WORKSHOP VIDEO #56: TM220A table top pick and place overview
Today we take a look at an inexpensive pick ‘n’ place machine found on the Chinese auction site Taobao for 22800RMB (about $3,600). A pick and place is a machine that puts electronic components onto a circuit board that has been coated with solder paste. To complete the prototype you just place the populated PCB into a reflow oven. We hope it will speed up production of one-offs and single prototypes.
The NeoDen TM220A is a table top pick and place designed and manufactured in China. Most PnPs are huge machines that take up a room, but this fits nicely in the workshop. It doesn’t require a separate compressor, it has a noisy internal vacuum pump that provides suction for lifting parts.
Up to 15 reels of components can be loaded. 12 x 8mm, 2 x 12mm, and 1 x 16mm. A tray at the front holds larger components like chips. The bigger TM240A that has twice as many reels and costs $1000 more. For us the TM220A is the ideal size. More importantly, it’s light enough to carry up two flights of steep stairs into the workshop.
Flip the switch to start the machine. You’re greeted by a short start-up sequence. The menu is separated into 3 tabs: ‘Tasks’, ‘Manual’, and ‘Setting’. The Tasks tab shows a list of placement files that can be run. The Manual tab has buttons to manually control and test most hardware.
The Settings menu controls the language (English or Chinese), speed, calibration, etc. In the video run at the lowest 10% speed setting. The higher settings the table and throws components around, after the video it’ll be moved to a workbench anchored in the corner of two walls.
You’ll need a manufacturer-supplied password to save any of these setting permanently. Our machine was supplied in Chinese mode, and we got the code to change it without difficulty. We have heard of cases where people were unable to get it though.
The most important thing for our workflow is to get the placement data out of Eagle as quickly as possible. It doesn’t make sense to spend an hour programming the machine to do a single prototype.
We’re working on a ULP to dump Eagle board files for the TM220A/TM240A with a few clicks. This is key to making the machine useful in our situation. Run the ULP, assign a reel (or no reel) to each component on the BOM, then export the placement file. Placement files are written to an SD card, the card is then stuck in a reader on the control panel of the TM220.
The TM220A has two placement heads. They can place two of a single part in one movement, or each can be fitted with a nozzle for a different size part. Our ULP doesn’t take advantage of this yet, but it could be added in the future.
Placement files are simple plaintext CSV files with lists of reels, parts to place, and position information. The wiki has more information on the format of the placement file and ULP.
The TM220A doesn’t have a vision system, it relies entirely on calibration and positioning. This means the board needs to be aligned flush with the machine’s coordinate center. In the manual control menu a button turns on a laser sight that shows the alignment of the PCB in the vice.
Parts are advanced by the pick and place head. It moves to the reel and a solenoid controlled needle pushes into the holes on the side of the reel. The entire pick and place head moves outwards to pull the part. The feed distance is defined per reel in the configuration file.
While the pick and place head advances the reel one part, a set of friction wheels grab excess film from the part reels.
After the reel advances the head drops down and picks it up with vacuum and rotates it to the correct position. The head moves to the part’s location on the board and then drops it by removing the vacuum.
This is an example of the working screen showing the part’s reel location, coordinates on the board, rotation, height (which is usually 0), whether to skip it, and the description on the board. This is all defined by the format shown on the wiki.
Conclusions
We’re withholding judgement until our easy-export ULP is working. Our goal is to save time by quickly placing common parts on single prototypes. There’s a lot more room for error and hand adjustment than on a manufacturing run, even if it isn’t perfect for high volume work it will still probably be a useful tool for us.
The value of a top and bottom vision system that compensates for misalignment is immediately apparent. This machine depends entirely on calibration and registration. Maybe someone will develop an open source add-on for these cheap machines.
As always, we caution against buying a pick and place to manufacture your first open hardware project, especially a cheap machine. Many small startups regret the time and effort invested get fairly mediocre results. Running a production line is a whole additional job. If you’re doing your first hundred or thousand board we recommend contacting local assembly houses. You don’t have to go to China, there’s assembly places everywhere, including the US.
Look for way more reviews of these machines soon. Xinort’s been manufacturing small batches with a TM220A for a few weeks. Seeed Studio bought a TM240A to experiment on small production runs. About a dozen open hardware enthusiasts also grabbed one through our group buy.
Next week we’ll add a reel and talk about the standard parts in the stack.
If you absolutely must have a TM220A or TM240A, we can arrange orders at a special cheaper-than-TaoBao group buy price we negotiated with the manufacturer. The big catch is you must be ready to wire money directly to the manufacturer in China (wire only, no exceptions).
This entry was posted in tools, Videos and tagged pick and place, TM220A, TM240A, Workshop Video.
Comments
nicely cleaned up space ;)
Awesome video! I love these things but just cannot, at this point, justify picking one up… Solder paste dispenser and hot plate, on the other hand, I hope to get in on the group buy :D
All of your videos are too short. Always!
I agree.
Yes Ian, why haven’t you clones yourself a few times so you can do even more than you already do! ;)
I do shoot 1 hour or more footage and chop it down. I read an analysis of youtube stats and most popular videos are under 1minute sliding slowly to 5 minutes, then a huge drop off. After that I always try to keep to 10 minutes, 5 ideally. Thanks for the feedback, I might try leaving some of the less exciting stuff in next time :)
For my part the only thing I would have liked is slightly longer (or more) shots of the close-up stuff like the head picking up, placing, etc. but overall it was good. I think you’ll find the shorter videos are more popular with non-specific things where it’s teeny-boppers with the attention span about half that of a gold-fish! Where the video is of a more specific nature like this, I think people like the DP audience would be more inclined to watch something a little longer.
As boring as it may seem I can watch pick and place, cnc, laser cutter, reflow and pretty much all other electronics/diy videos for hours on end. The Dang Pros videos are always relevant to my interests – and that leaves me wanting more. The rule of thumb is to “Always leave the audience wanting more.” Rest assured that you accomplish this task.
The only bad thing about the workshop video is that I have to wait another week before the next one. I would call that a win for you :)
Now, how about a solder paste dispenser group buy? :D
( all in due time )
Nice, the machine has any external interface, USB,uart, rs-something? if yes you could add a vision system using opencv, charliex2.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/null-space-labs-juki-360-rebuild-part-iv-yes-were-in-la/ they recover and old pick and place. Also the header can be modified to dispense the solder paste?
It has a DB9 on the back, which I assume is a bootloader access.
I doubt the head can dispense paste directly, that would be an pretty huge mod (like adding vision). Doable with a complete teardown I guess.
you should try to connect to the db9, maybe you can drive the pnp directly form the pc in realtime, and that means you can add vision system.
Thanks for the video, guys!
Instead of messing around with the solder paste dispenser I highly recommend you picking up a Silhouette Cameo.
So far I’ve had wonderful results with it. Created a short video and some pictures of the action at https://plus.google.com/photos/106435362157390351263/albums/5838300800625134033
Also take a look at
http://www.idleloop.com/robotics/stencil/index.php https://github.com/pmonta/gerber2graphtec
http://hackaday.com/2012/12/27/diy-smd-stencils-made-with-a-craft-cutter/
Hi Laszlo:
I started a new thread on this, and would appreciate your comment:
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=5341
thx, gil
Awesome video – been waiting all week!
Only thing I couldn’t really see is how accurately the parts were placed (the solder paste made it hard to see) – that seems to be the most important part. In the next video could you cover that a bit more?
Thanks again – love your blog.
Right now it’s so tough to say how accurate the placement is because our export ULP is in mid-hack stage. Once we get everything up and running I’ll shoot lots of quality closeups of the placed board and the reflowed board.
You can test it by handwriting the file. I also heard the manufacturer has test-pcb and test-files for the first run. See the forum: http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=4903&start=135#p50462
I’ve learned more about mid scale production over the past few weeks from just watching your videos than I ever thought I’d know. I’m currently in the process of getting a hot plate, tweezers, and solder paste just to try a flew things. Along with learning more about how to create my very own PCB boards in software like CadSoft Eagle. Thanks for all the tips and neat demonstrations!
I like the new machine Ian. This will ease a lot of pain in prototyping. You’re getting quite the efficient setup there.
I was looking at PnP machines on youtube and came across one that blew my mind. I’ve seen fast machines before, but nothing at quite this scale! Maybe when I hit the lottery… a few times.
Yikes, that placement is pretty bad. That would keep me from getting this unit.
This video showed some interesting things:
1. The solenoid mounted on the head is an interesting and cheap means to move the tape. How much of a pain is it to manually shift the tape until the solenoid finally “stabs” the sprocket holes for the first time after a reel is inserted?
2. The hobbyist and commercial PnP machines I have seen seem to like having a tiny motor pull the tape away on each reel. This one uses the simpler approach of just having one motor which is clever.
3. How do the heads move up and down? It appeared to be doing some sort of calibration at the start so is it not just a solenoid?
Great video!
3.
Please don’t judge the placement based on this video. There’s no telling what is a minor error in the ULP, what is due to table shake and shimmy, what impact the huge globs of poor expired solder paste had, and what is actually inaccurate placement. Once the ULP placement export is working, and we have some new solder paste, I’ll post close ups of placed and reflowed boards that are much more representative of what the machine does.
It’s not that hard to align. mostly it ‘just works’. If the machine doesn’t grab a part it tries a few times to get it. If not, i pauses so you can adjust it.
I have not torn apart the placement head, but I assume the Z motion is also a small stepper because it moves pretty smoothly.
Time for a tear-down I’d say ;)
Send it to Dave! LOL
:D
Absolutely! I’d love to see how they built the electronics inside, to determine how much work it would be to replace the guts and interface it to something with enough oomph to do a vision add-on. If the main powersupply and all the motor control stuff is separate from the primary microcontroller, it should be pretty easy to radically upgrade the thing.
Anybody know how much this weighs?
25kg, 40kg with packaging.
Well, I am way too late to the party :) but still… very nice and informative video!
As i said in the forum earlier i will receive mine tomorrow. Be glad to post my findings.
Hello!
Can anybody specify following if you realy have TM220 or TM240:
1. Models or sizes of used stepping motors
2. Diameters of the liear shafts
3. Withd of the belts
4. diameter of the belt pulley.
I’m working on the similar diy machine and want to compare used equip. with mine.
I was finding a pick and place machine for a little production, but my pcb is 250*500mm.
Is it possible to make some little modification to the machine and put my pcb?
Bye
doubtful. I have not found it easily hackable.
And what is the max size of pcb I can put, exactly?
I’m looking at this for my company, it would greatly reduce the costs of R&D proto builds and decrease the time as well. It looks like these are available in 220V or 110V but it only lists a 50Hz supply. Did you have to convert the input power at all or does it run well at 60Hz? Or are you in a place that has 50Hz?
Just to reassure you i bougth a TM220A ( the small one) requiring a 100 volt. as we have in Quebec and here it is huming at 60 Hz.The machine goes very well like Ian said at hig speed you would have to harness it not to losse it on the floor.
Jean Pierre