Any Experience with the Microsmt-PNPV3

[Brian Piccioni]

Hello and thanks for the replies.

I was intrigued by the discussion on the stuck Bamboo feeders (a major weakness of the Panda Placer, I am afraid) and looked into the Microsmt PNP feeders which seem like a major upgrade.

Unfortunately, unless the Panda Placer I can find very little in the way of videos, user experiences, etc, which are not directly from Microsmt. 

There is a discord server but it seems to basically be a stream of consciousness type thing and I simply can't follow it, vs a forum or something which would be far more useful.

So can anybody comment on the pros and cons of the machine? In particular and issues? 

Bing himself seems to be very responsive and helpful but I'd like to hear actual user experiences.

Thanks

[Mike Menci]

ou can contact the users directly from here : https://discord.com/channels/1365124611733458994/1365227850881302630
Mike

[Brian Piccioni]

Yes. I looked at Discord. I am unfamiliar with how it is supposed to work but it looks like an endless stream of YouTube comments. I know there are users there but the comments do not appear to be sorted or sortable. I can't make heads or tails of it.

[Jarosław Karwik]

Hi,

Let me share some of my experiences.

Some background - I have bought Panda Placer first, sold it and bought Microsmt - but only mechanics ( at that point I wanted to put my own controller there). I have the mechanics assembled - in a week or two I will have electronics ( based on  Duet ) operational. I have sold my Microsmt feeders kits and bought ready made Afarco full metal feeders

So - Microsmt machine:

+ Well done mechanics - compared to Pand Placer much more robust ( e.g. some stronger profiles - like 40x20 profiles, extra aluminium enforcement's) 

+ Standard wiring -  Panda Placer used flexible flat tapes which are fragile - and while it looks good it is hard to diagnose.

+ Some nice upgrades available ( I got belt pensioners and metal part for camera holders)

+ I think control board is based on Smoothieboard ( however not 100% sure about it)

About feeders

 + They work by principle ( optical closed-loop feedback )

 + The price is ok

 - Sold only as kits - require quite some printing. I have experimented with JLC printing, but then you end up with half price of Afarco ready made full metal feeders

- They used brackets with magnets. I do not like that there is no positioning pin, so I am not sure how the system behaves when  e.g. you want to change one feeder in the middle touching others as this may shift position of others. This is just a guess as I tested only single feeders

- The feeders are connected by cables to bus PCBs. When using brackets - why not to put connector there directly ?

That is why I went for Afarco feeders - they are easy to install as it needs only single 40x20 extra profile. 

[Brian Piccioni]

Fortunately, I have a pretty good 3d printer so I am not too concerned about printing the feeder parts. There seem to be fewer of them than the Bamboo Feeders, anyway.

I missed the magnets on the feeders. I will investigate.

Unfortunately, although I have learned a lot from this forum and using the Panda Placer I don't think I am anywhere near level where I can put together a machine from bits and pieces. I need a lot of hand holding.

[Jarosław Karwik]

Microsmt are easier to print as basically none are critical ( you get them metal as part of the kit)

Also these magnets were not part of the kit ( maybe now they are) - and they are really hard to buy , I had order them separately from Microsmt.

You can always buy whole machine - I have bought Afarco feeders as I already had Microsmt frame .

But you can buy whole Afarco set - while not the cheapest ( 3..5x of Microsmt)  it can assembled in few minutes.

[bing l]

1.    The 3D‑printing cost for each feeder is very low. Each feeder only consumes $1 worth of filament, so JLC’s pricing is not a valid reference. OPENPNP was originally launched to lower the cost barrier for PNP machines. Therefore, there is little point in making aluminum‑alloy feeders. A brand‑new 8 mm Yamaha pneumatic feeder costs only $40 in China.   However, since you are in a hurry and have no time for printing, this is a special case.     

2.   Adding this holder prevents the feeder from wobbling side‑to‑side and causing interference.

3.   The reason why we haven’t developed a 485‑bus feeder has everything to do with Panda. After Panda removed one peel motor to simplify the 0816 feeder, they came up with a feeder that costs only 3 US dollars. Many new OpenPnP users are unaware of this and take that price as the reasonable baseline for feeders. As a result, we cannot add extra costs to upgrade our feeders. 

That said, our own customers are pushing this development forward. Both Whinis and FailSafe have each built an upgraded version with bus‑based communication.

   RS485  feeder   by  Whinis

   Wifi   feeder  by   FailSafe.

[bing l]

Magnets are now included in all current kits. We set up the Discord server so we could directly address customer complaints and resolve issues. We received a great deal of feedback, and as a result, the Bing feeder has become well‑refined. Designs such as the spring‑loaded vibration damper were inspired by user ideas.

3D printing represents progress of the times. Using 3D‑printed parts at necessary positions can greatly lower the cost barrier for many devices.

  We used to sell large quantities of 0816 feeder kits, and we are well aware of the unreliability of push‑pull advancement. For this reason, we strongly oppose the Panda Bamboo feeder, which we regard as a retrograde design that will only cause trouble for end users. The same applies to building an entire PNP machine solely out of 2020 aluminum extrusions and sheet‑metal parts; this kind of cost‑cutting makes no sense at all.  

[bing l]

For this type of feeder that determines position by light‑blocking detection, as long as its stainless‑steel sprocket is dimensionally accurate, all other assembled components will not affect its positioning accuracy.     Because all errors will be corrected in the final step.      This should be the direction for OpenPnP feeders, and it is superior to solutions like Lumen’s that use Hall‑effect sensors on the motor.  

[bing l]

  It is not a knowledge‑base repository. Its main purpose is to solve problems through mutual user‑to‑user responses. For every question, someone will already have a ready‑made answer.  

[bing l]

I suspect he is questioning whether those users are genuine. In fact, I have never banned anyone from posting.  If there is a problem,   just fix it.

[Antal Levente]

Hello, 

Let me share my experience too, i’m using microsmt v3 from a while for small batches.

in addition to the already shared Pros: 

- easy to assemble if you have some experience with 3d printer building and printing

- you can achieve good precision (down to 0402 - at this price range this is great)

- frame is stable and rigid, well designed 

- feeders are stable if you follow some basic principles like lubrication and precision for the most important steps like gluing the sprocket to the gear)

- Bing is really supportive, also the community is constantly  growing and more and more interesting improvements are on the way…

- the kit contains all the necessaries, including magnets

- everything is open source

Cons:

- not too much to share, i had some issues but it was more user/usage related not really a design problem. I was totally new in this area, basically started from scratch. everything was solved quickly either by myself or with support from Bing or from the community

- if you are new in the pick and place area you will need time to learn openpnp, understand the working  principles of the machine and go over the calibration processes. the learning curve may differ from person to person. just keep in mind that this is a DIY machine kit, not a plug and play machine

- even if there is a documentation, doesn’t covers all the small  steps, in any case you can drop your questions on  discord and you will get the answer for sure…

cheers,

Levi

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[Brian Piccioni]

I am not questioning whether the users are genuine. 

Maybe it is because I am old but, unless there is a way to organize discord by specific question, all I seem to see is an unending thread of comments, suggestions, replies, and so on. This has exactly zero utility for finding out about a product. For example, I use ESP32 a lot and rely on the ESP32 forum, which I can post a specific question and get answers to that specific question. People who have the same or similar question can search and find that question and have it answered. 

If I search your Discord for 'magnets' (just as an example) I see a partial thread about somebody asking you where their magnets are. 

I see it may be a useful site for you and customers to interact, but it has zero utility for learning about the product, unless, presumably, I ask an endless stream of questions.

YouTube is another great way to learn about products, even with the large and growing number of shills (Xtool, for example, seems to have a lot of 'fans' of their laser welder, but none of them are welders). microsmt has almost no footprint on YouTube, except the videos it produces. I understand it is a relatively new player but that doesn't help me find out about user experiences. Even Panda Placer has a bunch of people showing off their machines, etc.. When I put my machine together and built feeders I had to rely on (presumably) independent videos to cover the stuff PandaPlacer left out.

I am not being critical of the company, just trying to explain that there is very little information outside of microsmt (and, I imagine Discord comments). This does not make a purchase decision easier.

[bing l]

 I also think there should be plenty of user‑created videos on YouTube. However, ever since the Discord server was set up, 100% of questions get resolved quickly there. Naturally, all discussions are focused on the PNPv3 and the Bing feeder.           As a result, fewer videos are being posted on YouTube.