EEVblog #740 - LitePlacer Pick & Place Machine Kit Unboxing

Dave unboxes the LitePlacer SMD Pick & Place machine kit.
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[GeorgeGraves]

Glad David2 is going to be doing this!  He seems to have some natural mechanical skills.

[Zentrius]

when you finish the pick and place you could  mount your scored couch feet underneath :)

[electrodacus]

I was considering this pick and place for my projects but was just to slow for a small production on my Solar BMS.
The price on this LitePlacer is extremely reasonable considering the items included and the low volume nature of this product.
My current project has two PCB's one of them has around 150 parts and I can get at least two of them in the reflow oven that takes around 10 say 15 minutes in all.
So two boards reflow at once and about 4 sets an hour is 2x150 parts x 4 = 1200 parts/h is a minimum in order not to wait for the pick and place machine.
So this LitePlacer was about 4x to slow for my use.
I opted for one of those mechanical only pick and place no vision that can do up to around 6000 or so parts/hours if you use both heads at once. I will run that slower than maximum but will still be good while it is quite a bit more expensive around 4x the price of the LitePlacer.
I think the guy did a fantastic job with the LitePlacer. Maybe on a new version he can reduce the weight of the moving head so that he can increase the speed.
I think if he can get to a real world 1000 parts/hour it will make the machine much more usable for those with my requirements.
Also the software part seems to be great on the LitePlacer so if he can recognise lose parts that will be great with no need for complex feeders.

[ElmerFuddGun]

For kits with lots of parts like this I think it would be useful to number the parts bags in the order they are used.  Then you can just put them all in order before hand and grab them as you go very quickly.  Just a suggestion for the manufacture to help the end users save some time.  At least that is what I have found can save a lot of time when I have assembled kits.  YMMV.

[henningschaferhoff]

Please do a timelapse video of the build!

[jsleeio]

I like it!

Tampere, by the way, is a lovely city. Of all the places my friend and I visited in Finland (and we saw a lot of it!), it was my favourite. Will definitely go back for more.

[mathewstorey]

Looking forward to the build and test videos!

[martinda]

Dave said the guy who markets this is an audio chap....I immediately thought Rabco, and I bet that went though his mind. Wonderful kit looks like great value.

[JustinAlexanderBell]

Careful with the Makerslide, you don't want to ding the linear rails on them.

[StarDustSid]

Oh, lovely technical stuff to play with.

[astrogirlusa]

Can't wait to see David check this out.  :)

[Karebear]

That's an ACME leadscrew. If you end up having issues with backlash, you can get a cheap ballscrew which should cut it down pretty well. The NEMA motors most likely aren't branded, there are quite a few little places in Shenzhen cranking these guys out. Looking forward to seeing how it comes together!

[kevincozens]

It is amazing how computer technology and inexpensive stepper motors are making it so easy to create and build CNC machines. The video of this device shows a lot of wasted(?) motion as it seems to move the head away from the PCB area off to one side before going for the next part. That movement could be optimized and it would increase the rate of part assembly.

[EEEnthusiast]

Can't wait to see the build of this thing. For some reason, before you unboxed it, I thought it was going to be a much simpler machine.

[AndrewGillard]

What happened with this? I can't find any other videos from a search for "liteplacer" on the EEVblog channel :(

[cemx]

At 7:28 Dave shows off the cable protection thingy that looks like tank tread.  Dave refers to them as "cable snakes".  I thought I would see if I could buy some, looks useful to have in the kit.  However "cable snakes" generally refers to a audio/video cable with several sub-cables inside.  I tracked down the industry name for the stuff shown in the video, it is called "cable track" or "cable chain".  Who knew?

[electronicsNmore]

The start of the video reminded me of "Kilroy was here".

[zxztv]

Thats great for you trying out new projects dave, load it up and let it place everything ready for heat treatment, nice :-)

[smadge]

Ha, when you asked who would be having fun putting it together, I was thinking Sagan! Dave2 is good too.

[boogerking]

6:15 now we know where the plastic island in the middle of pacific ocean came from. Lol