIf they look OK I'd leave them for now - don't think I've ever seen anyone reporting belt issues.
TBH I'd question whether an OpenPNP port is worth the effort - the inverse kinematics for the RV are very non-trivial, e.g. there are some motion paths that need to be split into two moves due to the limits of the geometry.
Then you have the issue that the downward camera has an angular offset from the head which varies with arm position, and of course part rotation also varies with position.
The original developers needed a machine grid calibration to get enough accuracy.
And even if you get all that sorted the feeders are a bit crap.
An interesting project if you have time to burn, but you easily could end up with something that isn't quite accurate enough to be useful for anything.
TBH I'd question whether an OpenPNP port is worth the effort - the inverse kinematics for the RV are very non-trivial, e.g. there are some motion paths that need to be split into two moves due to the limits of the geometry.
Then you have the issue that the downward camera has an angular offset from the head which varies with arm position, and of course part rotation also varies with position.
The original developers needed a machine grid calibration to get enough accuracy.
And even if you get all that sorted the feeders are a bit crap.
An interesting project if you have time to burn, but you easily could end up with something that isn't quite accurate enough to be useful for anything.