Yeah, the encoder is a 1 micron resolution laser linear encoder -- you can just make it out in the picture -- the rule for the encoder is a 24K gold strip just under the head assembly on the linear slide. It's exposed so that it can be easily cleaned.

The main advantage of the linear motor is lower part count, lighter weight, and faster response. The head can accelerate at 9Gs at full speed, and still reach a 3 sigma placement accuracy of 10 microns.

Note that the heads on this machine are located on the INSIDE of the gantry -- not on the outside. Our old machine had the head mounted on the outside of the gantry. That's why it looks like there are no heads mounted on the gantries. (The gantries are built generic, so that they can be mounted on the outside for single beam models, and on the inside for dual beam models.) This machine operates on two circuit boards at one time, each board has two heads building (one picking and one placing) at any time.

Dadx2: This is a circuit board assembly robot. There are four machines in our production line -- the first is a stencil printer (DEK Horizon 03i) which prints the solder paste (microscopic solder balls suspended in a sticky flux) onto the circuit board (kind of like stencil printing a T-shirt.) The second machine is our new machine (Universal GC-120), which is called a "chip shooter" -- it takes parts from long tape reels and places the parts on the circuit board. The third machine in our line is a "flexible/fine pitch" placer, which we mostly use for large, odd shaped components and for placing microprocessors. The last machine is the reflow oven (Heller 1707EXL), which solders all the parts in one operation -- it's like a giant (20' long) pizza oven with 1 degree C accuracy and 7 temperature zones (to slowly raise the board temperature, and slowly cool it to prevent chip damage.)

I'll post a little video of it once it's running. So far today they have installed the machine, run electric and air to the machine, leveled the machine (1 thousandth of a inch front to back) and calibrated the gantries. We should be back up and running tomorrow afternoon. :smile:

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet machine Patrick. Look forward to seeing it run

From my limited knowledge of machines that's exactly what linear drives are, much faster and very accurate.

Pdelcast thanks for the details I assumed it had something to do with the ESC production line but was not sure how it fit in and exactly what it did,,,now I know. Looking forward to seeing the video of it in action.

Does it have a cup holder?

So, will this increase your production now? by how much?

looks like you need new solder paste printer to feed this monster and new reflow oven to eat its outputs.

Lower cost is nice but not always the ultimate goal. I don't know much about running a business but when investing in new machinery that increases production and gives a higher quality product, the consumer benefits from it even if the price stays the same. The company can benefit from higher profits which can be reinvested in more high end machinery to produce even higher quality products still at the same price. Or invest more into R&D to come up with better, more powerful products (with no fans and better switches :mdr:) for the consumer still at the same price. Anyway, thanks for showing us the progress, I worked in factories for 20 years and I like this kind of stuff.

Nothing wrong with paying the same price for a higher quality product. :)

I agree...a better product at the existing price, now you are talking!

^^ It is kinda cool when a company buys new equipment and doesn't pass the cost down to the consumer. :yes:

thats cool, it would be neat to see a video of all of the machines in action for thouse of us that live to far away to come see them

Installed, ready to rock and roll. Quad beam Genesis GC-120 with four Lightning heads. The fastest pick and place machine available today.

BTW, the machine we replaced was a single beam Advantis GC-30 with one Lightning head. Today we built control boards for Thunderbird ESCs -- the old machine took over 8 minutes to do one array of boards (48 boards,) the new machine took about 2 minutes 30 seconds to build an array. (4416 parts total -- throughput of about 100K parts / hour)


http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...t/IMG_0277.jpg

my god:surprised: 2min30:party:

video video video of MMM's