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Rahul U. Suryavanshi , 01-05-2022, 08:17 AM

Hi,
I am using the Altium designer tool for my projects.
Recently I came across one issue related to PCB assembly that is as follows.
I made one double sided board with SMD components on both sides.
I want to assemble this board on a Pick and Place machine so for that I have made a stencil of this PCB.
Top side and bottom side are on the same stencil.
In Altium designer there is provision to create a pick and place file for this PCB.
In this I had faced one issue, I took the left side of PCB bottom side as Origin, with respect to this origin I got the XY coordinates and orientation of all the components.
Top side components coordinates are proper but bottom side components are not proper.
Actually while assembling we flip the PCB then the bottom side of the PCB comes to the top side then all the coordinates of bottom side components get Y flip.
In Altium there is provision for Y flip for bottom side components but it just negates Y coordinates and it also won't affect the orientation.
Altium designer gives top view coordinates of components with respect to origin but for bottom side PCB its wont work.
Please guide me on this.

WhoKnewKnows , 01-05-2022, 05:01 PM

Usually, the transposition of the coordinates of components for bottom side is managed by the placement machine software, or the factory automation management software that controls the placement machine(s) line(s). If you want do this manually, consider exporting the component xy coordinates as a csv file and manipulate in a spreadsheet program like Excel.

Years ago, I had a few CM clients who regularly used Excel spreadsheets to produce final NC data ("G code") for their pick and place machines based on the XY data their clients gave them from their CAD's CAM data exports.

Rahul U. Suryavanshi , 01-05-2022, 09:04 PM

Thanks you sir for suggestion.
Actually the issue with exported Pick and place file from Altium designer software is that bottom side component coordinates are shown in negative values and pick and place machine wont take negative value.
By taking this coordinate in excel sheet we can manipulate the value (make it negative to positive) but rotation angle for each component we have to do it manually.

WhoKnewKnows , 01-06-2022, 06:18 PM

You can automate this too, using formulas in the cells of a spreadsheet. I wish I had the time to show you how, but it can be done. It certainly isn't easy, but I've seen it done using Excel 97. The user would open the csv file in a text editor, copy the text and paste it into one cell of a rather large spreadsheet. There were a lot of formulas and things going on in the spreadsheet, but in another part of the spreadsheet was the resulting NC data that the pick and place machine needed to do the job, in a single cell. The user would copy that text out of the cell and save it as a text file for the machine to use. Good luck!

Rahul U. Suryavanshi , 01-07-2022, 08:24 AM

Thank you sir,
I will definitely try this