5 ms·

Why not hack an Ender 3 to be a pick and place machine?

by sydthrowaway 5y ago

gaze 5y ago
why not hack a toaster? why not hack a blender?
- tdeck 5y ago
  Presumably because the ender 3 (a 3D printer) already has a 3-axis CNC gantry and those kitchen appliances do not.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    That'd be a neat toaster.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Dremel make a handheld blowtorch, (it's not meant for the kitchen but that's where mine sees most use) you could totally strap it to an x/y gantry (like people do with Dremel rotary tools for mini PCB/engraving mills) and toast bread. Hard part would be controlling gas flow and ignition.
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    yeah toasters are just 1D with only a 7-8cm resolution
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, toasters and blenders don't do 25-50 micron x/y alignment by design. Seems like replacing the hot-end module on a 3d printer with a pick&place module could solve a lot of the project scope. Selling the p&p module and software lowers the barrier to entry sufficiently that you'll get lots of interest and easily available replacement parts for most of the machine.
  - gaze 5y ago
    My point, that I should have couched in less snark, is that the ONLY thing that 3D printers have are the X, Y, and Z axes. The Z axis is also way too slow for a PNP. While it seems on the surface to be a good starting place, it’s maybe 10% of the way there and after adding feeders, computer vision, and all these other things, now all you have is a pick and place built on an unsuitable platform and you’ve saved essentially negligible amounts of time or money. I mean to say that a toaster and a blender are not that much closer to being a good starting platform than a 3D printer as a fraction of the total design of the machine. It’s superficial.
bsder 5y ago
Because the X/Y/Z is the easy part of pick and place so that's what everybody focuses on. Then they hit the vision issues and the project stops cold.
buildsjets 5y ago
Because the only usable part would be the X axis. The moving bed on the Y axis would most likely cause the previously placed components to shift around a bit as the build progressed every time the bed changed direction. The Z axis has way more travel than needed for pick n place. The Creality motherboard is not usable for this project and needs to be replaced with a bespoke one. Building the hardware is the simplest part of the project, so why compromise and try to shoehorn someone else’s design into yours? 8020 extrusions are cheap and can be ordered pre-cut to length and pre-drilled/tapped if you don’t have the equipment to do it yourself. Everything else is just stock aliexpress parts.
- 0_____0 5y ago
  Commercial pick-place machines have moving 'beds' as well, and they move quite fast. SMT parts have sufficiently low inertia that the paste keeps them put. I'm sure that tuning the stage acceleration rates for max speed in development is a messy process though :p
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I agree with that overall, except that it seems to me like the stock Melzi board has enough IO and stepper drivers to run the physical part of a basic PnP. (It doesn't change your overall point, of course.) I think the Ender3 and clones are best viewed as a kit of relevant parts.
mikewarot 5y ago
You have to be able to pick the part, orient it in the correct direction, and place it within 1/4 of the pad pitch, while taking into consideration variations in board placement, thickness, flexure of everything, and thermal expansion. And avoid hitting components already on the board, of course. As others have said, it's the vision thing. You have to have live cameras that feed into a controller to do collision avoidance, verify board placement, part placement, and a whole host of other issues. 3d printers assume a flat empty plane, and build upwards in layers. They're not very stiff, nor very accurate. And of course, you also have to get the components you're going to place off of a roll of parts, for many types of parts and multiple rolls. (Please bear in mind this is all the details I learned while observing others attempt this at a makerspace, it's not an exhaustive list of all the fun you'll encounter)

Why not hack an Ender 3 to be a pick and place machine?

gaze 5y ago

why not hack a toaster? why not hack a blender?

tdeck 5y ago
Presumably because the ender 3 (a 3D printer) already has a 3-axis CNC gantry and those kitchen appliances do not.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  That'd be a neat toaster.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Dremel make a handheld blowtorch, (it's not meant for the kitchen but that's where mine sees most use) you could totally strap it to an x/y gantry (like people do with Dremel rotary tools for mini PCB/engraving mills) and toast bread. Hard part would be controlling gas flow and ignition.
- Taniwha 5y ago
  yeah toasters are just 1D with only a 7-8cm resolution
robbedpeter 5y ago
As far as I can tell, toasters and blenders don't do 25-50 micron x/y alignment by design. Seems like replacing the hot-end module on a 3d printer with a pick&place module could solve a lot of the project scope. Selling the p&p module and software lowers the barrier to entry sufficiently that you'll get lots of interest and easily available replacement parts for most of the machine.
- gaze 5y ago
  My point, that I should have couched in less snark, is that the ONLY thing that 3D printers have are the X, Y, and Z axes. The Z axis is also way too slow for a PNP. While it seems on the surface to be a good starting place, it’s maybe 10% of the way there and after adding feeders, computer vision, and all these other things, now all you have is a pick and place built on an unsuitable platform and you’ve saved essentially negligible amounts of time or money. I mean to say that a toaster and a blender are not that much closer to being a good starting platform than a 3D printer as a fraction of the total design of the machine. It’s superficial.

bsder 5y ago

Because the X/Y/Z is the easy part of pick and place so that's what everybody focuses on. Then they hit the vision issues and the project stops cold.

buildsjets 5y ago

Because the only usable part would be the X axis. The moving bed on the Y axis would most likely cause the previously placed components to shift around a bit as the build progressed every time the bed changed direction. The Z axis has way more travel than needed for pick n place. The Creality motherboard is not usable for this project and needs to be replaced with a bespoke one. Building the hardware is the simplest part of the project, so why compromise and try to shoehorn someone else’s design into yours? 8020 extrusions are cheap and can be ordered pre-cut to length and pre-drilled/tapped if you don’t have the equipment to do it yourself. Everything else is just stock aliexpress parts.

0_____0 5y ago
Commercial pick-place machines have moving 'beds' as well, and they move quite fast. SMT parts have sufficiently low inertia that the paste keeps them put. I'm sure that tuning the stage acceleration rates for max speed in development is a messy process though :p
sokoloff 5y ago
I agree with that overall, except that it seems to me like the stock Melzi board has enough IO and stepper drivers to run the physical part of a basic PnP. (It doesn't change your overall point, of course.) I think the Ender3 and clones are best viewed as a kit of relevant parts.

mikewarot 5y ago

You have to be able to pick the part, orient it in the correct direction, and place it within 1/4 of the pad pitch, while taking into consideration variations in board placement, thickness, flexure of everything, and thermal expansion. And avoid hitting components already on the board, of course. As others have said, it's the vision thing. You have to have live cameras that feed into a controller to do collision avoidance, verify board placement, part placement, and a whole host of other issues. 3d printers assume a flat empty plane, and build upwards in layers. They're not very stiff, nor very accurate. And of course, you also have to get the components you're going to place off of a roll of parts, for many types of parts and multiple rolls. (Please bear in mind this is all the details I learned while observing others attempt this at a makerspace, it's not an exhaustive list of all the fun you'll encounter)