| | | | | | | Hello - | | | | I am interested in obtaining information on the possibility of integrating a Vision Inspection System with an SMT line. I am aware of systems which may be used to gather placement data and such, but are there any systems which are able to take this information and provide the placement equipment with correction information? | | | | Thanks | | | | Ray | | | Howdy Ray!
| | | Boy, wouldn't that be nice? A machine that will tweek it's own program! I've never heard of anything like that (but that doesn't mean it don't exist), closest thing I've ever seen to it is pick correction. | | | I know that Zevatech and Fuji equipment will do that. It takes the image of where the component is sitting on the nozzle from when it inspected the part at the camera, and then corrects the pick position the next time it goes to the feeder to get a part...but self correcting placement? I've not heard of that.. | | | Zevatech machines do have a feature that's called "Place-Tracking" where the head will go to each location after the board has been placed. You can set the time interval that the head will pause at each location so you can read the value, or check placement accuracy, (good to do first article inspections with) but any corrections you have to do yourself. | | | By the way, Earl mentioned Mike Newkirk of Zevatech...I don't think his email address is what he stated. I used to work for Mike at Zevatech only a few weeks ago. They've got their own domain now, his address would be: | | | MikeNewkirk@Zevatech.com | | | Their web site is at: | | | www.zevatech.com | | | C-ya L8'ter! | | | -Steve Gregory- | | | | Steve is the best. Dog on it, it would be nice. The future | | is up to us. | | Earl | | Would the machine come with its own hand-slapping device to punish itself everytime it tweaked a placement? From a process control perspective, I've gotten crazy over the years with people tweaking placements. There goes the CAD data! Now when we get a misplacement, we have no clue whether the root cause is the board, the machine, the vision system, or the component. I particularly like tweaking placements a half a mil. It's within the repeatability of the system, ya' big boomerang! (Had to steal | that, Steve; it was too funny!) And, as an industry, we sometimes have this tendency to not calibrate on a regular schedule, so after we tweak our placements into oblivion,when we do calibrate our machines, everything heads South! So we then we decide calibration is a bad thing. NO JOKE! Seen it! | Sorry to be such a wet blanket on such a seemingly fun toy. The idea of automating the corruption of your data does seem like a technology advancement in some Dilbert-ish, "Look Ma, no hands" sort of way. | Seriously, I did see a vision system that was checking placements at Nepcon last month. It was with the SiPlace lines. I only spent a minute looking at it, so I don't recall the specifics. You may want to check with your local Siemens guys on it. You're correct. I have spoken to Siemens and have found out their SMART line is to be used not so much for self-correction of the CAD data, but to dynamically track trends and address the root cause which as stated above, may be indications of the need to calibrate, in some cases the wear and tear on the nozzles or mechanical issues which affect board support. Given an instance in which the production is required, placement is drifting and ,depending upon machine type, calibration may take an extended period of time then a self-correcting placement feature affecting not the CAD data but instead altering the file program once it is scheduled to the placement machine would allow for continuation of production. Once the there is time to address the root cause the program may be rescheduled overwriting the changes carrried out by the self-correction there by restoring the original placement info. Thanks Ray
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