Yamaha feeder interface

[trev]

Hi, just thinking out loud. The biggest issue I have with the RV is the feeder handling plastic tape. With 0603 leds the feeder vibrates and the parts literally filp upside down. Sometimes the tape lifts and the pin misses the holes. This is with a grey feeder.

I was wondering how difficult it might be to interface samsung/clone electronic feeders with the RV. It almost acts as a win win situation. Better feeder support and then if the time comes to upgrade the machine the feeders most likely will work with a new machine or can be sold on. 

One thought was to take the electronics board out of a feeder and use the signal from the solenoid output as a trigger to the electronic feeders? I was thinking the RS485 protocol probably is trivial though to back engineer.

Anyone got any thoughts on this or maybe there are ways to sort out the support of plastic tape with the current feeders. I find them a pain really.

Trev

[Gopher]

Pretty sure the control interface for the feeders has already been reverse engineered unless the new driver boards used cloned software...

On low end machines, clone Yamaha pneumatic feeders seem the most popular and cheapest, pretty sure they work using electronically activated valves in the mounting rack (which can be found on Ali). The height of any alternative feeder might mean you need to tweak other aspects of the machine or put it in a new enclosure, the standard ones are quite diminutive in that regard. Another option might be feeders for TWS Qwadras (also banks) if you can find them or Dima (I've seen them on eBay) which are a tiny little thing because they don't include any reel holder in the feeder. The NoedenS1/Tronstol A1 from China also has small electronic feeders which I think cost about the same as a Samsung clone. What you certainly don't want is Essemtec CLM, you could buy the machine for the cost of a refurbished 10 lane magazine.

From memory (its been almost 10 years) there are 2 problems with plastic tape - its thin so not exactly clamped down by the top plate or gripped well by those dastardly rubber drive bands & the single pin drives from quite far back.
It is probably possible with a 3d printer or other ingenuity to make a top plate that can in some way push the tape down to the bottom of the groove but the feeders a re fiddly enough to load already and that probably won't help. I don't know how feasible it would be to add more pins to the tape drive mechanism...

[sheaton]

Feeder comms info is here in case you have not seen it:

http://electricstuff.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=237.0

I've done some simple tests with my old pnp machine (Mechatronika M10) fitted with one lane using a Dima Optimat feeder, using a optical sensor (RPR-220) to detect the pick head and then advance the tape by 1, 2 or 3 steps for 4, 8, or 12mm taps.  A stepper motor presses down on the top lever which advances the tape and operates the take up spool simultaneously.

If you plan on decoding the incoming RS232 I would think you could fairly easily operate any stepper motors, solenoids, etc required for any type of feeder you can get hold of.  The height and physical envelope is likely to be the limiting factor.

Steve.

[Mike]

I've only once ever had this issue, like you it was with 0603 LEDs. The problem was that they came on very thin tape. This was on a crazy-urgent job where I had to place about 10K LEDs in a day or so.
I tried a few things, but the most effective was to use a piece cut from an old stainless stencil which had a roughly LED-shaped aperture to form a window, keeping the tape between the peel-off point and pick position covered, so the LED only became uncovered when it moved to the pick position. It also helped keep the tape held down. Wasn't perfect but got the job done.
I have also considered looking at alternate feeders but never quite got round to it.

[trev]

Thanks for the info.

I meant Yamaha feeders but confused them with Samsung name. I found some info on interfacing them here.

https://groups.google.com/g/openpnp/c/GAddAfrtR00?pli=1

It feels doable but do I really want to mess around with them? The feeders on the rv are not the best. For paper tape though they do work. It just gets tricky with plastic tape. 

Trev

[Jason]

There are two very different feeder types on the RV.
The earlier type uses two belts per lane and there is no per-lane tensioner. These I have found only work well for cardboard tape.
The later type uses one belt per lane and each lane has a spring loaded tensioner. These can work OK for thin plastic tape.

[trev]

I have blue and grey feeders where they both have tension adjustment but the grey feeder has the pins near the front of the feeder. So it is more like a drag system than a push. But it is still shite with plastic tape.

I tried putting an filler piece on the underside of the plate to push the tape down but sometimes this seems to create a weird friction with the tape. If the tape is not pushed down nicely then the led rotates due to vibration of the feeder. So even if one led is showing only, the feeder vibration will upset the one on occasion. Maybe 1 in 5 or so.

I feel like being able to use the electric yamaha feeders would remove all problems with feeders and the machine would perform great if not a little slow but hey.

Trev

[trev]

Bit more digging for alternatives came across a built your own. I am not sure how reliable they are but its interesting.

https://www.docs.mgrl.de/maschine:pickandplace:feeder:0816feeder

[Gopher]

There is also someone hawking a (possibly kickstarterd) plastic moulded budget feeder they have "designed for openpnp" don't have a link but apparently support is in the openpnp source even if none of these listed here https://openpnp.org/hardware/ is the one I'm thinking of. (think it was on eevblog recently, had a silly name).

On eBay someone in the UK is selling a completely 3d printed feeder..

Or you could try copying that incredibly over enthusiastic kid on youtube... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMf49SMPnhxdLormhEpfyfg

[sheaton]

The one with the silly name is possibly Ploopy Feeder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa37CS5gLkE

[trev]

So far the one I found looks the most promising to me. I think its been matured and I think a bridge between rs485 of the RV and the mainboard for this feeder system looks practical.

i would prefer to be able to find a cheap enough source of some electric feeders though if honest.

[trev]

Thanks for the info on the protocol, it appears to be straight forward.

I ordered everything for the self build feeder from Amazon so even though I probably paid double, everything will arrive tomorrow. Printing of the parts will take 9hours. It should be pretty quick to realise if the feeder is suitable.

[Gopher]

Most of the Chinese P&Ps seem to offer an electric feeder upgrade/option of some kind. I'm not entirely sure if they are clones or original designs. I suppose Intelligent Drives have an electric feeder on that machine that's reasonably affordable @phonoplug would know more about those, I have no idea if the machine is even still made, the presence of website doesn't always mean much. As mentioned previously the Tronstol S1 also takes little electric feeders in the 150-250GBP kinda range, no idea how easy the protocol would be to hack.

Apparently not quite as stupid a name as ploopy, the RapidFeeder https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/rapid-feeder-a-new-type-of-smt-feeder/msg3454864/#msg3454864 maybe I was confusing the two.