vacuum tweezer thingie

I'd rather go for a foot operated pump. The button on the Pen style vac's makes precision placing hard work.

Cheers

Which one are you looking at? That site cycles through a bunch of different models.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The TV-1000, which itself has versions from $238 up to over $600. I'd like the cheaper one, if I can get an angled metal tip.

Most of their model numbers seem to be TV-1000.

I tried it with an 0402 resistor, under a magnifier, and it worked nicely. In most cases, I'd solder the part down before I push the release button.

I don't know, I always end up using the tweezers as single point hold down's. (just pressing on the part.) and I was thinking of this old probe 'finger' that had a magnetic base, fine control joy stick at the back and a knob to lower it... maybe that's too slow?

George H.

Wouldn't that damage the tip of the vacuum tweezers?

But the idea isn't new!

We did that in a design for a pick&place to stack mica chip caps with the use of video cams and software to guide the vacuum quill to pick up the mini cut pieces of mica and also to pick up the finished cap from the forming frame.

Jamie

Don't all pick-n-place machines use vacuum nozzles to shuffle parts around the board?

I have no idea, I've only dealt with a system that I was part of designing that we made in house. I suppose they could be using vacuum, it would make sense..

Jamie

How else? TickyTack?

What I have is modified blunt ink jet refill syringe (available on eBay) with a vinyl vacuum hose and automotive fuel filter attached to the syringe barrel. Vacuum is supplied by a modified aquarium pump. I use a foot switch to control the vacuum pump. I have a small surge tank between the pump and vacuum pick, but found that it doesn't do anything useful. The device is on loan to a friend at this time, so no photos.

Bending the 1mm OD needle used in ink jet refill syringes is easy. However, using a straight needle wasn't much of a problem except when I had to do a large number of components. Since I could not easily rest my hand on anything with a straight needle, it became somewhat tiring. I found that I don't need a vacuum release. Once the part is soldered or stuck to the solder paste, just rocking the vacuum pick to one side will release the part without much movement. However, I must confess that I've never tried it with tiny 0402 parts because the needle diameter is too large.

Yes, pick & place machines for SMT assembly use vacuum nozzles to pick up and place the parts. The variety of nozzle types on different machines is boggling, you'd think they'd find out what works best and everybody would use very similar ones, but they don't. My Philips CSM84 has rather bulky steel nozzles with the tip machined to fit on the flat middle of a passive, or just a round, flat end with a hole in the middle for the larger chips. The nozzle is spring-loaded so the nozzle holder comes down hard to a stop, and the nozzle retracts so it doesn't smash the part or depress the board so much as to cause rebound.

Jon

However, I must

Yeah, I really wouldn't want to do a lot of assembly with anything smaller that 0805 parts. Those are easy to position by hand, and I have done probably close to 200K of those before getting a P&P machine.

Jon

It would be depressing to calculate the value of placing the 200,000 pieces by hand, if they were instead placed by your P*P machine. Maybe a few hundred dollars?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I find 0603s trivial to place by hand, though I do a lot more 0402s anymore and our 0402 pads are a PITA. The only 0805s I've used in this job are for some 0ohm resistors (to place shunts for measuring current, and such). They're *huge*. ;-)

There are some homebrew Pick-N-Place machines on Youtube, and blog articles about making your own feeders.

No, 2512 are *huge*.

Tantalum caps? I don't think I use anything bigger than 1206, maybe

We use a lot of 0603 parts on dense boards, and occasionally 0402s for picosecond stuff. When we have the area, we prefer to go all 0805.

Try hand-soldering an SC79 diode some time! You can barely find the damned thing.

All I personally do is breadboards and rework of first-article boards, but a vacuum pick is looking very appealing. I lose about half of the