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Speed Management

A project log for SMT50 pick-and-place

Describes my experiences buying, setting up, and using the SMT50 pick and place machine

tim-wilkinsonTim Wilkinson 11/23/2014 at 06:240 Comments

There are lots of different operations that the head of the machine performs, and each of these can be configured to a specific speed. The speed settings are separated into two sections: a configuration for a specific speed setting in terms of how fast the move the various stepper motors, and when that setting should be used. Going back to the "Setup" menu, you'll see two Speed options listed. If you open the "Speed Template Management" option you'll see this:

Actually, you'll see this is you first replace the speed.ini file (which, again, has improved translations). Of all the speeds in this list, the most important one is the first, the "XY speed". If you select it and hit the "Modify" button you'll see this:

This speed is the one the machine uses for almost every pick and place action. By selecting the X, Y, Z and A at the bottom/left you can view and edit how each of these axis stepper motors are handled. As the dialog says, larger values results in slower movements. Also, be aware that specifying values which are too fast, especially for "Start and stop speed" can result in the head failing to operate properly resulting in lost of accurate position. This occurred to me when I accidentally changed the "A" value to be too fast which not only prevent the component being rotated correctly, but also mean the head miscaculated the next X position.

At the very bottom of the speed template list you'll see two additional speeds which I added to my configuration. The "XY Slow" speed has all the value set as high as possible to everything moves as slow as possible. It's quite handy for testing.

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