Home made Pick and place machine Place Mk2

20120215 Major change of direction

Going to try the KPlace software per smtplace.com

Requires:

- Dynomotion KFLOP controller US$249 + US$30 shipping

- Full head A axis rotation

So, single head, with hollow stepper for A axis mounted on a pneumatic Z actuator

 

20120203 In progress, some changes:

Changes:

- ATX PSU replaced with basic switch mode 12V PSU.  5V system supply will come off the regulator on the PIC18F Interface PCB and where possible be supplied via any of my standard RJ12 interconnects (pin 5 = gnd, pin 6 = PIC supply, ie 5v for PIC18F4xxx)

- Head Z motion Mosfet controller PCB & 4 x solenoids are now mounted on the Y gantry.  The MK1 machine had maybe 1.5m of pneumatic tubing between the pneumatic solenoids & the head z cylinders.  With this change this is reduced to maybe 200mm maximum.  I am hoping for a subsequent increase in speed of pneumatic activation/deactivation for head z movement which will justify the increase in Y gantry mass

Notes on grounding:

Unable to find a definitive Googled answer re grounding of switchmode PSU's.

My instinct is to connect mains ground & all switchmode PSU outputs -ve common however this may introduce noise and as some of our 5v signals are unshielded over a few meters ...

So will connect:

- mains ground to machine chassis & gantry

- connect all 3 switched mode PSU -ve outputs to create a common DC ground but isolated from the mains ground..

- run system through an RCD as well as this property does not have one on the switchboard

 


20120119 Mk2.0 version construction commenced.

Initial iteration is single gantry, allowing for up to 4 heads but with a single head initially.