Pick-and-place machine

During this time, a typical SMT assembly line employed two different types of pick-and-place (P&P) machines arranged in sequence.

These machines, sometimes called chip shooters, place mainly low-precision, simple package components such as resistors and capacitors.

As the turret spins, the stations passing the back of the machine pick up parts from tape feeders mounted on a moving carriage.

Parts are picked up from tape feeders or trays, scanned by a camera (on some machines), and then placed in the proper position on the board.

To overcome these limitations they moved to all-in-one modular, multi-headed, and multi-gantry machines that could have heads quickly swapped on different modules depending on the product being built to machines with multiple mini turrets capable of placing the whole spectrum of components with theoretical speeds of 136,000 components an hour.

With recent changes in the economic climate the requirement for SMT placement becomes focused on the machine's versatility to deal with short runs and fast changeover.

[citation needed] This means that lower cost machines with vision systems provide an affordable option for SMT users.

[citation needed] The placement equipment is part of a larger overall machine that carries out specific programmed steps to create a PCB assembly.

Improvements in feeder technology mean that tape format is becoming the preferred method of presenting parts on an SMT machine.

Its silhouette is inspected to see if it is damaged or missing (was not picked up), and the inevitable registration errors in pickup are measured and compensated for when the part is placed.

The high-end optical systems mounted on the heads can also be used to capture details of the non-standard type components and save them to a database for future use.

[6] A separate camera on the pick-and-place head photographs fiducial marks on the PCB to measure its position on the conveyor belt accurately.

Also, advanced software in the newer generation machines allows different robotic heads to work independently of each other to further increase the throughput.