Warning Mechatronika MX70 MX80 M10V Pick and Place Machine - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 05:36:04 am
content: I am shortening this:Mechatronika has performed an upgrade from an old M80 to an MX80 in 2017.- the machine was returned with the pulley not fixed properly causing the portal to oscillate and kick all components out of the pocket.- the feeders end up with the same issues they had before they serviced all of them a few weeks later.- Mechatronika offered camera replacements which they did not install (instead after investigating we found a 10$ and modified cheaply chinese camera module, pins are scratched from the PCB bent up and jumpwired).- the optical recognition was caught in debug mode to take unsuitable reference pictures (wrong timing, even though the entire setup was correct; and it mostly worked "as far as it was able to work")- Onsemi TSSOP parts did not work with the optical recognition out of 10 parts usually 3 failed to match the optical recognition.- The camera backlight was not able to detect HASL fiducials, manual matching was not available in the software - such PCBs could not be pick and placed with the original software- 1mm thick PCBs might have a problem with the placement, possibly due to light flexing- the optical recognition is using trigonometry - this might be a problem with some PCBs, affine transformation should be used.- the advertised speed was up to 4000 cph, after the upgrade they did not modify the acceleration and velocity settings in the eeprom; neither did they correct it - so it was still locked to 1600 CPH (they are selling this machine for over 30.000$)Mechatronika said we should fly to them and get some official training on the software; this could not have fixed the problem (especially the oscillating portal which required to disassemble half of the machine); We have re-written the application and started to modify the machine to address these problems back then.The company owners Dariusz and Leslaw are not trustful, they will talk nicely as long as they see the customer willing to pay some money to them, onec you start to complain they will disappear.Head camera PCB:those camera modules cost 10$ on aliexpress.

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 08:33:40 am
content: Interesting, the bit where you write on your own software particularly. I think most people would probably scrap the machine, and send in the lawyers "fit for purpose" tests would seem to fail if things are this bad. Many of your issues are inexcusable, sadly I bet the payment terms on this machine were somewhat different to what we see on more expensive ones.However - "Optical Recognition based on patterns" I'm no expert but how in basic terms else does image recognition work? On a Versatronics a much cruder method is used where it uses pretty natty edge detection algorithm to pick out its maximum dimensions and that's all it uses. Like many other machines Essemtec uses Cognex and that vision uses lots of algorithms, some of which are almost certainly pattern based, but they are used to spot bent leads, missing balls as well as dimension and offset data.Nozzles - You want shocking try €400 for an Essemtec nozzle which is a metal tip inserted into a machined piece of Delrin. Unlike Fuji/Yamaha etc these are not widely copied and the fine pitch ones are sufficiently small and complex there's not really any way you can copy them cost effectively (the bigger ones are totally feasible). The Versatronics nozzles were purely machined Delrin, I don't think we or anyone who still has one has found a machine shop that would make them for much less than £40 in quantity despite the low material cost and relative simplicity of design, a service dept has to make profit on top of that. Plenty of people don't want the expense mess or space a lathe, training, risk assessment etc required in a real business if machining is not their area.Its fairly reasonable for a jammed feeder to stop the machine, sadly when you bring down the cost of machine its the feeders that are likely to suffer first, its clearly much trickier to make good ones than most people want to recognize.From what I have seen of these machines the software is pretty clunky too which means the arrival of the many Chinese options should really kill them off. All that is really needed to finish off the job is proper local support as currently that is limited.

author: Styno
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 11:21:13 am
content: Like the Mechatronika the simple mechanical feeders on our Dima Optimat suffers from the "spent tape curl-up inside the feeder" syndrome, in additiion to the tape sometimes getting caught by an edge somewhere. It requires regular checking on new reels until the first bit of the tape has properly exited the feeder after which they run smoothly.Some of our second-hand feeders came with the very sophisticated hack of a section of small cable duct taped inside the feeder with the purpose of catching the spent tape early on and to guide it out of the feeder. We intend to copy this to all of our feeders. Perhaps this would work with the Mechatronika's as well?

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 11:38:07 am
content: Quote from: Styno on September 24, 2019, 11:21:13 amThis is something of a risk with Essemtec CLM type feeders as well although primarily its plastic tape with pockets that is most likely to have an issue, luckily its really quite rare. With the CLM feeder tho' I would say the reason it can be a problem is because they are feeders in banks of 10 so the path of the spent tape is well inside the feeder housing and hard to get to, older feeders had nothing in that area between lanes so tapes could tangle with each other.If you are working with a lot of short tapes there is an increased risk the front of the tape will hit small ledges and catch, so its best to keep a decent leader on your tape or even splice one on. However splicing may or may not cause issues with some feeder designs. ps...

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 01:19:12 pm
content: We have put together items where we can attack Mechatronika the legal way as well (but we're also a small business and time is an essential matter for us...), they do not meet certain required standards in Europe. Since Mechatronika is more or less a "partnership under the Civil Code" the owners are liable with their personal money it's going to become interesting.Quoteanalyze pictures, check rectangles, etc. it works flawlessly if you do it correctly. I only apply certain groups to the components eg. [0402/0603/etc] the identifier of those components is one side must be longer than another, and a certain area must be met to qualify as 0402 or 0603 etc, the pick and place list also has information about which component it is. .. component must be a square (with some tolerance) ... TSSOP8 component must be longer again and meet a certain area.It works wonderful.If you apply direct picture patterns that's never going to work perfectly on a quick run, and imagine how long a setup will require if you put more than 60 components in... some components can be grouped in the Mechatronika application yes but if the shape is a little different or if there are unavoidable reflections it just doesn't work anymore. Back then we've started to copy groups SOT323 SOT323-COMPONENTNAMEA SOT323-COMPONENTNAMEB etc. all not necessary... now it's just SOT323 and needs to meet a triangle shape which needs to meet a certain criteria (the optical recognition checks against the final rotation of the component and does some calculation again).The key-skill required for doing all that is high-school trigonometry.Direct template pattern based systems need reference pictures of the particular component. They're nonsense. A serious Pick and Place company might have rules about the landing patterns or about the shape of a components but not a direct reference picture of it - it's too error prone.Check the attached picture... that's what we're doing with our application now. You can also see some dead pixels in the picture (that shows up quality).So far it's 99.9% reliable I would say I did not run into any issues anymore.I have stopped using their application a few months ago because when I tried to pick and place a prototype their software complained 7 times when trying to place 10 components... well, sure you can go on and try to reconfigure the whole thing until it will meet their requirement but it's just not economically and not needed if an application is done the right way.My point was always the mess that happened to us was always the fault of their application - a proper application will:a) be careful with customer componentsb) not let the operator run into the knifeIf you're the victim of that machine (especially the Mechatronika Software) all you can do is to resell the machine and hope that the new owner won't kill you for fooling them. I have seen a few users selling that machine quickly and they seem to be disappointed that they couldn't get the entire process work properly - and it's not even their fault it's the fault of the crap software. Even getting a training from Mechatronika in workarounds is not acceptable.the last thing they've told me is you want a DIY machine... surely that's why I have bought their expensive unit and loose 4 months for our own products. And I've clearly told them where the problems are.Finally we're still happy with it because it fits 100% into our process with our application, it now eats the Altium pick and place files directly without a stupid importer (like which they have in their application).Our application shares a global component database in our company, so no need to duplicate entries anymore.Regarding the nozzles, they are really not difficult to make by yourself and you can easily get the material for free from the scrapyard of a company which works with metal.. all you need is a small lathe, 20mm soft steel stick and some needles from china.The nozzle changer supports 8 nozzles, all of them are easy to make.The material cost including buying a small lathe is around 600 EUR (we've bought an old used desktop EMCO lathe which can do the job).I know the cheap Juki nozzles (clones) from China, they're ages ahead and I probably would not try to make them myself.For myself it was an interesting dive into mechanics, since the Mechatronika machines are very easy to understand and on a very low entry level.The Delta servo motors will just shut down if you configure them wrong using the Delta controller - they're very safe to touch (the automatic emergency shut down of the servos happened after the full upgrade/service from Mechatronica from time to time ... ). After reconfiguring them by ourself the machine is also much quieter. Basically they messed up the de-acceleration settings of the machine.As a normal operator (only) you'll think how you've fucked up that part of course... we've just decided to have a closer look at all the parts and figured out more or less everything.

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 01:48:02 pm
content: Quote from: Styno on September 24, 2019, 11:21:13 amI think so! I will have a closer look at the feeders next week, we need to catch up with pick and placing our products now since we're already overdue with some products...Thanks for the hint.

author: wilhe_jo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 03:14:10 pm
content: It seems you're not alone with this impressions.There's a quite long thread over on the mikrocontroller.net-forum.https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/377363(english translation:https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikrocontroller.net%2Ftopic%2F377363)73

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 03:18:41 pm
content: That's our post, cheers from Austria btw.I have seen that someone from our area (in Austria) has also bought a Mechatronika machine, they have sold it quite quickly and went for Autotronik some years ago.Block-Feeders are not a K.O. criteria, aside of that we could also put other feeders into it since we know the communication protocol.Someone already did that earlier in a youtube video.I guess there are not so many customers of those more expensive machines out there and the lower end machines people just deal with the crap software that company is delivering.Eg. for us it was impossible to reliably place an OnSemi TSSOP8 with their software (other TSSOP8 components were ok), we have spent hours trying to configure the software.In our software we have no problem with it, and all we do is put the component into a category TSSOP8 (without any optical training).Mechatronika is aware that we are posting the reviews online, we have told them. They don't care (the owners are supposed to be around 60 years old).The machine was bought to increase productivity, effectively it decreased our productivity initially with their software. We are also (and are still) open to talk with Mechatronika but they don't bother and just said we focus on existing customers (one nozzle 100 EUR ... there you see where the money comes from).

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2019, 10:31:32 am
content: Well that explains why a dutch distributor dropped them a few years back

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2019, 12:22:29 am
content: We will keep testing and extending our pick and place application until December afterwards we can offer an upgrade kit for their machines.So far we support in our application:- Web based Stock/Component management, including Barcode/and Printer and an android app for setting up feeders- The components are stored in a mysql database, our buyer is entering the components directly, and the pick and place machine is sharing the same data- Components are all optically analysed (no template pictures anymore as mentioned)- Multiple-Multiplanels are supported- The pick and place list can be edited like a normal excel table- Easy 2D AOI- There's an OpenGL view of the pick and place which can zoom in/out the captured areas of the Pick and Place table- Components are drawn onto the camera screen and virtual pick and place table view (that helps for verifying that the components will be placed at the correct position upfront)- Fiducial check can be set up as separate task (Lock PCB, afterwards coordinates are recalculated and components can be placed eg. one by one - or using multiselect many at one time)- The PNP head can be jogged by clicking onto the camera screen- Runs with Linux dual screen (one screen for the camera, the other screen for statistical purpose)- The system works with Fiducials and anonymous markers (I always use Fiducials, anonymous markers are just in case no Fiducials are available on a board - that needs 2 markers and 2 components for the setup)- Multiselect is available for all tables (Mechatronika does not support that... nowhere).- Several items like re-programming the component position/pickup height can be done directly on the video screen using hotkeys.There are still a few more items which we want to implement:eg. an error list, if a feeder is jammed or reel is empty it should be disabled while the entire panel should still go on with pick and placing, once everything is done the operator can go through the error list and fix the open issues.Now we just need to get rid of the single pnp head and install 4x it's on our list.That's the result of several months of work so far and we're very happy with it now, even though that's not what we have bought the machine for to write our own application.... but as usual we've learned a lot and luckily not all is lost.

author: IconicPCB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2019, 01:31:19 am
content: Seems to me You bought a secondhand machine then decided to remake the design in your own image while complaining how it does not work, could have never worked, amplifying the allegations by posting same information on multiple boards and hoping to hear others scream "... the sky is falling..."If I were a shrink i might be qualified to make claims of behavior befitting a sociopath ( i am sixty five not sixty ) but seeing how i am not... i will not.All i can say is I have an M10V and i do not see any of the issues you are enumerating.In any case I look forward to your input on github.

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2019, 03:43:30 am
content: Not at all we have bought a used one and paid everything that has to be paid for a full upgrade to their latest model.The initial plan was to use this machine for pick and placing our products and not for reverse engineering it.But they did not give us any choice due to all the inaccuracy that happened in every aspect.The M10V does not have flying cameras, I think they cause big issues, I'm only using the stationary camera for a few components, I cannot say too much about them.Many issues also come from the Mechatronika feeders (jammed feeders, or the feeder is not strong enough to advance a tape .. and it's enough if that happens to one out of 60 feeder positions), however we also shipped them to Mechatronika for servicing them and they charged us over 2K Eur for the service. So absolutely no excuse for having it somewhat work. Either it works perfectly or it's shit.We bought a second hand machine yes, but shipped it to Mechatronika for a full service, they have replaced the motors and cameras (look at the first post and the camera which was inside!), and they shipped it back with misconfigured the servo controllers. We have replaced the top camera with a 10$ CVBS camera afterwards which had a slightly better quality.If you have a close look at the entire machine there's not much technology behind it, personally I don't see any value in the machine anymore since I dived into it so deep, all standard components.There's not even an option to throw off a component with air pressure and it's possible to have 0402 components stick to the needle and the software telling the operator to remove it manually, because they saved a few bucks on a pressure switch on the PNP head. I don't know why we had so many issues with Windows back then but it's all gone with our application now.We have faced big issues with the optical recognition and the flying cameras, we still have some logs around and it's just awful how many standard components were dropped due to misdetection. And as mentioned we don't need to take reference pictures of standard components anymore - so no drops from the optical recognition side.On-Semi TSSOP - I have spent at least an hour trying to set up a pattern back then - and it did not work properly out of 10 components at least 6-7 drops. Again now - no issue anymore.I have paid 40K Eur for all that (including service and upgrade from Mechatronika) and believe me for that price I did not intend to write my own application - but we had no other choice because Mechatronika's support more or less did not exist. I would expect that if you pay like 10K for such a pick and place machine to receive an awful software.Additionally to the main issues I don't want to take reference pictures of standard components, this is really extra work which can be completely eliminated. Only lunatic would want that from customers for standard parts, sot323, 0402, etc.----the detailed log about the misconfigured servo drive was:- we received the MX80 back from Mechatronika with new motors and new cameras- we have started to pick and place a new project, after a few minutes the portal started to shake/oscillate heavily- since we urgently needed those PCBs we tried to figure out by ourself what was wrong. First we aimed at mechanical issues, tightened a screw which seemed to be loose to us.This temporarily fixed the servo drive because it added more tension to the belt which is connected with the gantry (we have told Mechatronika about that), because of that the motor required more power to move the portal and that might have matched the PID controller settings better. After all we know about it now Mechatronika should have immediately said don't touch that - sorry but we need remote access to a computer which is directly connected to the servo controllers via USB to fix this.So with that setup we were running for around a half year, the vibrating portal happened again randomly but not that often at least.Early this summer we decided to have a closer look at it again and figured out:* adding more tension to the driving belt of the gantry almost damaged it* Delta provides a windows tool for doing the Servo setup, the ramps were misconfigured, it took us 2 days to figure out how to set up the controller properly (yes we've never done that before). The gantry and servo drive are the heart of that machine, once you have that under control you can say it's your device already. No more oscillating portal anymore.So Mechatronika has made a terrible mistake and instead of fixing it they just ran away, absolutely unacceptable.

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2019, 07:06:57 am
content: "manual" QFN placing, after changing the Tray (with our software):https://streamable.com/muepwregular run (also with our software):https://streamable.com/t8cflin the meanwhile we have fixed the sequencial X/Y drive (as it was done with Windows before and run X/Y at the same time, the sequential drive can be seen in the Video), so now the machine is even faster than with the Mechatronika Software.Since we grabbed the RS232 commands via portmon for winxp we have implemented the same problems first of course.One screen is for the video the other one (not seen in this video) for status reports.This is a very exceptional situation where a customer writes his own application for such a pick and place machine because the Manufacturer is unable to provide proper support and unable to provide a proper application.

author: mairo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 30, 2019, 09:58:57 pm
content: I have Mechatronika gear and it has been working for many years + have never had any issues with correspondence.

author: MR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2019, 01:38:54 am
content: It's good that you have no issues; however you are not participating the discussion, only writing that you have no problems without clear answers about my questions are worthless. This post is not against Mechatronika users, it's against Mechatronika and the owners who're directly working on the hardware.- What are you placing?Our side:* 0402* all feeders occupied* QFNs- Which machine do you use?- Is it stepper or servo based?it has been confirmed by several Mechatronika users in another forum that some (not all!) plastic tapes are causing issues as well, so you are not using such plastic tapes; which very likely means that the items which you are pick and placing have a lower requirement (which again is good for you of course!). We have many of them and it's possible that the entire feederblock locks up because of that.Plastic Tapes which have that issue:- some SOT323 (not all of them)- some USB and IR connectorsIf tapes are moving backward due to jamming up the feederbox that's clearly no user issue anymore.And I'm not trying to bash anyone, it's a clear post about things that Mechatronika promises but aren't workable in the field (including the speed of our machine after a full upgrade - timings are measured and documented in the first post).----I think they do not have the servo based machine under proper control (or they just made a mistake with our machine before shipping it out to us). I have also read in the other forum that the stepper based system seems to be more reliable.Especially those problems added a whole chain of issues and reworking need to our projects and has shown us the critical limitations.But I guess you would also run into issues if you would use HASL based PCBs because the illumination of the PCBs is a design issue of the machine. eg. ENIG PCBs did not cause issues with the fiducial detection. There's no good way for verifying if the fiducial detection worked out or not with Windows - we have implemented the option "Lock PCB" into our application - it will just try to match the fiducials and draws the designators onto the camera screen so you know where the component is supposed to end up. It also features the option "snap to blob" which centers the detected fiducial automatically (in the training process).fiducial_a -> default PCB illuminationfiducial_b -> PCB illumination using the shielding.The shadow of HASL-based PCBs is not predictable, attached is just one example. The fiducial might also end up having a dark spot on the other side. Depending how the process turned out for the particular panel.For 0402 such an offset can be an issue already - and we had that. The solution was to wrap around the shielding as you can see in the video:https://streamable.com/t8cflI wouldn't use that machine without it anymore.Just adding more power to the LED ring cannot fix this problem because otherwise the entire PCB will be too bright.Mentioned this -> got no reply from Mechatronika back then.Since the machine was used -- but shipped to Mechatronika for a full service, I also attach a picture of the feeder did they change this in a newer design? It would be better if every stripe would have its own channel out of the machine.If a reel is completely full and the friction between the slot and reel is too big the feeder won't advance the tape, the workaround is to unwind the reel a little bit.A proper solution would be to remove the friction.I really wonder you never saw such an issue? Because to me that seems to be impossible.You see the stripe leaving the machine at the wrong place, this gap should not even exist -> design issue.At the right side of the feeder you can see the bottom of the reel holder, the reel is just lying on the other side so forwarding the tape will cause friction on that plate, and in some cases it's just too much friction so it won't advance the tape (recently a 0.1uF reel). This can also happen if the reel is almost used up because the diameter of the tape on the reel is getting smaller (so it needs to pull harder). Again they serviced the feeders and charged us for it, so no excuse for not having it work properly.