My Surface mount Pick and Place Gear

[djQUAN]

I've used the tweezer method most of the time but when I went building about 100 LED strip boards (each board has 8 1206 size resistors and 24 Osram PLCC LEDs) I needed a faster method.

Since I'll be simply having two kinds of parts, I made a simple dispenser from acrylic. Machined it to hold the tape and using weights to automatically peel the cover tape.

I used ferrite toroids and clips to pull the cover tape from the carrier.

A convenient place to stick an aluminum rod to hold the reels

The reels of LEDs and resistors

Since the tweezers won't fit in the carrier tape to grab the part, a vacuum tweezer was needed. Not those crappy pen style ones, I made one from a syringe needle, some tubes and a diaphragm pump for continuous vacuum. lifting my index finger uncovers a hole releasing the vacuum dropping the part.

The panels of boards. One done, the other halfway through.

I haven't invested in a reflow oven, paste and stencil so all this was hand soldered.

 

[djQUAN]

dammit. why did the title say "pink"? :wtf: It's supposed to say "Pick and Place" can a mod please change it for me? :thanks:

 

[Ears and Eggs]

Edited to fix the title.

 

[djQUAN]

Thanks!

I also just saw Dave's email on how to do it. Must have missed it in the advanced button. Thanks also to Dave!

 

[OSHStencils]

Depending on your board size you can always convert a standard toaster oven to act as a reflow oven.

That's how I started doing reflow. I use an Arduino and a reflow controller to control the temp curve and it works great. Total investment with Oven + Controller was less than $150 and the build quality is much nicer not messing with hand soldering. It enables professional looking boards for the DIY'er.

For stencils, naturally I cut them myself since I own/operate oshstencils.com

I'm thinking of doing a new, all-in-one branded reflow controller for the DIY'er for cheap as I've never been a fan of 2-3 boards to do a task. I like one board to do it all.

 

[djQUAN]

I can use a toaster as I have a size limit on the freeware Eagle, I rarely do boards bigger than the size limit anyway. My only problem is a local source for solder paste (and that it has a shelf life)

I'm interested on what you come up with the oven controller. Might be a future project when I do decide to do reflow.