0402 placement tips

[trev]

Mike mentioned he had placed some 0402 parts with an RV. What experience do people have with placement of 0402 parts? Does the machine manage it okay? Do you need to slow the movement down to get accurate placement? I never realistically thought the machine could do below 0603.

Trev

[Mike]

Only done it a couple of times, and I doubt I'd rely on it for production as it can be rather hit & miss.

It's a while since I've done it - I think some manual nudging after placement was needed, but not enough to be a disaster when I did a dozen or so of the pictured 32x32 LED boards

The issues I recall were calibration related rather than the actual part handling. Starting with a really clean & accurate paste print is  very important - with that a 50% mis-placement will still flow onto the pads.

[trev]

Thanks

[trev]

I did a test board to see what placement I could get with an RV4s for 0402 resistors. It was quite impressive, I was surprised.

I used some spray mount and attached image shows the position accuracy. This was full speed as well.