Homebrew PCBs

Stefan,

What you're suggesting CAN work. It just comes back to your original 
concern. Because it will now take a LOT of extra programming to 
account for the "moving" location of the "same" component. MUCH 
harder to deal with IMO. 

A bigger concern IMO, is that by doing it this way you have severely 
limited the capability/expandability of the machine.

Since you are using discrete locations, you can only have as many as 
your machine travel allows. The more SMD parts you have, the less 
room for the board itself! By "solving" the indexing "problem", you 
can have the parts COUNT of a given SMD footprint entirely variable. 
whether your strip is 5 or 500 parts, it takes up the same SMALL 
space in your machine work area... If you have a board with 20 caps, 
you've used up 20 caps worth--in tape length, not part length!-- of 
machine travel.

My way, I'll use perhaps 2 caps worth. (and you have to reload 
your "tray" for each board. not a problem at first, but after awhile 
it'll get old. I'll just use a longer tape and make more boards...

My way it's parts TYPES which use up my space. Your way it's NUMBER 
of parts using up your space. Looked at that way, it should be easy 
to see that its worthwhile to do the indexing...

Ballendo

P.S. I DO have "static" pickup bays. They just have a tape which 
indexes underneath them... Peeling off the thin plastic cover is not 
hard. It's just part of the index to the next part position.

Funny though, In electronics I thought we wanted to avoid static 
pickup<G> Which DOES bring up the concern about grounding the vac 
pickup needle, as the air moving through it can make a pretty good 
electrostatic machine. Wimhurst or van de graff anyone?<G>  

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Trethan 
<stefan_trethan@g...> wrote:
> "indexing" means you are going to move the strips, right?
> I wonder how you plan to peel off the tape, i think it is 
definitely WAY harder to do this than fixed, "static" pickup bays.
> I would simply peel the tape off the whole length.
> Of course the file must look different, the part is on another 
position 
> each time.
> But i do not think it is impossible, or any harder than moving the 
strips.
> You can drill the holes for the "pegs" which hold the strips with 
the CNC, 
> thus make sure
> everything is dead on spot and parallel.
> 
> ST