Right, and I'm thinking it wouldn't be hard to add multiple placing 
heads that were solenoid driven in the Z axis and spring suspended so 
that they didn't push too hard. Pick up 4 components that are then 
placed in close proximity.
I've also been thinking of a timing-belt driven pick and place or solder 
paste dispenser. There's no side load, making a milling machine serious 
overkill.
-
Martin


Forrest W Christian wrote:
> Yes, a fair bit faster...
>
> I'm actually going to be using this for paste, and will be typically 
> doing manual pick&place (aka tweezers).  As long as it can squirt paste 
> faster than we can hand pick&place, we're golden.   Actually, it looks 
> like it's about twice as fast as the placing step, so it should be able 
> to keep up with two people doing p&p.
>
> Remember, with p&p you really need fast rapids...  That is, go between 
> the component source and the position on the board a lot of times (with 
> possibly some vision and/or centering step).   With paste, it's more 
> touch every spot on the board which needs paste, so the speed of the 
> machine plays a factor, but not nearly as much as in a p&p machine since 
> the overall distance needed to touch all of the pads on the board is 
> significantly shorter than to touch all of the component locations on 
> the board with a trip home between each one.
>
> -forrest
>
>   

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