By Christine Vu (Missions, Systems, and Test) and Henry Nguyen (Electronics and Control)

Working Area Test

Working area is defined by the area that includes  PCB to assemble, reel feeders, and IC tray. To verify that our design meets the size criteria for working area, a test will be conducted to calculate its parameters.

Requirements

Section 1 EE400D Assembly

The SMD pick and place machine shall pick up and place down all SMT components provided by any EE400D PCB up until the end of Spring 2016.

Section 1.1

Working area must be within 12.2”x15.35”(310mmx390mm) based on the Makeblock X-Y

Plotter Robot Kit.

Section 1.1.2

Surface to hold PCB shall be smooth with dimensions tolerances to be ±.001″, parallelism to .001″, and flatness to .001″ (TCI Precision, 2005).

Section 1.1.3

All pick and place processes shall begin at the bottom left corner of the PCB.

Section 1.1.4

All moving cables using RJ25 connectors shall have a minimum bend radius of 10x its diameter (Telecommunications Industry Association, 2001).

Section 1.2

Pick and place SMD machine shall change the orientation of each SMT component before placement.

 

Applicable Tools

Equipment Type	Name (Brand)	Tolerance
Mitutoyo S/N 12519090	Caliper	0.001”
Measuring Tape	Stanley 33-425 Powerlock 25-Foot by 1-Inch Measuring Tape	+/- 3%

Procedure

1. Attach Z-axis and all other subsystems.
2. Using X- and y-axis limit switches, move the X-axis and Y-axis at the maximum and measured the allocated work area.
3. Generate an EAGLE file by placing capacitors on each corner of the design.
4. Convert to GCode and verify the dimensions of the PCB Outline.
5. Using another Gcode file, test the rotation movement of an SMT component by rotating about 180 degrees in 45 degree increments.

Results

The following table indicates the parameters for our working area. The orientation of the EAGLE file parameters are 4” along the X-Axis and 3.2” along the Y-Axis. It is important to note the minimum reel feeder distance from the X-Axis

Working Area Parameters	Distance (in.)
X-Axis	12.6
Minimum Reel Feeder Distance from X-Axis rods	7.034
EAGLE Outline	4.001 x 3.2002

Rotation movement for procedure 5 can be done using G-Code programming operations. Since our rotation movement is using a stepper motor, we decided to half-step the orientation for 45 degrees.

Rotation Coordinate	Degrees
B5	45
B10	90
B15	135
B20	180

Conclusion

Our working area measurements indicate that each subsystem is able to fit in our X-Y Plotter. The rotation of each SMT component can be done using G-Code software.