Roman Black wrote:
> >     Hey, that is a really cool idea ! The main problem would be to correlate
> > the real position of the components to the distorted camera view and to
> > solve the problem of refilling the trays and making sure that you do not
> > have one component over the other or on the back side when using SOT23
> > transistors ! It is pretty hard to get the components out of the rolls and
> > not flip half of them on their back side. I am really not sure what would be
> > easier, a roll feeding system or the camera.
>
> You don't have to buy on the roll. In 1k
> quantities you can often choose loose or rolled.
> I see the only real work is pouring the parts
> on a tray, making sure they are right side up.
> Parallex error shouldn't be too much problem if
> the camera is 40cm or so from the tray. I can live
> with some manual parts fiddling, anything is much
> better than placing with hand held tweezers. :o)

The video system sounds pretty easy. Some of the other students in my
lab are working on video systems using cheap components (web cam, OS
software, etc...) and based on what they're accomplishing I think what
you want to do should be relatively easy. But it seems like using a roll
would be even easier. That way the parts are all within a smaller known
area and always right side up. The feed mechanism could be similar to a
reel-to-reel camera. You would need a third wheel to peel off the cover,
and I'm not sure how you would get the first and last few parts off the
roll, but other than that it should be easy.

Sticking with the video pick-up system for a sec...instead of dumping
the parts onto any old flat white surface, you could make a series of
parallel fences on the white surface and put different parts into each
"chute". That would restrict the possible area that each part could be
in and make it easier to accomodate multiple types of parts
simultaneously.

About the vaccuum tweezers...How do you determine the position of the
part wrt to the tweezers once its been picked up? Do you assume that the
tweezer drive system always picks up the part in the same spot?

Don't you dare move this thread someplace else. I don't want to have to
sub to yet another list (YAL) just to follow this thread.

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