CHMT36VA Pick and Place - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: 1276-2449-1-ND
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2018, 02:11:07 pm
content: Also known as the Charm High or Charmhigh CHM-T36VA.There's not a lot of information about these beasts. It's (as far as I can tell) the most affordable pick-and-place with vision that works mostly out-of-the-box.Some info:https://github.com/colinoflynn/chmt36va_hintshttps://github.com/sparkfunX/Desktop-PickAndPlace-CHMT36VA(very recent -- they bought theirs the same time I got mine)I picked one of these up a few weeks ago with some trepidation, but it ended up working great. It took just a couple days to get everything figured out before doing production runs.It was ordered through AliExpress to avoid the bank-transfer nonsense. Still there was a bit of nonsense authorizing the payment with the credit-card company and bank, but Charm High was preparing my order while that was being done so no time was lost. Once payment was made it arrived in country a few days later. It spent a week in customs (and was opened). Eventually it was delivered to my door and the delivery guy even helped me heft it up the stairs into the living room where it now resides -- simply because it's too heavy to lug down the stairs into the shop. Incidentally, the crate makes a great coffee-table (wife doesn't agree).The software is not THAT bad, but not very good. After some poking around I found that you could edit the files generated by the software manually and reduce much of the tedium. I was using spreadsheets (CSV editor) and Notepad++ scripts with a plan to eventually make an Eagle ULP for this, but just as I was about to start Sparkfun posted their Eagle ULP doing the exact same (thanks for posting that Mike!)My experience almost exactly mirrors Sparkfun's so I won't go into too much detail.The machine is fast and heavy. Because of this it has quite a bit of inertia and needs to be on a very sturdy table. I ended up making a custom table to put it at a comfortable work height. I don't have pictures but it's built from 2x4s and 1/2" plywood glued and screwed all around for bracing. Now all the inertia is transferred to the floor which causes the whole room to shake.Handling non-reeled strips was a bit of a pain. The bar meant to hold the reels made installing a large strip roll between two other components a big hassle. Without the bar they would tangle on the floor and while operating would attract the attention of cats. I came up with these dividers made from laser-cut 3mm hardboard which fit into the existing slots meant to hold reels:They have a small protrusion to keep smaller rolls from falling to the floor. Larger strips (>3000 components) didn't need it, but it allows you to pull out a reel and keep everything rolled up and in place on the divider.They also make it a lot easier to reverse the way the components are rolled so the alignment holes are on the correct side (**shakes fist at Digikey**.)I don't plan to change reels very often -- 90% of the components used are covered by the existing feeders, and I'm working on a manual strip feeder for all the rest.I found that decorative curling ribbon makes excellent leader. It's just glued with CA to the tape (over a piece of anti-static IC bag with doesn't adhere to CA glue to catch drips). Only five or so components are lost compared to a couple dozen. The ribbon is very strong and doesn't stretch, and it works on 12mm and 16mm tapes too.Since installing all the reels and tuning any troublesome feeders, several thousand components have now been placed without any feeder problems.I'm very happy with it. I feel kinda dumb for not getting one earlier -- it's saved countless hours of mind-numbing tweezering and will pay for itself in no time.

author: Merlysys
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2018, 09:35:57 pm
content: Once payment was made it arrived in country a few days laterYou mean it came by air? How much more for freight then?Whereabouts in the country are you? I am NW of Toronto.I am looking to buy a similar machine, though looking more at the Neoden.

author: 1276-2449-1-ND
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2018, 10:26:35 pm
content: Freight is listed on the Commercial Invoice as USD$520. It was shipped through DHL (to near Toronto). The AliExpress price included shipping, and came to under CAD$4400. There were no import duties, only tax.

author: JPlocher
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2018, 05:09:20 am
content: I just did the same thing, with the CHMT48VB, because I wanted the additional side worth of feeders (50-some total). Order (AliExpress...) to delivery right before Chinese New Year was a week.The '36 and the '48 machines seem identical - except the '36 uses an external PC and the '48 has one built in. I couldn't find a '36 with both east and west feeder banks, so I went with the '48VBThese systems (36 and 48, A and B) say they "support" 8mm, 12mm, 16mm and 24mm tape widths. What they don't say is that the max component height is limited to what fits thru the tape feeder guide, about 4mm or maybe a bit more in height. That means you can forget tape-fed reals of electrolytic caps, power devices or any SMT connector or pin header - they will need to be placed in "trays" or taped somewhere on the bed with the leader/film pre-stripped - or hand placed.Changing feeder/reals disrupts the entire side's set of feeders, so these systems are really only "good" for situations where you don't change components often. If you need to support widely varying BOMs, the placers with independent pneumatic feeders may be a better choice.The suggestion to use a gift ribbon/CA as a leader extender is a good one - I used 1/8" auto pinstriping tape, which works "ok", but is either not sticky enough or too sticky, seemingly both at the same time!The SparkFun ULP is a great tool. Ditto the shoutout to Nate and thanks!

author: Merlysys
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2018, 07:43:19 pm
content: Quote from: 1276-2449-1-ND on February 06, 2018, 10:26:35 pmtax was 13% HST on $4400?

author: 1276-2449-1-ND
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 05:37:54 pm
content: I think it was 5% -- accountant has the paperwork so can't check right now.

author: etbins
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 31, 2018, 09:18:27 am
content: Firstly, thanks to the OP for his tips on these machines and to Nate at Sparkfun...A quick note in case anyone else has been experiencing a similar issue with part / camera recognition on a Charmhigh machine.Like JPlocher I bought the CHMT48VB as the extra feeders covered the majority of our boards and I echo all his comments regarding the feeders. I have been running the machine a couple of weeks now and overall have been really happy with it. However, I found that I would still need to babysit the machine when running as it would occasionally have problems with camera recognition / drawing the part boundary boxes for certain components (0603, 0805 caps and SOT-323s in particular).Reducing the overall machine speed helped along with reducing the speed for certain components, but it would still be a bit temperamental. Tried running it in complete darkness etc but made no difference.Anyway, as I couldn't find a way to adjust the camera contrast (?), I found that by colouring the green plastic parts of the Juki nozzles with a black dry-wipe board marker pen (thought it would be a little more matte than a permanent marker), the boundary boxes have been 100% spot on ever since.Hopefully not the dumbest post ever written and may help someone

author: bleckers
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2018, 07:51:51 am
content: I'm in the market for a CHMT36VA and just asked the manufacturer a couple of questions which they were VERY quick to respond to.To add to the discussion, the base of the unit has the dimensions 58cm x 71cm (without feeders) and they ship with HS tariff code 8479896200.

author: bleckers
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2018, 08:15:43 am
content: So I got the CHMT36VA.I selected this model because Sparkfun has put a bit of work to de-Chinglishify the translation of the UI's software and has also developed some toolsets to make exporting from Eagle/KiCAD easier to do. There's also some work at the moment to decode the protocol to get it to work with OpenPNP, which is looking very promising. The vision assist is also a good feature to have (the vision assist helps with misalignment when parts are picked up from the tape; offset and rotation).I was originally looking at the Liteplacer, but opted for this due to concerns with workflow and setup/assembly of the machine. The Liteplacer looks neat, but there would be too much work to get it to be more versatile with feeders and the like. Plus is is markedly slower and requires assembly.The price of the unit was 3,580.00USD from AliExpress, which worked out to around $4800.00 AUD after conversion. This includes shipping, but doesn't include the $833 for import duties, GST and customs fees. However, this unit does fall under the ChAFTA agreement which means import duties fall to $0 if you can get through the paperwork for it (the manufacturer needs to complete a certificate of origin for this). I did this and paid only $570 for GST and fees.The ordering process was a bit sketchy through AliExpress as I had to verify my account by sending a bunch of documentation. You need to send IDs and credit card scans. You can blank out the first lot of digits on the CC (just leaving the last 4 digits) and you can also blank out your ID number and they will accept it. The ID does need to show your address however. This seems to be something new that AliExpress has introduced to prevent fraud. During this time, the manufacturer was getting the order ready for shipment and they were really responsive to requests and their rep is very articulate. Once the order went through, the unit was sent via TNT the same day.Before ordering I confirmed that the pallet was not made from solid wood, as AQIS will have to treat it and charge a fee. They confirmed that it was "export quality" plywood and there shouldn't be any issues. There's some more info here -http://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/timber-packaging4 days later after clearing customs and getting the ChAFTA documents through, the TNT guy rocked up. He brought into the building on a trolley jack:After getting it into the apartment and scratching some tiles (errant nails in the pallet), it was found to be packed pretty well. It weighed about 70kg, so this certainly wasn't fun.After installing the software and the translation files (https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkx/blog/2595) from the Sparkfun repo, the machine just needed a software camera alignment and things were up and running pretty quickly out of the box.Here's a quick video of it placing some of the boards I make for sale on Tindie (the machine is running at about 50% speed):The parts on here are 0603's, and the boards were pretty much ready to fire in the oven after placing. There was a couple of parts that bounced a little and needed to be nudged into place, but this now cuts my hand placement time from 1.5-2hrs for that panel, down to about 8-10 minutes.Overall the machine is pretty decent. There's a few quirks that need to be ironed out, however they seem to be well known and detailed on the Sparkfun review page. Getting a better way of creating leaders that works well is the main one, but even the larger industrial processes have the same problems.The only issue is the wife hates the blue colour of the front of the machine. I'm going to get a piece of plywood for the front and engrave the name of the machine. I might call it Ralph, although I'm open to suggestions.If you have any questions fire away!