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  Manual SMT Pick & Place machine summary

SMD Pick&Place v417 blank

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:

  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

  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.