SMT Offline Programming Software - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Mangozac
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2025, 07:01:56 am
content: Hi all,We're planning to take on more CM work with our Yamaha YG based line. To help make setting up for new jobs more efficient we are looking into options for offline programming software. These are some of the options I know are out there:Assembleon CAD2CADThis is what we've been using up to this point, in conjunction with some python pre-processing scripts. It's functional but just the absolute bare minimum.Yamaha P-Tool/Y.Facthttps://smt.yamaha-motor-robotics.de/tour/yfact/This is Yamaha's programming tool and it's apparently quite nice. Unfortunately it has been replaced by the new YsUP software, for which a license costs more than my machines! You can get pirate versions from China for a couple of hundred dollars but I'm not keen on that. Supposedly Chinese sellers provide genuine copies (with dongle) for ~USD1k but I'm still not convinced of the provenance. Do companies like Yamaha sell into Chinese market a lot cheaper than Western markets?Ealead EPShttps://ealead-e.ucoz.com/index/eps/0-10I've seen this recommended a couple of times but no feedback from actual users. I was going to try out a trial license but wasn't convinced enough to go jumping through hoops to get it. The screenshots look pretty ancient. I've tried to get pricing from them but never got replies despite contacting through multiple channels.ProntoPlacehttps://www.unisoft-cim.com/pcbplace.phpHas anybody used this? The list of features sounds quite impressive. Again, it's got a downright ancient looking interface! Pricing apparently start from 600 USD and we are thinking of giving the 1 month trial a go.Vayo SMT Experthttps://www.vayoinfo.com/products/smt-expert/The sales team called me within 5 minutes of sending them an enquiry. Unfortunately they wanted me to sign a very heavy handed NDA before they would even provide pricing information, so I canned it. I suspect it would have been outside of my budget anyway.Is there anything else I should add to the list? I'm only interested in the affordable end of the spectrum, as we're likely only looking at a couple of new jobs per month to start with.

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2025, 11:44:44 am
content: Never underestimate the crazy deals and bundles that machine manufacturers will do get a sale, also don't forget chinese factories aren't buying machines in batches 1 to 10 they're often buying multiple complex multi machine lines. And then thrashing the shit out of them, spare licenses and keys could easily be a thing, especially if they are not kept with the machine when it moves onto the 2nd user market. I would be scared of the cracked versions too.I think this all depends a bit on what you want your "programming" software to do.As a contract manufacturer we insist on Centroid files to be provided as part of the data package. If you don't get those then you need to program your SMT machine from Gerber data or from a PCB in the machine. If you need to do that, visualplace, GCPrevue, and Prontoplace are good places to start.On Essemtec you can then import that data, build a bunch of rules that translate packages into your native names, values into internal parts and rotations to match the machine. We have a license to run that software on a second machine but those features could easily be replicated. Inputting new part numbers, equally should be possible on any machine with a comprehensible file format or accessible databaseThe bit that can't be so easily replicated is creating packages that are new to you, I'm actually not sure how many of these third party packages can do that. Yamaha themselves of course would even sell you an offline camera to dial in the recognition without using the machine on the line.The program missing off your list is perhaps the freeware PCBSynergy, its very much dependent on raw CAD data rather than exported and seems to have a very specific approach to the problem, possibly because its written by one man who is only looking at it one way. For instance I would never want software like this to allocate feeders or manage stock, on some machines that is useful because feeder location is locked into the job file.The other tedious task when dealing with other peoples data is merging BOM data with centroid data. Not everyone exports a centroid file with anything more then reference,X,Y,R. The classic freeware out there is SMT Maestro, which you will only find via a friendly shared folder, again this is a scriptable task if you are so inclined but the vanished author of this had though of most tasks, the only one missing is understanding notation like C1..15 or C1,5,6,8,9. This really only seems to apply to customers who use labview proteus which has some truly awful default traits in all its exported data.

author: Mangozac
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2025, 11:27:45 pm
content: Thanks for your usual comprehensive reply SMTech!Indeed, getting CSV centroid data has never been much of an issue. As you note and what we've found is that the biggest potential error source is the merging with BOM data and this is essentially what our Python preprocessing scripts do. That works find for our own projects where we have the BOM data in specific formats with appropriate links to our component database. It's much harder with projects from others!You reminded me that I did manage to get my hands on a copy of SMT Maestro a little while back. It's been a while since we tried it out but I recall it still feeling a little too bare bones.We have tried PCBSynergy in the past and never got along with it. It's a strange software and I can't quite work out the use case.You make a fair point regarding the P-Tools licences. Maybe that is the way to go. The big potential benefit here is that the software understands the different vision models and settings that the machines have available, so while some final vision optimisation may be required on-machine, the bulk of the work can be done offline and to some degree automatically.

author: Accu-Sembly
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 01:22:16 am
content: We use FactoryLogix from Aegis corp.https://www.aiscorp.com/Sometimes it's difficult to get the CAD file from a client, but the BOM checks and functional data it provides are well worth the hassle.BOM importing crossed with CAD data is really beneficial in sanitizing the information for programming. Duplicate references checks, wrong part package size assigned to a pad layout, Do not install/do not stuff discrepancies, etc.We also have Yamaha machines and use P-Tools for line optimization, database tools, and archiving.The whole system is not cheap, and FactoryLogix is pretty bloated with functions/options, but it is an extremely useful tool for program generation and management that has hard costs upfront to avoid hard and soft costs that arise when issues are revealed downstream.

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 07:41:17 am
content: Quote from: Accu-Sembly on September 18, 2025, 01:22:16 amFactorylogix does seem to be standard of some sorts and some equipment manufacturers have historically used customised/entry level version of CircuitCam Express (?) as the bundled software for setting up their machines. I beleive this is the name for one small piece of their software suite specifically targetting prepping data for the machine that at times is or has been available standalone. However this software is the kind of software thats so very expensive I have never bothered to ask to find out just how very expensive it is. Its scope is sprawling I believe its at least an entire MES, possibly with BPM, PLM and every other anancronym as options.

author: Mangozac
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2025, 10:19:41 pm
content: Thanks for the further comments guys.I went poking around one of the cracked versions of P-Tool I found offline and extracted the user manual PDF, which has given a great insight into the software. It perhaps doesn't give quite the level of automation around import functionality I was expecting: it looks like the data still has to be very well defined.Essentially, we need a way to take a centroid CSV file and a BOM file (exported to CSV is fine) and do the following steps:Define fiducialsRotate and panelise arrayGive the components friendly, unique names in the pick and place dataAssign part/vision definitions for each part OR create new definitionsUsing SMT Maestro and Assembleon CAD2CAD for the first 3 steps is functional but painful. We have to massage the CSV a lot, for example to remove commas even within text fields (enclosed in quotes). So even simply having a modern CSV or XSLX parser would be a huge improvement.The last point we currently have to do on-machine. It's not that it's difficult, it's just waaay slower than if we were to do it on a PC. I accept that without forking out for a vision optimising jig there would always have to be some vision optimisation on-machine, but if most of the part definition can be done offline it would still be much faster. This is where it seems P-Tool would provide the most benefit, as it looks like it supports doing this and also transacting with the parts databases the machines use (set up a networked database rather than on-machine).

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2025, 04:41:53 pm
content: I use Protel 99SE for CAD/CAM and have a Quad QSA30A P&P machine. This is a Samsung CP30 with Quad feeders and alignment cameras, and uses the Samsung software. I previously wrote my own program to make the data file for my previous machine, so I did the same for the QSA30. It reads a file with component definitions that specifies feeder slot #, component name (1.0K0805 or LT1160, for instance) and rotation adjustment, and then reads in the P&P file from Protel, and creates a top and bottom placement file in the form the machine wants. This is not a very complicated program, but it did take a little fiddling to get it just right.The QSA30 has an "optimizer" program that reads the input file, matches the component name to the component library, and then assigns nozzles, feeders and placement order for fastest assembly time. I program new parts directly on the machine. You have to enter X and Y size and the correct height for the vision gauging of the part. Adding a new part that is the same size as known parts is just a one-page entry, assign new part's name and click. I'd be glad to give out this program, but it is quite specific to my machine and Protel's format.Jon