My Panda Placer Arrived: and it is mostly assembled!

[Brian Piccioni]

My Panda Placer arrived today, about 10 days after I ordered it. I was a bit stressed earlier because until this morning UPS didn't have the package. Plus I live in the country and UPS' motto out here is 'it'll get there eventually'.

Of course I immediately unboxed it and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was mostly already assembled. Based on all the videos I had seen I was expecting quite a few hours of sorting through parts, parsing instructions, etc.. It seems most of the hard stuff (the stuff I'd likely screw up) is mostly done. Now I have to sort through the documentation and figure out what stuff I have to do. Even some of the parts I figured I'd have to 3D print seem to be already there or in the part box.

For those who are interested I have attached a few pictures of what I got - other than unboxing and removing the packaging I haven't worked on it at all. 

I ordered the kit for 20 feeders. 

The only disconcerting thing is I found a bolt in the bottom of the box. A quick visual inspection did not find any missing bolts though. Time will tell.

[Chaz Woodall]

Very nice! Looking good. Have you figured out the vacuum pump setup? That's the last thing I've been struggling to get together before doing the configuration.

[Brian Piccioni]

Chaz

For some reason my email thanking you got bounced by your server. So, again, thank you.

Also, I didn't realize it but our discussion has been private. While I don't want to spam the group, I think it is important the photos and comments be posted so I will edit them and make a post of our discussion.

[Brian Piccioni]

(made public)

Chaz

I believe the problem is that the instructions are vague and the parts bag is for the two head machine (A1), not the CC1. Also parts labled soft are actually hard. This is what I came up with.

I was not able to figure out where to plug in the vacuum pump but Chaz did! (see photo)

On Friday, September 12, 2025 at 5:59:18 PM UTC-4 chazw...@gmail.com wrote:

[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

Yeah there's alot of extra parts. It's 100% from the original pandaplacer. I remembered most of them from my first machine from Leo.

There are finally instructions on the website and they're mostly right.

Though I 100% recommend redoing the whole vision positioning system. Advanced camera calibration for top and bottom are amazing.
I'll publish my dual fiducial calibration rig here soon too.
Most of my footage looks terrible from my unpacking and assembly from a couple months ago.

[Селенин Алексей]

What kind of motors are there, with a closed loop? Can I see a photo of the driver? Thanks

[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

Absolutely not closed loop. I'll see if I can get a photo. I think they're just standard silent stepper drivers...

[Brian Piccioni]

Pretty sure they are stepper motors like used in 3D printers. 

On Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 12:42:26 PM UTC-4 sveto...@gmail.com wrote:

[David Swann]

Hi, 

Ive just got one of these as well. I've managed to get the x y servos working, cameras and lights. Im battling with the feeders though. Before i print off a gazzilion AS2's im putting one together to check. Aparently Im supoose to zero the servo before i connect the arm to it, but i dont seem to be able to configure the feeder port correctly. Just wondered if any one had got that working? Ive tried sending m610 s1 follwed by m611 s1. Ive tried setting actuator value to 100 like it suggested in the online guide. 

I found the process so far rather unpredictable, and took several goes to get the software finding things like gcode drivers and cameras etc. Im a noob regarding open pnp but have used a charmhigh machine.

Im wondering if someone has a template for a set of feeders as I dont seem to be having much luck with the config i downloaded from pandaplacer docs.

Thanks

David.

[Brian Piccioni]

I have not got to the feeders yet. I hope to tomorrow. That said, have you looked at the Nicky Does video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSL4-6i3cXM?

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[David Swann]

Hi, yes, I've watched those a few times.

I've tried assembling a feeder today but the top arm the servo attaches to seems to be too long

If I squeeze that arm in it pushes the servo right back and bends it on its mounts. I have used the small servo arm at the first hole nearest the spindle. This is the same on both versions of the as2. This blue one is the newest with the clip mount rather than the cam mount. 

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[Brian Piccioni]

I wasn't able to get to it yesterday because I discovered the new files on the pp website. Have you reached out to them? I have posted a few questions to their store 'chat' and he got back to me overnight. 

[Brian Piccioni]

Are you sure your printer didn't put a support on the other side of the pusher? 

See attached

On Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 12:30:30 AM UTC-4 mrda...@googlemail.com wrote:

[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

The pusher arm should be tight but fit fine.

I'm not sure how you're having feeder controller issues as the config files should have them working right out of the box. I'll go quickly record a video showing the process for setting a servo motor in the right start position which should also show you how to run a feeder on the machine. 

[Brian Piccioni]

Damn. Sorry I replied to Marshall and not everybody. I don't want to spam but for the next person with these problems public messages are better.

Marshall

Thank you. I was just writing this

1) The drivers in the documentation are different from those found
     Docs: PPMC2.0 found PPMC-V3, 
     Docs PPSLFC2.0 found PPBFC-V3. 
     I assume this is because the docs are outdated but I don't know. The machine does home, however.

2) I cannot find directions as to how to connect the servos I am pretty sure brown wire on the left, open pin on the right but I have not found any pictures to confirm that. This is a pretty odd thing to leave out of the docs.

3) I cannot find a complete description for resetting/homing the servos. Nicky Does says send command M610S1 to enable all and M611S1 to home them but I cannot find an explanation of how exactly this is done. The Bamboo Feeder video basically shows a cable appearing out of nowhere with jumbled colour codes and the servo moving.

Thanks 

[Brian Piccioni]

It is funny how writing something down leads to solution sometimes.

In order to home the servos

1) Ensure the PP is ON via OpenPnP (click the power button down at the bottom)

2) Home (not sure this is necessary but you do know the machine is on then

3) Go to Machine Setup -> Drivers -> GcodeAsyncDriver-PPBFC-V3

4) Driver Settings Detect Firmware (if you get an answer, you are connected) so you only have to do this once

5) Console on command line M610S1 [send] note that the [send] button may be hidden off to the right so you may have to fiddle with the window sizes (I did). You should get OK and a list of boards.

6) command line M611S1 [send], now the feeders home !

I did notice a different problem though: when I home the machine it moves about but I get an error FIDUCIAL-HOME no matches found.

I am working on that.

On Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 11:11:39 AM UTC-4 alaku...@gmail.com wrote:

[David Swann]

OK, I wonder if my feeders were already homed. Maybe I should try with a bunch, although I did try various commands trying to get them to move to other positions and cycle.

Regarding the feeder, I don't think there's a support in the way. I've lined up a white one here as it makes it a little clearer. But it just looks too long.

This first one you can see the window looks like a window rather than with support. 

The second one looks like the arm is too long by the gap circled. About 2mm or so. 

I'll try printing off a p02 set which I thinks for the 0402 parts. 

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[Brian Piccioni]

David

I got mine working using the Home instructions I posted above. I have attached a picture showing the gap on mine and here is a video showing it working (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bqWOFs3sVR5JMxBZq9MIi8cRcsLIrLNB/view?usp=sharing).

Any chance you mixed up versions of the feeder? I reprinted everything when I saw the new design was on the web site.

Also my 'Home' issue seems to be related to hot plugging the PP while OpenPnP is open. Opening and closing OpenPnP seemed to work.

[David Swann]

Hi, I guess it is just supposed to be that tight. I had printed new ones to make sure I hadn't mixed anything up. 

I guess if it's still too tight I could offset the servo arm a little bit when I assemble it. 

I have however found why I couldn't get the servos to home. 

It seems mines only picking up board addr 0 and not the others. There is power on the other feeder strip and the blue leds are one.

 

I did check the address jumpers and they seem OK. 

Any idea how I tell it about the others? 

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[Brian Piccioni]

What did you send as an initialization code to your feeder control boards?

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[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

https://youtu.be/oaI_ebiPI0M

Here's a video. I don't show assembly. You want pretty perfect print quality. I see some under extrusion and possibly wet or other quality issues on some of the photos. That would increase the 'tightness' of things. 
For MG servos I absolutely use these; https://www.printables.com/model/1129940-bamboofeeder-as2-servo-arm-lever?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExRmo3eEtaT0xGbUJyZHRETAEejSdBmCcZwqmhJJJQ95MAxQQ_kHa70WDl9Au3LSM8d6ZGR0kDR38_mm_e7zk_aem_j8iJxKdrjjHhftQNH_iYkg

I resin print them. If you're US based and would like some I'd be happy to run some off for the cost of screen time and shipping. 

[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

Regarding fiducial homing issues;
It's likely lighting / the vision pipeline.

I've recorded setup like 4-5 times and never end up happy with how my shotty videos turn out.
But the basic thing is I absolutely use the offset fiducial locator.
https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Fiducial-Locator
Down at config (I config this for home fiducial found in machine setup too) add 2-4 mm of parallax diameter.
You might end up needing to poke around at your vision settings pipeline too.
Simply move top cam over home fiducial and click edit at the pipeline area.
Getting it working can be somewhat complicated.
I wish there was a better way to handle vision stuff but this is what openpnp has. 


Regarding initialization; I've never had to. But I believe that's part of the feeder_okay actuator that you set for the feed action for every feeder. 

[David Swann]

Hi Brian,

I'm not entirely sure I did initialise the feeder boards. 

I did this:

M610 s1 followed by m611 s1.

It's given the right response but for only one board. 

I've checked the jumpers and they seem to be set to 00, 01, 10, 11.

Marshall, great video, thanks. I'll have a closer look at that tomorrow. 

With your dead feeder board, did the blue leds still light?

Regards

D. 

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[Brian Piccioni]

That does seem to be the correct sequence (except I think it needs to be upper case. I used 

M610S1 (enable all)
M611S1 (home all)

Try 

1) exiting OpenPnP, 

2) disconnecting and reconnecting the USB

3) load OpenPnP

4) click the power button in OpenPnP

5) When Home turns yellow click it

6) then try your commands again.

This is what I did. I have observed that OpenPnP seems to get out of whack with the controller. Also if the machine homes I know the power is on for sure.

I don't know, of course. Kinda working blind.

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[Marshall S. (Alakuu)]

It locked up the whole 24v supply.
Literally couldn't turn on the machine till I fully removed the specific feeder board.

[David Swann]

Mines not locking up. I took all my boards off and tried them individually. 2 are working and 2 aren't. If I daisy chain the two working ones they now both show up with m610 s1 with the address as set by the jumpers. 

I'm hoping that someone just forgot to flash the other 2. I'll try that over the weekend.

Thanks. 

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[David Swann]

OK, some progress.

I discovered some of the header pins weren't soldered properly on one bfc. I've managed to get an st link to connect to it and got that one working. However, the last one won't connect saying it's dev target under reset.

The reset pin (pin 7) on the stm chip doesn't appear to be shorted to ground. I've tried various settings in the stm32 programmer regarding hot pkug/normal etc and hardware/software reset etc but can't get the programmer to recognise it. It's an st link programmer from a nucleo f411re I'm using that I successfully used on the other three bfc feeder controllers. 

Thanks. 

On Tue, 16 Sept 2025, 22:58 Marshall S. (Alakuu), <alaku...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Brian Piccioni]

A shot in the dark but it might be a cold solder joint or something. Consider reheating the pins and components associated with the reset pin and maybe the power pins of the STM chip.

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[David Swann]

Yeah, I have considered reflowing the thing. Power and gnd do seem to be connected. It's really hard to probe though as the pins are rather fine.

Do you know if any schematics available for these? 

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[Harvey white]

ST Micro has schematics and the like for the Nucleo boards. Another
thing to try (which is an occasional problem), would be to unplug the
programmer from the computer, then plug it back in, then retry. 
Depending on the power up sequences of the programmer and the hardware
it's hooked to, things can get into odd states.

Harvey

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[David Swann]

I've got the data sheets for the nucleo and mcus, it's the schematics for the bfc board I was wondering about. 

I've unplugged replugged etc. Like I said, I've successfully reprogrammed three of them to make sure that the programmer and the boards are working correctly. This one has a different fault to the other, now fixed, one. (two were duff). 

The problem I've got is that I can't follow the traces because they're so fine and have silk screen over them so it's really hard to troubleshoot them. 

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