Turns out our pick & place machine was struggling with the heat too

Turns out our pick & place machine was struggling with the heat too...

Last week's heat made a lot of people just that little bit less sharp. Turns out the same went for our pick & place machine (which we affectionately call 'Buddy').

Out of nowhere, misplacements appeared. No software change, no worn nozzle, no different component. Everything looked the same, and yet it went wrong.

After quite a search we found the cause:

When we once replaced a nozzle, we had swapped the original black bolts for shiny stainless-steel ones. That had worked flawlessly for years.

But because of the bright light of the past week, a reflection appeared. As a result, the machine's camera saw not only the component, but also the shiny bolts. The reference point shifted unnoticed, so components suddenly were no longer placed exactly.

Two black bolts put back.

Problem solved.

This is exactly why we believe so strongly in developing fast and testing a lot.

Not everything can be predicted from behind a desk. Some problems only exist under precisely the right conditions. And you only discover those when you build, try, fail, learn and try again.

You can think it over for a hundred hours beforehand...

...or build for one hour and learn something you would otherwise never have found out.

For DeltaProto, that is the essence of developing.

Sometimes developing isn't thinking for hours on end. Sometimes developing is: doing.

#PCBAProtoLabLearnings #SuperFastProtoPCBA #HappyEngineering