That's the very same ones I already use. Plus vials for stuff that needs more room like 1k resistors or 0.1uF caps. Does the solderarbility deteriorate faster in coin envelopes than it does while in the reel?
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Yes, you can:
Even in the 90's we could buy parts either on 4k reels or in bulk packages that contained more than 12000 and were cheaper per part. So
0.1u caps and stuff were often bought in bulk rather than reel. Some could be clicked into the machine feeder and the parts were in there just like pills in a vial, willy nilly style. Often called cassette.
That was in the early 80's :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
bulk? As in, plastic bags of loose SMT passives? No, my P&P certainly can't handle those. It does reels, and it can take chips in tubes with a vibratory feeder. But, no way can it do loose parts in a pile. it needs to have ONE specific place to pick up a part, with known orientation.
Yes, it is an old P&P machine, with no vision, and mechanical alignment.
Jon
What I did before I got the P&P machine was use a box of Akro Mills drawers. I cut the tape up into strips just long enough to fit in the drawer, and put a dozen or so strips in there.
Now, for the bench, I unreel the tape and cut off the tail end of the tape, then reel it back up. I put something like 200 parts on tape in the drawer. My particular P&P machine will gladly pick up all the way to the last part on tape, but it is pretty picky about the leader on the front end of the tape. So, by grabbing parts off the tail end of the reel, I don't mess up the leader. Unrolling the entire reel and then winding it back up takes about 2 minutes.
Jon
Is it a machine from the early 80's?
At the end of the datasheet you see an example of a bulk cartridge that can be clicked into the feeder of more modern machines:
I've also had wider ones. They hold a lot more parts than a reel and are better suited for very large production runs.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Not that I've noticed. But hand soldering is a more robust process than p+p, and my private-stash parts are for breadboards or hacking first articles.
Most of my parts in the envelopes are short snips of taped parts, swiped off reels in the stockroom. Sometimes I even sign them out. Something that I use a lot, like 1 uF 0805 caps, my universal bypass, I untape and dump a mess of loose parts into the envelope for quicker access.
When you want a few caps, it's really easy to tap some out of the coin envelope, and if you get too many the flap makes a nice scoop to slurp them back up.
The plastic bins are really clumsy, hard to use, hard to label, and waste a lot of volume.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Our Universal machine has reel feeders on both sides and a tray feeder too. It will pick up loose parts.
The tray feeder is the thing sticking out between the reels and the oven.
We don't have any vibratory feeders.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Ok, then I can dump the reel stash into vials. That'll create a lot of space.
Those coin envelopes are great but they do need a paperclip if moved around a lot. Else you'll have "sand" everywhere.
But they do take a lot more parts. I have small pill cans of BAV99, BFS17 and such that I use a lot. They never seem to run empty.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
No, late 1995. It was AVAILABLE with vision and a bunch of other features (computerized Z axis, automatic nozzle changer, etc.) but this one doesn't have it. A number of machins of the same vintage were on eBay and such with vision, but all of them had notes like "has vision hardware, but it hasn't worked in 2 years. Rest of machine runs fine." So, apparently, the vision hardware was temperamental.
PRF-55681.pdf OK, I guess I've seen these in pictures somewhere, but never seen one close up. Definitely, my machine wouldn't handle this unless it was set up with some kind of vibratory feeder to deliver a part at a time to a precise spot.
I have gotten my machine to handle 0603 parts after tweaking the adjustment of the feeders. The only thing that wouldn't work was 0603 LEDs, where the flat top of the LED was too small. I have to move up to 0805 LEDs.
The machine does 0603 and 0805 passives, SOT23 and SIOC chips perfectly. SSOP chips are a little problem, but 90+ % of them go on just fine. I think maybe these packages have some plastic flash that makes the positioning a bit iffy. That's where vision really shines, it alignes to the ACTUAL lead footpads, not the body of the part.
But, I got the thing for a SONG, and have done at least 1000 boards on it. I can't even CALCULATE how many hours it has saved me.
Jon
Yow, that's a pretty BIG installation. I've got my P&P in my home basement.
Yes, it is OLD tech. I'm using it less and less, as fewer parts are available in tubes. But, I don't quite have enough 12 and 16 mm tape feeders, so sometimes it comes in handy.
Jon
We used to park a dozen or so cars there. Now we park in a garage and walk.
We also have a nitrogen system and a water-wash thing, and we just got a new "vapor degreaser" solvent cleaner.
Behind that door, there is a modified Kenmore dishwashing machine.
We use all this stuff at about 5% of its capacity, but it's worth it.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
The flooded bedroom closet floor? ;-)
Sure, I write on the anti-stat envelopes with a Sharpie or print a label and stick it so it's readable sitting in the bin.
Yup, I'm not even sure I run my P&P 5% of the time (OH YEAH, 5% of a year is
438 hours.) I might run it 50 hours a year, but it has totally paid for the modest expenditure on a used machine!Jon
Yikes, if that's as moist as you just described I'd so something about it. Before mold develops inside the walls.
So do I but it's more cumbersome because the pouches aren't quite as easily readable that way as a Rolodex. Vials are easy because the info is on top of the lids.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
We do smallish runs of dense stuff, and often need to do a batch quickly. Contract assemblers haven't worked out well, what with their loading situation, kitting, quality, shipping, all that hassle. This board takes four minutes to stuff, and it's practical to do a run of
20 or 50.We got a good deal on refurbished feeders, so we leave a lot of reels of commonly-used parts mounted.
An auto p+p can process $10K to $50K worth of boards per hour. It can pay for itself pretty fast.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I have no idea how it got that wet but I've talked to other people who've had the same problem. They suggested the silica-gel-in-the-safe trick. Yes, they were wet enough that all the papers, including dead presidents, were damp to the touch and smelled of mildew.
That's a serious concern. Because aside from that safe there'll probably be drywall structure, built-in closets with enclosed framing space around them, cold water pipes and so on. All that would easily grow unseen mold in such an environment. Moisture doesn't know that it's only supposed to attack the innards of the safe and nothing around it :-)
Can't hurt to peek inside and behind stuff with a car mechanic's scope to see if there's any black fuzz on hidden surfaces. When I was a student I helped with some remodel projects and I've seen some gross surprises in that domain. After opening roller boxes and such. Normally nobody ever opens those for decades unless the roller jams in there for some reason.
[...]-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Nothing outside the safe is wet at all (well, other than Summer air).
Nope. Nothing here.
That happens in optical systems too. In moist environments it has to be either (a) very well ventilated, or (b) hermetically sealed. Anything in between, it gets wet inside.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Yes. Due to the inventory of parts, I don't like to have huge numbers of parts or boards hanging around. So, I do fairly small runs of boards.
I just had a customer need another run of a board I did for them, pronto. I had to order the blank board which took the longest part of the time. When the blank boards came in, I already had the machine set up, so I had them stuffed in less than 24 hours.
Whew, that is a very filled board! Congrats to whoever did the layout.
Yup, the feeders are a very big expense, especially when you buy the machine used.
Well, my Philips CSM84 is not that kind of fast, or else my boards don't go for that kind of money. But, yes, going from a one-man shop stuffing boards by hand to mostly just push a button and they are stuffed, is TRULY great!
Jon
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