Just ordered a NeoDen YY1

[betzt...@gmail.com]

Hey guys, 

Just ordered a Neoden YY1. I'm definitely going to open it up and see how hard it would be to convert to OpenPnP,  in case that interests anyone.

I'm surprised this machine hasn't been brought up here yet! Over on EEVblog there is a YY1 thread and OpenPnP comes up a lot in it. 

Regards,

Peter.

[Fernando Corona]

I was also looking to purchase one for the same purpose even had a dialog with their reps about stripping the machine of hardware I wouldn't need for loose part feeding. They call it "bulk tray feeding" but since it has 3d printed parts it's not suitable for my company's application. I would have to heavily modify the machine. We are now working with SMTmax. They provide a better solution for my application. 

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[Noël]

I got myself a YY1 too. Very neat hardware.

It uses an embedded software solution. There is a motherboard with a STM32F407 chip and it works in combination with a touchscreen DMG10600C070_03WTC. Both communicate via serial uart I believe.

The motherboard has no port for connection with any other hardware (computer or else). To my despair it only has a SD card slot. I wish it had usb or ethernet but nope.

That makes it probably impossible to interface with Openpnp if one had the intention to flash a gcode firmware on it.

The stock firmware is not great. There are few things I don't like. The way it moves the head every time you want to change a component parameter for example is very inefficient.

A nice and interesting project would be to have a kind of 'Embedded Openpnp' for this kind of hardware.

Oterwise one would have to fit a smoothieboard to have it interfaced with Openpnp. Quite a lot of work just to savage such a neat self contained machine in my opinion. Not for me.

[Paweł Teresiński]

In my opinion, we have 2 modules here. Intelligent LCD module, datasheet in the link:

https://hubtronics.in/docs/C070_03WTC_%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8C_DataSheet_.pdf

and the black PCB which is basically g-code interpreter. You can see RX, TX lines going from LCD to controller PCB and I would say it uses basic g-code to control movements, pumps etc. 

Also I would try to connect it via USB to UART or offline controller (for cnc routers such as one for 3018 cnc) to send basic movements commands to check if this will work.

Does anyone have a broken PCB from this device to sacrifice it for reverse engineering? I would be interested in it. 

[Noël]

Looks like the motherboard deals with the vision side. So it is certainly more than just a g-code interpreter (if it is one at all). Would be interesting to find out if some g-code are exchanged between the display and the motherboard you are right.

Or it could be some in-house communication convention nothing more. Or some stuff specific to the display.

A tee uart sniffer would answer this.

I do have a spare motherboard but it is functional with an old version on it. Neoden sent it to me as replacement to solve a bug. Production being essential here I prefer keeping spares safe for replacement just in case.

These machines are rather new. Finding a faulty one might take a while. I'd be concerned if that happen soon though.

[Paweł Teresiński]

Could you please take a picture of both sides of the PCB and post it here? There must be something more to run cameras. I doubt that STM32 will handle 2 cameras, sensors and driver motors.

[Noël]

Bottom side is just a heat sink and the powerswitch.

Can the camera have their own processing unit maybe? They are very very small. Very nice units.

Pictures attached as requested. Sorry if it's a bit dark.

[Paweł Teresiński]

Can you confirm that traces from both cameras connectors are going to the STM32 or to placement head connector? 

[Jarosław Karwik]

Well, long time ago I have seen professional camera systems which were connected to main controller with just serial port. Do not remember the company anymore.

And it is not that hard to imagine something like this - https://openmv.io/products/openmv-cam-h7 - as very fast integrated camera processing unit. My kit stil lwaits for some free time ...

[Noël]

It could be a 2 layer pcb but not 100% sure.

I can see 2 signal traces going to the stm32 from each camera connector.

[Ian Arkver]

My guess would be that those 5-pin camera connectors are going to the LED rings and the 4-pin connector visible on the top of the down-looking camera is USB to whatever is inside the little camera display modules hinged on the front of the unit.

[Paweł Teresiński]

It is probably 4 layer PCB with GND and VCC on separate layers.

If you have the machine still open, could you take more pictures from inside? wiring, etc.

I still cannot believe that STM32 handles 2 cameras, sensors and stepper drivers at once.

[Jarosław Karwik]

Dual core versions of  STM32H7 ( 2x 480MHz) is powerfull beast - I use them and I can imagine that it may be possible to run motion on one core and simple image processing on second one . But it is not the usual way of doing it...

[Ian Arkver]

Yes, but the part on this board is the STM32F407 which is single core M4F at 168MHz. While it has 2x USB 2.0 OTG controllers it only has 192kB RAM and no JPEG codec, unlike the H743 on those nice OpenMV modules.

I seriously doubt this board is the main brains of the machine.

[Ian Arkver]

But what I said doesn't tally with what Noel sees on taking one apart, so, who knows. Not me. Clearly magic has been applied.

[Ian Arkver]

The magic might be the display controller, the DWIN DMG...

"With GUI & OS dual-core, GUI with rich controls. DWIN OS kernel is open to the user for the second-development, via DWIN OS language or KEIL C51."

But it would be interesting to see what's in the other hinged part with the camera view displays. I suspect there's some further magic happening in there.

Anyway, I don't have one and won't be buying one, so I'll stop speculating wildly and leave you to your dissections. :-)

[Paweł Teresiński]

Agree, also think that the main "brain" is in the display. 

It is not that expensive:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004175849250.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.61843820YCNelU&algo_pvid=ebb77813-284c-48a5-9155-cfb711e9ceaf&algo_exp_id=ebb77813-284c-48a5-9155-cfb711e9ceaf-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000031972615639%22%7D&pdp_npi=3%40dis%21CAD%2132.42%2132.42%21%21%21%21%21%4021021b4716758961463521975d0688%2112000031972615639%21sea%21CA%21166961811&curPageLogUid=RBWF2bzQeAoY

In this case I wonder if it is possible to copy the firmware from this screen. 

[javier.hern...@gmail.com]

Yes, this use a controller for parallel 24bits or similar to UART interface. This display for 5~7" are <10$ in a lot of chinese manufacturers. It's easy to found.

I have added FFC connector for 1 camera and 1 display similar to this with a bit more of resolution. But for see than happen not for up or down cameras. I want to add for two cameras but with 600Mhz I think it is not possible, I would need more cpu. That's why the design is modular, with a compute module like the Raspberry Pi CM4. So in future versions more cameras and displays could be added but with a more powerful CM, for example an i.MX8 or similar.

[betzt...@gmail.com]

Hey guys,

I've got the machine now. I have played with it a little bit and I must say I'm pretty impressed with it for what it is. I was fully calibrated and placing 0603 and 0402 on the test PCB within an hour of unboxing it. It has it's quirks for sure but I am more impressed than I thought I would be. I even tested out 0201's on it by placing them on 0402 pads and it sure seems to work. I requested a custom feeder arrangement so we can place all of our parts on the machine at the same time and they gladly did that for me for a very small fee. 

One of the issues I am having is vision on the TQFP32, however if I place it without vision it is totally fine. I will talk to Neoden about this as I know other people are placing much larger chips without vision issues (using the big IC setting). 

I have a video coming with my setup and testing experience which I will post a link to when I am done, for those that are curious. 

I like the discussion here. Having openpnp for this machine would be pretty cool. It would not be the end of the world to make a new smoothie PCB with matching connectors on it, and then use some new USB cameras on the machine (omitting the front displays). 

Regards,

Peter.

[Paweł Teresiński]

I did some research with the LCD module used in this machine, and I am pretty sure that very similar one (smaller and less powerful) is used in Creality Ender 3D printer and clones - which runs Marlin. I wouldn't be very surprised if this PNP machine would also run on Marlin or something very similar. For me the black PCB is a controller which can be run as simple cnc controller  board. If someone would like to try, can connect USB to UART adapter such as FT232 or CH340 via RX/TX pins and try if any CNC control  software (even OpenPNP) will recognize it.

[Caner Alp]

I got mine 3-4 months ago as well. I was thinking about hacking. I have done some measurements on the main board. I would love to write a custom FW definitely to this machine but no conversion to openPNP. That requires so much time, and the result is not worth based on my experience. 

As a hw engineer, I can reverse engineer all the circuit. And also I can write so much of the code, but still it would be so much work. It would be easier as a team with YY1 owners maybe. 

Regards,

Caner,

Alp Electronix

[Peter Chaisty]

Hi Peter

What do they supply as standard with the system ?

It's not clear in the advert what's included ?

Peter

[Jim Young]

The spec sheet on their web site describes two different feeder configurations. Other than that, the unit is basically self contained. 

Here's a review and Q&A from a YY1 user that has some good information: https://youtu.be/7w5U1qxXqKI  In the video he said he also received a spool holder for 13 spools, which is not described in the spec sheet.

I'm going to be ordering a YY1, next week too.

[Peter Chaisty]

Thanks Jim 

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[Jim Young]

betzt, I watch your YouTube video yesterday. Great content and so much helpful information! My YY1 arrived yesterday afternoon but, unfortunately, it suffered some damage during shipping and the bottom camera display screen was broken. I emailed Neoden USA that evening, I'm on the West Coast so 6PM my time, and got an immediate response back from Neoden asking for shipping information so that they could request to have a panel sent to me from China. Now, this was around 9:30PM for the Neoden employee, replying off hours - Impressive customer care.

I did run into another issue - When I first powered up, the needle caught on the edge of something while the head was moving, bending the needle. The YY1 comes with spare needles but I'm concerned as to how this happened in the first place.

Anyway I can't do much with the machine until the LCD panel arrives next week.

[Dave Park]

I *just* ordered one of these about an hour ago.

I need something with a bit more capability than my Lumen (Opulo) which retains a weak gantry so the tips have a lot of movement on contact with the PCB. Also, their cable chain is implemented weirdly and loads up the gantry bearings. The Lumen will be great in another couple of iterations but for right now it's just not ready.

I need a *production* machine.

I'm interested in how the tablet is wired into a control board, and to see if I'll be able to non-destructively mod it to run OpenPnP. I want to do this mostly to see how the camera handling differs. I find the Lumen camera handling to be VERY slow. It seems like around 40% of the time spent placing a part is over the uplooking camera on the Lumen, where it's 0.2 seconds on the Neoden. It's running off a small ARM tablet so it's not a processing speed issue.

The main downside of the Neoden YY1 I see is there will be no software updates EVER without replacing the tablet.

Dave

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[Jim Young]

I bought the YY1 so I could have something that just worked, maybe required a bit of hand holding, but overall was reliable and quick. This machine appears to be that. After getting accustomed to the YY1 software and interface, I found it pretty easy to work with and was placing parts on the sample PCB it came with rather quickly, certainly faster than using my LitePlacer with OpenPnP. I was placing parts on the sample PCB with pretty good accuracy, even though my bottom vision was not being used, due to the bottom vision display being broken.

Would it be nice to have the YY1 running OpenPnp? Sure, I guess. But if the machine does what is is designed to do, I don't see why I would want to mess with it. 

Yeah, the firmware issues is something that initially turned me off to the YY1. But, once I saw other folks using it with not too much hassle, I decided to buy. Mine seems to be a newer design that has the dual Y axis motors mounted inside the machine. An earlier version had them on the outside and I believe there was too much risk of damage during shipping.

[Stephen Huber]

I would be interested in your experience converting to openPnP.  I have the NeoDen S1 which was a big upgrade from a LitePlacer but I do miss OpenPnP.  My biggest frustration with NeoDen is that its really difficult to diagnose issues with feeders and mis-picking parts leading to a lot of waste in some situations.  So far, I've assembled about 600 boards total with my S1.  Overall I'm pretty happy with it for our uses but NeoDen is releasing a new upgrade to the S1 which will make many improvements.

I hate to say this, but unfortunately, I have not heard good things about the YY1.  Hopefully you can get it swapped over to OpenPnP and that fixes the frustrations others have had.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 4:37:24 PM UTC-8 betzt...@gmail.com wrote:

Hey guys, 

[Jim Young]

I haven't done much more with it, besides placing the demo PCB, but so far I can see a lot of potential for me, at least. As far as general satisfaction with the YY1, someone on EEVBlog describe it right - Folks are spending 3 or 4K for a machine and expecting to get 30K performance and quality. The most common complaint I hear about the YY1 is the tape cover spoolers and how they can be finicky. As far as the drag feeders, I think they are well designed and once setup very dependable.

[Paweł Teresiński]

This conversion should be possible. As I mentioned in previous posts, board looks like a simple g-code interpreter. I would try to connect to the board with USB to TTL converter and see how it will present itself. I don't have the machine and I don't plan to buy one in near future, but if there is anyone from Alberta, Canada, I could help to figure this out.

[Jon Raymond]

Just for reference sake.  There is Peter's video regarding his machine. It does a really excellent job of showing the function and job setup on a YY1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDgkHmDhd_Q&ab_channel=BetzTechnikIndustriesLtd.

[Caner Alp]

Hacking this device is relatively easy. But instead of OpenPNP I would write a new FW directly to it. Probably the screen is the main controller. Because there is a dual core 8051 in the HMI. I have taken the pictures of the internals. 

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[Paweł Teresiński]

Could you share the pictures here?

[Noël]

The manual for the programming software for the HMI module as some information on the processor on page 7.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-QOa0W8feL6ckswj6NaFma6MS1IJS2D/view

It's an asic beast.

[Gen- Tune]

Any further update on hacking the YY1 to run OpenPnP?

Thanks

[baker....@gmail.com]

Doesn't look like it, but its the same stm32 used in the charm high 36/48, so the smoothieware port for that model can probably be adapted without too much trouble. Reverse engineer the pin mapping and update it, maybe at most a feature or two required specific to the machine. Now you have a motion controller. The "Display" connector looks like a uart, so there is the control interface, just figure out if its logic level or rs232.

Someone with stm32 tools familiarity should check what security level the chip is set at, without erasing/bricking their board. If its set to the highest level the chip will have to be swapped, might be crazy for a board that claims no field update/bootloader.

Or just sniff that uart like serwis suggests to see if its protocol is plaintext / feasibly reversible.

Now you need to figure out if the cameras can be used as is or need to be swapped. Have to figure out if you will use an external pc or attempt to work with what is in the screen/computer.

Just peeking at that datasheet I wouldn't personally spend my time messing with an 8051 module. See if the cameras can easily be repurposed for use with a pc.

[Ruslan Bukin]

A bit too late but I have it converted to OpenPnP: https://github.com/mdepx/neodenyy1

The guesses about HW here are mostly correct except that the vision is done on the edge, i.e. on the camera modules itself.

Also there is no USB in entire system, just SPI and UART.