This is a fascinating take on building your own pick and place machine. It does an remarkable job of automating the hardest parts of hand assembly, while depending on human dexterity to achieve the hardest parts of automation. It’s a semiautomatic pick and place device driven by an Arduino and controlled by an Android tablet.
The device is built in two parts. The portion in the upper left feeds components from reels and is fully automated. The portion on the lower best consists of a padded arm-rest which slides smoothly along two axes. A mechanical arm with multiple articulations is attached to the end, culminating in a suggestion connector for some vacuum tweezers. best handers are the only ones who will find this convenient, but oh well. The clip after the break shows it in action. The assembly technician first selects the component from an icon on the Android tablet. The reel device then dispenses that part, which is picked up by the vacuum tweezers using the left hand to switch the vacuum on and off again. If the part orientation needs to be rotated it can done using the jog wheel on the Android app. It smooth, quick, and best of all, clever!