CHMT48VB (Charmhigh) PnP customization

[Marcelo Honorato]

Good afternoon. I'm starting to work with a Charmhigh PnP machine, model CHMT48VB and I'm wanting to customize the machine to use the OpenPnP software, since apparently the Charmhigh motherboard is not compatible. Image of the original Mainboard below:



After contacting Microsmt (whose link was on the OpenPnP website), I was told that I needed to replace the main board and probably the cameras. The board and camera models can be found in the following links:

A05-Mainboard for OpenPnP:
https://www.microsmt.com.cn/products/mainboard-for-openpnp

A08-Bottom USB camera for OpenPnP
https://www.microsmt.com.cn/products/bottom-usb-camera-for-openpnp

A09-Top USB camera for OpenPnP
https://www.microsmt.com.cn/products/top-usb-camera-for-openpnp

The main problem I've seen so far is the notable physical difference between the original board and the new replacement, which makes me have my doubts about the compatibility of the A05-Mainboard and Charmhigh's PnP (although the seller assured that it is possible). I tried to find a datasheet for the original motherboard to learn more about the connections, but I didn't find anything looking online, and contacting the sellers, they said they don't supply it. Therefore, I am experiencing connection difficulties.

Could anyone who managed to use OpenPnP on a similar machine by Charmhigh share their experience?

It's worth mentioning that I started studying this topic recently, and I'm far from mastering it, so forgive me if my question was in any way trivial or if it has already been answered in another topic.

[Phillip McMullen]

Hey,

I have a CHMT48VB that I just upgraded about a month back. You don't need the new board and I didn't buy any parts from microsmt. I'm using the same board as stock, you just have to reflash it.

Here is the guide I followed: https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Charmhigh-modifications-for-OpenPnP. I only purchased the STLINK, RS422 adapter, upfacing camera, downfacing camera, and the USB extenders. You don't need the variable lens as the one that comes with the upfacing camera is fine. You may want the new drag chain, but I was able to open mine up and feed the new cables through. It takes a lot of patience though, so that's up to you.

Be prepared for a lot of calibration and a learning curve. It's miles better than the Charmhigh software though, so it's totally worth it.

Feel free to ask any questions. I'm not an expert but I've pulled enough hair out over this machine that I think I can atleast pretend to be an expert lol

[Phillip McMullen]

I also forgot - before you do any of the programming steps, unplug the vacuum pumps and the solenoid on the head (one that drags the reels). The solenoid isn't made for long on-time and the unit freezes while it's taking on the new firmware. It may burn your solenoid out if left on for too long. I unplugged the vacuum pumps just to be safe and because they're loud. My vacuum pumps didn't have an easy way to unplug them, but you can trace the wires back to the board to unscrew them.

TAKE A LOT OF PICTURES!!!! That's probably my top advice.

[bing luo]

I didn't know that Openpnp has a guide specifically for updating the CHTMT48 firmware to  smoothie  firmware. If If I knew it could be upgraded, I wouldn't have said it needed to replace the motherboard. There are many brands of old machines like this. I just looked at its structure and thought that replacing our motherboard could drive its original hardware except for the camera.  

Marcelo Honorato <mar...@fttech.com.br> 于2024年5月30日周四 04:20写道：

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[vespaman]

Hi Marcelo,

(This forum has a bad habit of deleting replies from time to time, so this is the second time I write this..)

There's quite a lot of us charmhigh chmt36 and 48 owners, using OpenPnP, and depending on experience, it is quite a simple thing to convert the hardware. (For a 48, change both cameras into USB cameras, make sure they are on separate root hubs in your computer, or get USB3 cameras if you can. Also consider adding downlight while you are at it). Then get a USB-422 interface and connect to the board. The 422 on the charmhigh is already isolated, so no need to get an isolated USB-422 interface. But you will need to power the interface on the isolated side of the chmt48, so try to find an adapter that also provides 5V out.

If you are into tweaking, you may want to consider adding support for flow control/hardware handshaking, by not using the 422, but then you will have to patch the mainboard.

(e.g. https://github.com/vespaman/Smoothieware-CHMT/tree/serial-dma). There you will also find a machine.xml of my 48. (Note: you can really only us this as a reference, it will not match your machine exactly).

Since there's so many of us, it is likely already answers to be found in this forum, so search chmt.

The "big work" is to get the hang of OpenPnP and its setup.

 - Micael

[domini...@gmail.com]

Haha, Interesting timing!

I just converted my CHMT48VB to OpenPnP.  I'm currently hanging out in the discord server detailing and logging my findings, along with notes.  Would love it if you could join me there.

I flashed Smoothieware onto a spare CHMT control board I bought with the machine.  I'm using my fork of Jan's fork of Mark's fork with some changes from Vespaman, binaries here: https://github.com/hydra/Smoothieware-CHMT/releases

Extracting the cables from the original drag feeders is a real pain, take photos of the connectors, mark all the connectors with different color permanent markers on both the headers and housing before you remove any so you know where they all go.  Remove the vacuum lines first, undo them at the pumps.  Once you've done that you'll be able to unpin/remove some of the other contacts from the housings and then pull the cables through without the housings.  Start with thinnest cables first. Take photos, mark things that you undo.

I fitted 2 new cameras, I bought them 5 years ago so the links are probably long since dead, but if you need details I can trawl through old emails and find them.

One thing to note, which I only found out *after* I started the conversion process, is that there's currently no support for making the drag feeder work with 2mm pitch components (i.e. <= 0402) without feeding 4mm of tape and exposing 2 parts.  This isn't acceptable to me and I've started writing code to fix this situation.

Learning curve is STEEP!

I started with other people machine.xml files, but that meant I didn't know what the hell I was doing, probably best to go through the OpenPnP guides and set everything up yourself, copying/pasting settings from other people's machine.xml files as you go, that way you'll be more 'at one' with your machine.

Make sure you've got the things required to print out homing fiducials, camera calibration images and make the 'test objects'.

Not sure where everyone else put their homing fiducials, I put my primary one on the right hand side of the machine on right of the front right and the second one in the deep part bin in front of it.

Put a  larger nozzle in the first nozzle on the head, smaller in the second, larger ones work with fewer issues than smaller for some of the calibration steps. I use 505, 502 and 500.

Connects camera to 2 different USB root hubs, or only one might work and/or you might be limited to lower FPS.

Use a good machine for OpenPnP, not an old laptop, I went with a UM 773 Lite Minisforum Mini PC which has a decent  7735HS AMD CPU, I got one with 32GB ram so I never have to touch it again.  It made a HUGE difference in the overall speed of the machine.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um773-lite

https://www.amazon.es/MINIS-FORUM-7735HS-PCIe4-0-Puertos/dp/B0BYDK1Y4X

My experience with OpenPnP thus far has mostly been one of confusion, wtf and why and hair pulling. I'm sticking with it as I know long term I'll either be able to live with it or fix things myself.

I was using DipTrace, and OpenPnP doesn't have support for DipTrace > 4.3, that's on my list.

There's also no support for importing patterns from DipTrace for the package vision settings.

I'm not looking forward to adding my large inventory of unique component patterns into OpenPnP, somehow I have to automate it.

I noted the OpenPnP support for going from schematic/layout component names/values to actual manufacturer+partcode is missing, I intend to rectify this somehow, as I'm dammed if I'm entering all my part details manually into the UI.  I'll probably update my PnPConvert tool program so that it can output job files, parts and components, but at this point I'm too much of an OpenPnP noob to make informed decisions regarding that yet.  Currently my workflow is in tatters, you can probably expect yours to be too if you've been using the machine on the CHMT software for as long as I had (5 years).

I also ran all the OpenPnP tests though a coverage tool (IntelliJ default one) was happy to see there are a lot of tests, but there are 0 tests for the GUI package (that I could find) and not much for the feeders.

I find the OpenPnP UI somewhat undiscoverable and on many many times I've had to refer to the documentation, something that I feel shouldn't be as required as much as it is.

I plan on buying a touch-screen monitor for OpenPnP and improving the OpenPnP UI to better support common operations and make human-machine life more bearable.

Likely I'll be feeding back all my finding and confusion as issues into the OpenPnP issue tracker for discussion, feedback and ideally hopefully future improvement.

I'm aware my experience so far, is largely negative, I certainly don't want to upset anyone, quite the opposite, I want to improve things for everyone and appreciate all the time people have already put into OpenPnP.  Currently neither OpenPnP nor the CHMT software are workable for me, so I'm caught between a rock and a hard place right now, but at least I'm in control of my own destiny with Smoothieware and OpenPnP, so there's light at the end of the very very long dark tunnel that I'm currently in.

Dominic

[Jan]

Hi Dominic!

On 01.06.2024 22:28, domini...@gmail.com wrote:
[...]

> Extracting the cables from the original drag feeders is a real pain,
> take photos of the connectors, mark all the connectors with different
> color permanent markers on both the headers and housing before you
> remove any so you know where they all go.  Remove the vacuum lines
> first, undo them at the pumps.  Once you've done that you'll be able to
> unpin/remove some of the other contacts from the housings and then pull
> the cables through without the housings.  Start with thinnest cables
> first. Take photos, mark things that you undo.
>

Replacing cameras is optional. There is support for the camera switcher.
I replaced my cameras following Erichs advice replacing the drag chains
as well
(https://mcuoneclipse.com/2020/05/03/retrofitting-a-charmhigh-chm-t36va-machine-with-openpnp/).
That works straight forward.

> One thing to note, which I only found out *after* I started the
> conversion process, is that there's currently no support for making the
> drag feeder work with 2mm pitch components (i.e. <= 0402) without
> feeding 4mm of tape and exposing 2 parts.  This isn't acceptable to me
> and I've started writing code to fix this situation.
>

I recommend using the ReferencePushPullFeeder to operate the drag
feeders of the CHM-T. The ReferenceDragFeeder is a rather old and
limited implementation, while the ReferencePushPullFeeder provides nice
features like cloning and operating the peeler as axis allowing to peel
in parallel with the drag move.
It also support 2mm part pitch. However, you can only drag in multiples
of 4mm as Mark explained in an other thread. So that then end of the
day, one part might be left exposed over night...

> I'm aware my experience so far, is largely negative, I certainly don't
> want to upset anyone, quite the opposite, I want to improve things for
> everyone and appreciate all the time people have already put into
> OpenPnP.  Currently neither OpenPnP nor the CHMT software are workable
> for me, so I'm caught between a rock and a hard place right now, but at
> least I'm in control of my own destiny with Smoothieware and OpenPnP, so
> there's light at the end of the very very long dark tunnel that I'm
> currently in.
>

Please feel free to ask on this list. There are a few CMH-T users and
even more OpenPnP experts around. And if that's not enough you can
always clone the source and add what ever feature you're missing.

Jan

> On Wednesday 29 May 2024 at 22:20:29 UTC+2 mar...@fttech.com.br wrote:
>
> Good afternoon. I'm starting to work with a Charmhigh PnP machine,
> model CHMT48VB and I'm wanting to customize the machine to use the
> OpenPnP software, since apparently the Charmhigh motherboard is not
> compatible. Image of the original Mainboard below:
>

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[vespaman]

Hi Jan

Hi Dominic!

On 01.06.2024 22:28, domini...@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
> Extracting the cables from the original drag feeders is a real pain,
>

Replacing cameras is optional. There is support for the camera switcher.

This is not really true on the chmt48. 48 has no camera switcher and the video grabber is onboard the control board.

Having said that, I also replaced my drag chains, to ones that can be opened. And I managed to squeeze the USB connector through the hole in the back, avoiding to cut this cable.

[domini...@gmail.com]

> It also support 2mm part pitch. However, you can only drag in multiples
of 4mm as Mark explained in an other thread. So that then end of the
day, one part might be left exposed over night...

The issue isn't leaving a part in the feeder at the end of the job, the issue is the 2nd part bouncing out of the carrier tape as components are picked/placed causing wastage, mis-picks, mess and failure.

Anyway, it won't be an issue for long, I'm updating the ReferencePushPullFeeder, first by writing some tests to make sure I don't break anything, which is no easy task, and then second by adding functionality to feed using a 2mm offset on the 2nd pick, at least, that's the plan...

> Replacing cameras is optional. There is support for the camera switcher.

> This is not really true on the chmt48. 48 has no camera switcher and the video grabber is onboard the control board.

exactly.  the '*VA' machines have camera switchers, the '*VB' machines have touch screens with an embedded computer which has two sockets for 2 analogue composite video cameras.

> Having said that, I also replaced my drag chains, to ones that can be opened.

yes, I did that too.

> And I managed to squeeze the USB connector through the hole in the back, avoiding to cut this cable.

yes, managed to do it but it took a couple of hours to extract the cables, replace the drag chains with semi-open ones, drill mounting holes in them in the right spots and feed all the cables back through them, not a quick job.

Dominic

[Jan]

On 02.06.2024 11:44, domini...@gmail.com wrote:
> The issue isn't leaving a part in the feeder at the end of the job, the
> issue is the 2nd part bouncing out of the carrier tape as components are
> picked/placed causing wastage, mis-picks, mess and failure.
>

Ok, I did not noticed that before. Do you have any idea why that's
happening? Is the dragging to aggressive or the feeder Z to low? (Please
note, that picking shall be done close to the tape peeled off and
dragging in the other window because there are no obstacles for the drag
pin and the space is sufficient for 8/12mm drag moves.)

> Anyway, it won't be an issue for long, I'm updating the
> ReferencePushPullFeeder, first by writing some tests to make sure I
> don't break anything, which is no easy task, and then second by adding
> functionality to feed using a 2mm offset on the 2nd pick, at least,
> that's the plan...
>

I believe that immediately! You'd need to detect the direction of
dragging and disentangle the drag move from the extra move required to
release the dragpin before you can calculate new intermediate locations...

> > Replacing cameras is optional. There is support for the camera
> switcher.
>
>
> > This is not really true on the chmt48. 48 has no camera switcher and
> the video grabber is onboard the control board.
>
> exactly.  the '*VA' machines have camera switchers, the '*VB' machines
> have touch screens with an embedded computer which has two sockets for 2
> analogue composite video cameras.
>

Many thanks for pointing that out so quickly, Micael and Dominic! That's
very much appreciated as I was not aware of that and spread wrong
information.

> > Having said that, I also replaced my drag chains, to ones that can be
> opened.
>
> yes, I did that too.
>
> > And I managed to squeeze the USB connector through the hole in the
> back, avoiding to cut this cable.
>
> yes, managed to do it but it took a couple of hours to extract the
> cables, replace the drag chains with semi-open ones, drill mounting
> holes in them in the right spots and feed all the cables back through
> them, not a quick job.
>

I followed Erich's report, mounted the down-facing USB camera, destroyed
the original drag chain and installed the new semi-open one. This worked
well and I did not had to drill new holes. The holes fit very well with
the holes in the machine. I started at the head, removed some excessive
elements from the drag chain and feed excessive cables back into the
base. My hole in the base is actually a slot and I was able to push a
USB connector through without removing any of the existing cables. IIRC
it took me about 1..2 hours.
Just for reference: I'm using a 36VA.

Jan

> On Sunday 2 June 2024 at 08:08:56 UTC+2 micael....@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> Hi Jan
>
> Hi Dominic!
>
> On 01.06.2024 22:28, domini...@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]
> > Extracting the cables from the original drag feeders is a
> real pain,
> >
>
> Replacing cameras is optional. There is support for the camera
> switcher.
>
>
> This is not really true on the chmt48. 48 has no camera switcher and
> the video grabber is onboard the control board.
>
> Having said that, I also replaced my drag chains, to ones that can
> be opened. And I managed to squeeze the USB connector through the
> hole in the back, avoiding to cut this cable.
>
> I replaced my cameras following Erichs advice replacing the drag
> chains
> as well

> (https://mcuoneclipse.com/2020/05/03/retrofitting-a-charmhigh-chm-t36va-machine-with-openpnp/ <https://mcuoneclipse.com/2020/05/03/retrofitting-a-charmhigh-chm-t36va-machine-with-openpnp/>).
> That works straight forward.

>
>
>
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