Short pieces of cut tape in SMT550 or A4 Pick and Place machines? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: laseralex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 07:58:13 am
content: I'm thinking about getting a pick-and-place, probably a YX SMT550 or a Kayo A4, based on the positive reviews of both on this forum.One thing I can't find details about is whether they support cut tape parts. (Other than always ordering tapes long enough to put in a feeder.) About half the jobs I will run are going to be prototypes where I only build 4 boards. If I have an 0603 resistor that only appears once on the board, will I need to buy a tape of 100 parts to get the required length for a feeder, or is there a way to use shorter cut tape in these machines?And if cut tape is possible, does it take up a feeder position, or is there a way to load the tape in an area between the reels on opposite sides, where it looks like trays are normally mounted? Not using up feed slots would be great, because I sometimes do boards with analog filters where lots of values are single placement on a board. For example, one board design has a BOM with 85 line items, and 53 of those are a single part per board. (Total of 176 components.)Thanks in advance!

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 08:49:02 am
content: unless the part is somehow special, you should buy 100 anyway,, its a sensible MOQ

author: 48X24X48X
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 09:43:06 am
content: There are many cut tapes holder/tray projects around that normally OpenPnP guys would use it. Some are 3D printed and some machined. Then place it in the tray area and use the "plate" type to tell the machine the where to pick them.

author: GerardG
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 10:35:19 am
content: We have designed a special Strip Feeder Tray to be able to place cut tape on every JEDEC tray position.https://printtec.nl/contents/en-uk/p4128_SFT1000_Strip_Feeder_Tray.html

author: Styno
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 11:53:21 am
content: Why is it that SMTech almost always says what I would like to say and on top of that beats me to it? I rarely feel the need to chime in because of him/her/it. Thanks!

author: Mangozac
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 10:58:43 pm
content: Kayo A4 uses CL style feeders, so yes you can use cut tape but for 8mm tape you will want about 70 extra pieces in order to have enough leader cover tape. Alternatively you can attach an adhesive cover tape leader but it can be fiddly.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 11:29:15 pm
content: You can get these SMT Cover Tape Extenders pretty cheap.They allow you to use re-reeled and cut the tape when it has been cut or you are not lucky enough to get the start of the reel.The cheapest place is Aliexpresshttps://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_98SDqtResistors are so cheap that you probably just want to get a few hundred of them anyway.We only need around 200 for one of our boards but they are $10 for a 5000 quantity reel so whatever just bought the full reel.Common values are worth stocking.

author: laseralex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2021, 05:00:33 am
content: Thank you all for the great information!For resistors of course I'll just buy feel reels of everything. Same with bypass caps, but there are certain items like expensive current sensors or weird microcontrollers that I don't want to be buying thousands of dollars at a time before I know the part will work well for me.Also, being able to use cut tape will help me manage a board with 90 BOM items on a machine that can only take 50 feeders - I'll load up the strip feeder JEDEC trays with cut tapes of the components that are only one-per-board. I'm not concerned with throughput, just with accurately placing a board with 180 components a few times over for prototyping, or running a small "production" of 10-20 boards.You have resolved my concerns, now I just need to finalize my decision on which specific machine to buy.

author: Mangozac
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2021, 05:06:21 am
content: Quote from: laseralex on June 03, 2021, 05:00:33 amThat's where Digireel/Mousereel/Arrowreel come in

author: laseralex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2021, 03:15:17 am
content: Quote from: Mangozac on June 03, 2021, 05:06:21 amAhh, now I finally understand why those exist. It never made sense before, but it does now!