Man, that was really nice of you to write all that. It gives me a better level of confidence when an actual user can tell their experiences. This sounds great so far and I will keep my eyes on this thread to hopefully hear more about your experience. I am sure I'm not the only one and so a big THANKS to you. Keep it up.[/quote]
No problem, this is a big ticket item and buying it was a bit of a leap of faith on my part, but really glad that I did - very happy to pass on my experiences to help others.
Check out the link in supertronic's post above to see a picture and info on the pcb that I've just built after 20 hours or so experience with my VP-2500D.
I used both heads for placement,head one has the CN065 nozzle installed and head 2 has the larger diameter CN140 nozzle fitted for larger parts such as SMA, SOIC8 and TO252. So, I don't need to change heads in the middle of a job, these two heads will fit everyting from 0603 to SOIC-14 and TO252 :-) The nozzles are high quality Samsung parts with spring loading, this means that if you get the settings slightly wrong the spring will save the nozzle from getting bent or broken - there is some compliance built into the system. Most of the other machines in this price range seem to have fixed nozzles and a slight misjudgement could easily trash the nozzle or worse.......
The vision system is really easy to use and doesn't slow things down too much. I'd initially thought that it would be tricky to set up and that I'd have to draw part outlines etc, but in reality all you do is put in the dimensions of the part (including pins), set a few dialogue boxes and that's it! Then just set the contrast and brightness so that the part outline is clear and you're good to go - for the same type of part you can just use the same settings on different feeders, but each feeder can have it's own setttings which will vary for different size and shaped parts. You can also save feeder groups, so you only ever need to do this once for a particular part. I use head one with camera one for smaller parts and head two with camera two for larger parts, as camera 2 has a wider field of view - you can choose which camera and head that you use independently for each feeder.
The machine has three cameras in total, cameras one and two are upward looking and are used for vision placement only, whereas camera three is a downward looking camera that is used for aligning fudicial marks, component position in the feeder and measurement - when operating the software automatically switches between downward and upward looking cameras in a very intuitive way, very useful at low speeds as you are learning.
There is a slight speed overhead for using vision placement (but even so it is pretty quick), however for me it is much faster than blind placement because I don't have to line up slightly misplaced parts with a magnifier and a pair of tweezers before reflow. I know that reflow can sometimes straighten out misplacement due to the surface tension of the molten solder, but in my experience this is a bit hit and miss. I take pride in my boards looking professional, raggy component alignment has no place in my world :-)
I've spent many hundreds of hours hand placing parts and it is truly magical to watch the VP-2500D stuff the same board in less than a tenth of the time, with absolute accuracy and without any eyestrain :-) The sofware is great, a bit daunting at first because there are so many parameters and settings, but you quickly get to know your way around it.
I would also like to say a big thank you to Michael for his brilliant support, I've got this machine up and running very quickly because of this. I've sent him a good few emails in the last week on things that I was unsure of and he always gets back quickly. German engineering and support with Chinese manufacturing, that works for me! Michael speaks excellent English too, which is a great relief as my German vocabulary is limited to around ten words in total, and at least half of them are rude ;-)
So, within a week I've learnt the machine well enough to get it into production........
[quote author="viscomjim"]Hello 2thick, I am looking at this machine also and the tm245p. I would love to hear your feedback on this. The vision seems to be a nice option.[/quote]
Ok, here's my feedback so far!
My VP2500D arrived a week or so ago, but only just got around to unpacking it and getting it setup. I went for both North and West feeders so I have 50 feeders on my machine and the optional parts tray. It was really well packed and arrived undamaged, the machine itself is actually screwed down solidly to a pallet which then has a wooden crate constructed around it. Software installed without any problem onto a Win 7 PC, there is a USB dongle for copy protection.
The customer service and support is superb, this has to be the most important thing when buying a P&P machine - they are very complex with a steep learning curve and good support is essential. Every question that I had was answered very quickly and Michael has been brilliant with his instruction. Also, a full user manual is under construction, I've had access to the fist 21 pages and it will be a huge help to everyone whether they are new to P&P or very experienced and just need to know the relevant setting to get up and running.
I use Eagle to design my boards and the latest version of the VP2500D software has an option to import Eagle mounting data directly, so no need to type everything in manually - just run the import utlility and all of the component placement data is in the program and ready to go - impressive! So after three or four hours I am now placing components onto my own boards from my Eagle files using full vision placement. You have the option whether or not to use vison placement independantly for each feeder lane - using vision placement rather than "blind" placement doesn't seem to slow the job down too much, so I'll probably use it for all parts rather than just small parts and IC's. Twin heads are great as I can fit two different nozzles and use the larger nozzle on Head 2 for electro caps and large IC's and the and not have to stop the job to change nozzles. There are two upward looking vision cameras with two different focal lengths, so camera 1 can be used with head 1 for smaller parts and camera 2 with head 2 for larger parts. Head 1 can access both camera 1and 2, whereas head 2 can only access camera 2 - not really a limitation, more an observation.
The design and construction of the machine is very impressive, the pneumatic tape advance system works very well. Everything seems very well engineered, quality brass idler wheels have been used instead of cheaper aluminium wheels, linear bearings are very smooth too. Quality stepper controllers must have been used, there are no noises from the motors that you get with some of the cheaper Chinese controllers. You will need a very solid table to mount it on, it has quite a bit of momentum when working so needs a solid, level base.
The software is very, very good! There are options for almost everything - as an example the vision placement can be x,y only or x,y with angle correction, you can select this for each feeder lane independantly. The mark points proceedure is great - when you take out a finished board and fit a new board for placement there will always be a slight misalignment due to slight variances in the milling of the board edges and a slight difference in the position of the new pcb in the holder - neither of these are a problem, the visual mark alignment automatically finds the centre of the two fudicial marks and corrects for it so that all components will be accurately placed. This will really speed up workflow when placing many boards in a session as I intend to do.
So, there's my initial impressions of the VP2500D, I am really pleased with it and it is light years ahead of the TM220/240 machines and the full vision system gives it a big advantage over the Neoden TM245p - without vision you will spend a lot of time with tweezers and a magnifier re-aligning smaller components and IC's before reflow. I'm hoping to have it in full production later this week so can post more info and some video of it in action.
[quote author="viscomjim"]Hello 2thick, I am looking at this machine also and the tm245p. I would love to hear your feedback on this. The vision seems to be a nice option.[/quote]
Will do. I already own an SMT50 and this seems to run the same (or very similar) Win 7/8 software which I do like. Advantage over the SMT50 are extra feeders with pneumatic advance, along with twin heads which really helps the speed. Vision system seems similar too (which is a good thing!) however it has three cameras instead of two so should work really well with large and small parts alike. I looked at the tmp245 but I prefer to have a vision based system so that I don't have to manually re-align some parts after placement, which was a problem with the TM240. I also much prefer the windows 7 based software to the Neoden built in software and touch screen.
I've taken the plunge and ordered a VP-2500D machine from SMALLSMT.BIZ, hopefully I should have it here in the UK within the next 2-3 weeks so I'll upload some pix and perhaps a video of it in action and let everyone know how I get on with it. I've had great help and advice from Michael - thanks!
Looks like the perfect solution for me as my boards have an SMD BOM count of around 40 to 49 different value/type components with between 100 and 200 components in total per board; so I can place everything in one pass, it should manage around 2,000 components/hr with full vision which is fast enough for me and I should therefore be able to easily p&p 80 to 100 pcb's per day. Can't wait :-)
For some reason you replied to a message that I posted many months ago, before I bought my pick and place machine.
I have since bought an SMT50 machine from Sunny at HotHotSMT, it is a great machine and I am very satisfied with it. I do not care if they are the manufacturer or a reseller, it is a well built machine and the company support is very good.
I do not like the fact that you are trying to discredit HotHotSMT by inferring that the SMT50 is a copy of your TM240A. This is not the case - it has considerably more feeders, a different form factor, a vision system and external Windows software.
HotHotSMT have provided an excellent machine and excellent service to me.
As you seem to be trying to stop them from selling their full range of pick and place machines I will ensure that I never buy any Neoden products as I cannot condone your business practices.
I bought an SMT50 machine from hothot smt, possibly the first in the UK? Haven't had time to do much with it yet but they are certainly a genuine company and the machine seems very well built and software runs ok under Win 7. Really well packed and fast DHL delivery. I bought it from them using paypal rather than wire transfer, cost about 5% more this way but more buyer protection. Much better option than TM240 for me as it has optional second feeder and can hold 36 reels and has vision too. I understaand that there is also a cheaper version without vision too....
Many thanks for the reply Michael, very helpful :-)
I'll keep a watch for your SMT700 with 60 feeder lanes coming onto the market - I think that that suits our needs perfectly but the SMT50 should do the job for us until then.
I am about to buy an SMT50 machine from HotHotSMT and have a couple of questions on it regarding the supplied software. I'm brand new to pick and place machines, we have been hand placing components on our boards and this would be a huge step forward for us.
So, a few questions for supertronic and timw (or any other SMT50 users here)
1 - Does the supplied software have to run in win xp? Or would win 7 be better?
2 - I have very limited programming skills so I'm not really able to hack the software, can it be used as is?
3 - I designed our pcb's and boards gerber's in Cadsoft Eagle, can we produce pick and place files that can be used with the SMT50 software? I'm looking at using mountsmd.ulp to generate component place date from Eagle - can I import this data directly to the software or will it need lots of editing before or afterwards?
4 - I've had a look at translation files kindly provided on github by timw, do I just replace the relevant .ini files in the software with these and it improves the english translations from chinese?
I've just had reply from Sunny at HotHotSmt, the rear feeder option costs $200 and can be configured either as [20 x 8mm tapes], or [10 x 8mm, 5 x 12mm, 2 x 16mm tapes]
Main side feeder holds 20 x 8mm, so capacity of the machine can be up to 40 x 8mm tapes, or 30x8mm, 5x12mm and 2x16mm tapes. In addition it will accept optional trays for TQFP which you mentioned earlier.
Certainly beats TM240A for number of component tapes it can handle.
Good to know that an airbrush compressor is sufficient, I already have one and it is very quiet indeed, so no need to fit vacuum pump :-)
When you replaced the stepper controllers did you just replace the controllers for the x axis and y axis or did you replace all of them? Are the stepper motors Nema17 or Nema23? Do you know which model of Leadshine DSP controllers that you fitted?
I have sent a message to Hothotsmt to get a price for the rear feeder assembly and will post the info when I get a reply. I wonder if there is also an essential spares kit for this model?
Do you know if Hothotsmt are the manufacturer or a reseller, just wondering why the SMT50 is considerably cheaper on Taobeo.com? Lots of different sellers have the TM220A/240A models but very few seem to sell the SMT50.....
Many thanks for your replies, very helpful. Just a few more questions if that's ok.....
With the SMT50 model they show pictures of the machine with an extra feeder bank on the back, but it isn't supplied with this as standard. Did you go for this option? Does this use the same method of feeding by using a pin on the nozzle head assembly? Any idea how much this rear feeder bank option costs and if it works ok? For my application I really need as many feeders as possible but would like to keep to one machine.
Does it use a downward camera or laser for fudicial alignment and is this tricky to set up?
How does the peel off tape mechanism work on the SMT50, can't really see it in in detail on any of the photo's.
It looks like it also needs a compressed air supply? I'd guess that this is to create the pick up vacuum using a venturi? If so I'd guess it would be possible to replace this with a small vacuum pump to keep the noise levels down a bit.
I'm considering purchasing an SMT50 as a temporary solution until your SMT700 model is in production. The SMT700 ultimately seems the best solution for me as it has vision and extra feeder banks can be used with it, European support would be a huge benefit too....
Can you tell me what is the difference is between the TP01 and the SMT50 models? Do either of these have removable feeder cassettes instead of fixed feeders like the 220A/240A?
BTW Are you still on target with releasing your SMT700 before the end of this year?
What I know is that a german guy have 3 models a SMT240A, SMT50 and TP01 and uses them for production
I am the german guy I try to answer your questions.
Regards Michael[/quote]
Wow, great! Here's a few questions for starters...
How good is the English version of the win xp software? Is it usable?
Is this machine much slower than the 240A when not using the camera and can you elect to use the camera only for certain components?
Does the "pin on head assembly" method of feeding the tapes work ok?
Does the camera work ok with the software?
I see that you are also developing the SMT700 machine featured in another thread here (which looks brilliant BTW), is this machine part of your project?
[quote author="Sleepwalker3"]Interesting, but I hope they spend more on their machine than they do on their translators! Sure their English is a lot better than my Chinese, but it makes me wonder how it would be working through the details with software that is written in Chinglish or Englese.[/quote]
+1
That is why we need a really brave person here to buy one and get it up and running :-)
Don't know if they are same machine but different seller as Price is different and using Google translate from Chinese to English and then I have to try and figure something out when going for Danish...[/quote]
Not particularly fast but do seem to be able to work without camera too in similar way to TM220/TM240 and just use camera for smaller and trickier components. Looks like they use a pin on the head to advance the tape feed position which slows things down a bit. Very interesting machines, has anyone been brave enough to buy one?
