Pick and place machines assemble electronics at large scale. This NeoDen K1830 can place a maximum of 16,000 components per hour, so we need a lot of components to keep the beast fed. Components are supplied on tape and reel. This is a reel of 10,000 resistors, and we have 4,500 addressable LEDs. You can even get whole boards or sub-modules as you can see with this 3-inch tape.

Component feeders precisely index this tape to deliver fresh components to their pick locations. Today I'll show you how we load our different size feeders and also a nice quality of life hack for these larger feeders. Let's get started.

The Factory is a new weekly segment where we explore the ins and outs of electronics assembly and share what we learn along the way. 

We'll start with the 8mm feeder. I have my 8mm roll here. You start by unlocking the feeder. So you pull this catch back to release this brass guide and just make sure that this latch is forward as well to free that guide. 

Sit the tape in the holder and run the tape through this cast channel here. You'll need to feed both the tape and the film through this bottom opening in the guide. You can see there's a window in the guide here. I like to pull the tape along until the first component is about in the middle here. 

Peel the film back to about that same spot and feed the film through that window. Then seat the tape onto the sprocket and close the guide with a push. 

It's always worth checking that you have the sprockets engaged after this step. If you don't see sprocket teeth showing just open that window and reseat the tape. That's what I'm looking for. 

And now feed the film into the peeler. So when we pull back the film will peel on this notch. 

To tension the peeler we thread the film over this idler, pull it over the channel and pull it flat against this idler. And you can see when I pull on the film now that tension spring picks up. Apply light tension and open the gears and then release to lock that film in place. And the film is now at tension. 

You can always do a good visual check by looking at this tensioner spring. Other things to watch out for. Make sure that the reel is sitting firmly within the holder. And make sure this waste tape is ejecting cleanly down. So as the tape advances this spent part is ejected straight down.

Now for the 16mm feeder. And in fact any of the feeders that we have over 8mm are of this format. Which is made to accommodate a much larger reel. These load a little bit differently. 

The first thing I like to do with these feeders is to immediately remove this blue cover plate here. The reason I take this off is because the area inside is a little bit smaller. It's like a storage area for the waste film that you access with this magnetic door. And I found the workflow is just much better if I take this off and have the tape exit at the bottom. Much like with the 8mm feeder. 

These feeders unlock a little bit differently. Make sure the locking arm is forward on this one. And then pull this latch up and forward. Sit your reel in the holder. For larger reels there's a retaining tab here. A little sprung tab. Just to make sure it doesn't bounce off. And feed the tape and film through the channel. Same as before. 

Bring your first component to about the middle of this window. And feed the film through the window. Make sure that tape exits cleanly down. And pull it onto the sprocket. 

With these thicker tapes the window is also wide enough to just push your finger through. Hold the guide down and then snap that lock back into place. It's sometimes easier to push the film into the peeler before closing the guide. I found that useful this time around. And if the film is overfed you can always just pull it back against the guide. 

This type of tensioner is much more simple. The tape just gets pulled over this idler and this sprung pulley, you can see here, there's actually a halifax sensor that's measuring the tape tension to stop the tensioner automatically. If you do this while powered, you can feed the tape end into the tensioner and it will just pull the tape until the tensioner picks up, but without power you can just depress this spring and feed the film through by hand.

And you don't really need to pre-tension these ones, because when you power the feeder initially it will tension the film using that halifax sensor.

The feeder has two alignment dowels to locate it on the machine. Insert the feeder at your location of choice, make sure it's sitting nice and flat, and then push that lock forward. I like to remember how these work by if I'm pulling it that means I'm taking the feeder out of the machine. If I'm pushing it that means I'm giving the feeder to the machine. 

I'm in feeder location 21 here. So I'll take the control lead and plug that into position 21. Before I do though I can see that I didn't remove the twist in the film. So I can relieve the tension on the tape and either twist the film in place or just do that during the tensioning process.

When I apply power you'll see the automatic tensioning function here. When we loaded the tape, the components are back here at about halfway through the window. Now we can manually advance the tape to bring the component into the pick location. 

To change the amount that the tape indexes each time, you can use the M button here. And as you see this digit change that will affect the indexing amount. For this component though, three is what we want.

And the workflow is exactly the same for the eight millimetre feeder. 

Locate the feeder on the dowels, push that catch forward, and then apply power. 

These feeders won't apply tension automatically because they have no feedback. So you can press the film button to apply tension manually and just watch for that spring taking up tension. If the tensioner is just slipping that means you're at the highest tension you can get to, so you can either wait for it to stop or press film again to stop the tensioning.

If you ever have to rewind the tape and you notice that when you run the tape forward again the component does not land in the right spot at the same location every time, you can always go backwards a couple of times and then forwards a couple of times to re-index the tape. And here I have a little tape jam so I can gently pull that through onto the peeler and reapply tension.

Thanks for watching. In the next video we'll configure the machine for pick location alignment and pick and place heights. If you'd like us to cover something in particular reach out on the Core Electronics forums. Catch you next time.