How does open Pnp interface with the feeders?

[Paul Gallagher]

I'm working on designing an electronic feeder. What I'm not clear about, is how does the controller interface. I actually don't even know how the commercial feeders interface. I think they just got an air inlet, and the machine controls it there.

Does it just require a logic pulse to trigger? Is it done on CAN bus or some other protocol?

Power: Since I'm building my own, I can use any voltage I want. But is there a standard power supply for these?

Bus. I've seen some DIY feeders that have some sort of bus connection. Clamps onto a rail and pins connect. Is that some type of standard for feeders?

Sorry for so many questions, but I'm starting from zero.

[Mike Menci]

Good start is This feeder;

- https://openpnp.org/hardware/  Feeders

1) https://makr.zone/new-all-3d-printed-tapereel-feeder/399/

2)  https://docs.mgrl.de/maschine:pickandplace:feeder:0816feeder

[Mark]

There are many possibilities, the most common one is to have one or more dedicated feeder controllers, usually just an arduino or similar, with some IO-buffering or implementing a bus. Ideally, these also implement some simplified form of G-code, so everything is similar to setup in OpenPnP. But any text-line command/response form is fine for OpenPnP. There are open source controllers around.

There are alternative solutions possible: some feeders are autonomous, they sense when a part is picked and feed a new one after that. The advantage is that they only need power rails, no addressable signal wiring needed (no expensive plug-in system). Plus there is no need to identify which feeder is which in OpenPnP (no need to configure the driver/controller and address for the feeder).  The down side is that one extra part is always already fed/exposed, i.e. the last part may be wasted if the feeder removes the cover tape for instance (if the feeder is removed from the machine, the part falls out). And you need to feed the first part manually (button?), or trust OpenPnP to reliably detect an empty pick and retry.

_Mark

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenPnP" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to openpnp+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/71056c19-555e-4747-a6c7-141e3085f4afn%40googlegroups.com.

[Paul Gallagher]

Autonomous feeding is an interesting idea. Not sure how that would work, probably need an optical sensor of some sort. Or maybe a pressure switch that senses the nozzle contact. It would need to be pretty reliable though.

[bing luo]

     

         Openpnp has made the automatic feeder function very simple. You only need to prepare an Arduino Mega 2560 controller, and one controller can control 24 feeders. MEGA2560 only needs to parse a G code (m600   N20  F4)sent to him by openpnp through the serial port. openpnp will send this G code to the feeder controller to make it ready in advance before using the nozzle to suck  the component.

        For example, the M600 N20 F4  will split this code. N20 represents the 20th feeder, and F4 represents 4mm forward. Your controller commands the corresponding feeder to work according to this command. As for how the feeder works, it depends on how you design the feeder and how you write the feeder code. If you use the official open-source 0816 feeder, you only need to debug, and do not need to write any code. If you design your own feeder with CPU, you will have other workload.