*Realized that sadly OCR isn’t as possible as had hoped, because many caps haven’t had a label printed on them, so this seems more practical than that robot arm pnp with machine vision that I had hoped was possible. Bravo. Community needed a great pnp. How to explain that large pnp “necklace” at airports though?*
Another way to get a big speed improvement with no mechanical changes would be a flying vision camera - a little 45 degree mirror that flips under the head to look up at the nozzle while it's travelling from feeder to the placement position without needing to travel via the fixed camera. Only works with small parts, but that's usually most of them.
That is how my old Quad 4000C works. It's really quite good, despite its age. It scans from the side, so no mirror is needed. It works for a broad variety of parts too, I almost never use the up camera.
@@Factory400 Is that the Cyberoptics system? - ISTR that is basically a line scan across the part, and it rotates the part, looking for minimum width, which is square-on to the sensor - shouldn't be too hard to do with a modern small camera module.
@@mikeselectricstuff Not sure who manufacturers the line scan system, but that is indeed how it works. I finds the bottom of the part, rotates it to get the orientation and issues the placement offset. Quite fast and accurate, even with 0201 passives. Definitely true with modern camera, it would be very low cost.
I still remember when I first watched your videos, and you were just starting to create the LumenPnP. Crazy how much time went since then. Congrats on the v4!
Congrats! This is excellent. Machine looks next level from previous versions. The level of integration y’all have been able pull off on an open source machine is commendable 👏🏻
As someone with a need for populating sometimes as many as several PCBs a month and a budget of I dunno maybe $100 for improving the process, I'm not sure why I'm excited about the LumenPNP V4 announcement lol
I've followed this from the very beginning and have been impressed at the number of obstacles that have been overcome all along the way. As a retired engineer, I've just been super impressed by how diligent Stephen has been on this and how far it has come. I'm actually envious how ell he has pursued this, the PCBs that have been designed, the software that has been written, and all of the mechanical components including the the ones from 3D printing. A truly fantastic job that should be considered a case study in product development!
Love the difference in vibe between the two launch videos. Been listening to the launch episode on the podcast too so great timing - the v4 looks fab! PS glad to see the Glowtie made a wee guest appearance in the video too, only fitting to demo assembling it on a v4!
dude, don't really need one but I certainly WANT one... man, and the fast that it's open source and we don't get locked out of modifying it, it makes it worth every f. penny!!!
So impressed! I watch you off and on as inspiration for my own business I hope to run. Your attitude and personality on youtube really shine. It is truly inspiring to see someone make such a intricate product and progress through versions, with enough success to keep going for years. I wish you continued sucess
It's great to see this kind of ingenuity and business startup among the younger generation... I've watched Hawes and crew from the initial concept to V4 and it's been super. Terrific work.
Nice! I'd just seen the e-mail announcement, and now this pops up. Faster is good; 0402 is essential. I'm still a few months (at best) from being ready to set up an SMT line here, but might well be buying one of these next year.
Congratulation on the release, and awesome 1:20 intro! However really quick(especially for someone who wants to read about the new, custom controller) I double checked my youtube to be at 1X playback speed, instead of 1,5X
Better speed, accuracy, vision system, plate utilization...all "complaints" I had with v3. Glad you guys are listening and continuing to improve. Looking forward to a v3->v4 upgrade kit.
Feeders, feeders, feeders! Congratulations to finally have this in production and going out to the people. It's an elegant thing of beauty, and what a huge upgrade! The quality cameras are ah so ah nice. And who doesn't love more compact and reliable feeders, feeders, feeders! What's next?!?
Did you ever consider to add a "dispense" module (e.g. dispenser on the head)? lets say for dispensig solderpaste, glue or similar? Awesome job anyway!!
Do I know how to make boards yes, do I have some models and ideas to make yes, is it my work no, im gonna recover the investment instead of paying something like pcbway no. Cant wait to buy it along with thousands of parts xD
Bro are you seriously selling these for 2K?? 🤯🤯 I mean the feeders are still a significant add-on but that’s just incredibly accessible even for tiny businesses. Truly impressed 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
I always felt like this machine would really become a monster with DC motors and something like ODrive. I wonder what would be the reason not go that route. Maybe I should build one and try using DC motors. I just don't have the need currently, as I do PnP the old fashion way, by hand and a magnifying glass, but I do 5 to 10 boards of my designs, 2 times a year, so the back-ache is not constant to push me into LumenPnP yet :). I love the project and follow it from almost the beginning, so I'm happy to see that it's moving forward.
Oh Wow, I have been following this project, your enthusiasm never stops to amaze me.... I went to the opulo website to buy one but I got confused about what comes with the machine, the photo shows 25 feeders, but no way it comes with that, also in the accessories page I can add an staging plate, so not sure if the base model comes with a plate... so, beutiful product, beautiful landing page and simple buy now button, but some people may get expectations about getting 25 feeders.... would be nice to know what comes in the box. EDIT: My bad, I confused the feeder holders by feeders, now I know it comes with no feeders (that is natural at this price), I will leave the comment here just in case my confusion serves as feedback
I've been following your design and progress from the very start and I really want one! It's a bit steep to get one into Spain though so I was wondering if you've got a list of owners around the world who will do prototype or low volume assembly. This would be a valuable resource for a subset of your owners.
Looks very good I'm interested to try it. From the page I cannot see what comes with machine. I presume no feeders. With price of feeders of ~100USD per feeder the machine price is ~6k for my setup. I would not say that PnP machine is for prototyping. I have 2 PnPs and with boards that I usually make ~150 total parts (~50 unique) I am faster placing one or two PCBs by hand then setting up the machine and running the program. For simpler PCBs (like one shown on the examples) I'll probably place 10 PCBs by hand before I can set up the machine. Passives are much faster to place with machine and I keep a lot of them already on machine so it is easier to place passives with machine and chips by hand than to set up the trays for chips and then calibrate them and get them to work and have to change nozzles and all that....
As soon as I sell my existing machine, this will replace it. I no longer do full production, just short runs to qualify a new product. This system is perfect for that. Sooooo much smaller too.
I wonder can it put a biger part, something like Raspberry Compute Module connectors? I haven't figured the best way to solder two on the board precisely. They were not originally meant to be used in pairs or more per daughter board. I'm thinking trying to plug them on CM4 and then put the whole assembly on a hotplate. Not sure if it can damage the connectors, but at least they would be precisely positioned relative from one to other.
NB. Skip to 1:25 to skip the music with the annoyingly choppy levels. Looking great though! It's been a privilege to have been able to follow the progress and gradual improvements from the day-1 prototypes. ...much prefer the second launch video by the way (just my preference, I'm sure there are plenty of folks who will prefer the first).
what is the business case? How many company or individual need this? at 2000$ a pop, 1500$ of profit, you sell 100 per year, that is 150,000$ per year. Not a lot. It's a pretty dope machine and sure is cheap for what it does.
Congrats!!!! I was wondering if V4 is positionally accurate enough to place BGA parts? What limitations might we be aware of relative to certain types of parts?
Thanks! Yes, absolutely. We have a ton of folks using it for BGA! We recommend down to 0.5mm pitch for BGA, but some people do 0.4mm pitch with no issue.
@@stephen_hawes Thanks. Other than 201 are there any other class of surface mount parts that we need to use special care or techniques to place with V4?
