
Manual SMT Pick & Place machine summary

This is my manual SMD Pick & Place machine I’ve designed to ease the assembly of my electronics projects.
The max PCB size is about 250 x 200 mm.
A vacuum
pump connected to pick & place head. The XY movements are guided by linear LM8LUU and MGN12 rails.
A microscope is attached to the Pick & Place head to help in precise alignment of the components.
Short design description
The design is quite
simple, has an aluminum frame and some 3D printer parts (I used some leftover
parts from my old 3D Printer.
Basically, it has a
vacuum pump connected to a vacuum pick & place head. The XY movements are
guided by linear LM8LUU and MGN12 rails. Attached to the pick and place head it is a microscope, so the correct
placement of the components can be better guided.
The pick & Place head is attached to the machine via four
5x5x5mm magnets and it can be exchanged with an Arduino Motorized SMT Solder
Paste Dispenser:
It has SMD strip
dispenser for 8, 12, 16 and 24mm tapes.
One SMD components tray
with eight compartments, curved side for small SMD components flip-over
(0402-1206, SOT23, SOD23 etc.).
Picking a component is
done by pressing the left button or pressing down the pedal, this will start
the suction pump and close the air valve. The component release is done by
releasing the left button or pedal, this will stop the suction pump and open
the air valve to fill the vacuum.
The component dispenser’s
assembly needs some gluing. I fused them together using dichloromethane but any
other plastic glue would do the job.
Design and work gallery
Preliminary BOM:
1 x 3V1-06 NC Solenoid
Valve - 12V version
JUKI Nozzles - (I bought
503, 504 and 506)
1 x Cosmo 12000 Vacuum Suction Pump
1 x Microscope
1 x Pneumatic adapter 10
to 6mm - PG10-6
1 x Pneumatic L Shaped
Elbow for 6mm - PV6
Frame Components
2 x 2040 aluminum
extrusion 500mm length
3 x 2020 aluminum
extrusion 300mm length
2 x 2080 aluminum
extrusion 300mm length (PCB holder V2)
4x corner bracket (you
can also print the attached ones)
19 x aluminum 2020 brackets
4 x M6 20mm screw
18 x M5 8mm Button Head
socket Cap Screw
70 x M4 12mm Button Head
socket Cap Screw
8 x M3 10mm Socket Head
Cap Screw
8 x M3 10mm Socket Head
Cap Screw
5 x M3 15mm Socket Head
Cap Screw
4 x M3 20mm Socket Head
Cap Screw
30 x M3 nut
18 x M5 T-nut
70 x M4 T-nut
2 x LM8LUU bearing
2 x 8mm steel rod 400mm;
1 x MGN12 350mm rail
with MGN12H carriage
1 x LM10UU bearing (Igus
type)
3 x 12mm diameter 50mm
length spring
1 x wooden hand rest
250x210x18 mm (I covered mine with a soft rubber sheet)
15 x 5mm cube magnets
Electronics
2 x 12mm momentary buttons NO
contact 12V LED
1 x 16mm momentary button NO
and NC contacts
1 x Mean Well 12V / 15WA power supply
This is the pedal I use:
Juki Nozzle assembly details
The JUKI nozzle Holder
is a very short. Therefore, I have added a new piece of 10mm outer diameter
aluminum pipe "JUKI AdapterFix" in the fusion design. This piece
makes the connection between the JUKI nozzle adapter and the Coupling to the
6mm PFTE Tube.
The JUKI nozzle holder
diameter is slightly smaller than 10mm. This enables the JUKI nozzle to wobble
a little. I fixed this by adding one layer of aluminum tape making the JUKI
nozzle holder a little thicker.
Wiring diagram
The basic principle is
that when the pedal is released the valve opens and lets air into the tube, so
the picked component is released. When the pedal is pressed, the current
through the valve shall be interrupted so it closes and activate the vacuum
pump via the SSR switch.
The additional
push-button I connected in the pedal jack connector which is automatically
disconnected when the pedal jack is plugged in.
During the testing I
observed that the valve solenoid gets pretty hot so I introduced the quick and
dirty Pick&Hold kind of circuit using a big 18mF capacitor and the 75-100Ω
power resistor. When the pedal is released, the capacitor is charged via the
solenoid coil so we have a higher engage current for the valve, after the cap
is charged the current is limited via the power resistor to a lower value thus
the solenoid coil will not be fried in time.
The two vacuum outputs
of the pump shall be connected in parallel otherwise it will create a lot of
vibration and all the SMT components will jump around.