[phomann]

This build thread is of a Fisnar Selective Soldering Robot.

The plan is to convert from its propriety control to the Mach3 CNC control Software and a SmoothStepper.

The soldering robot is pictured in the attached image. It was purchased as a 2nd hand machine and pulled out of a production environment. The Robot is basically a 3 Axis X/Y/Z platform base with an automated soldering head module mounted to the gantry. As the soldering head is a separate module, it has it's own teach pendent which is used to program the automated soldering cycles in it.

Currently the machine is programmed in 2 parts. First, the head is programmed with all the different soldering profiles, including

• joint pre-heat,
• the amount of solder feed,
• rotation of the head,
• the soldering duration etc.

These different profiles are called Blocks.

The 2nd part is to program the base X/Y/Z movements with the other pendant. You move the head to a point, then select the soldering block you want to execute. You do this for every solder point. It works OK but is very tedious to program.

When the robot is soldering, the soldering tip moves down by a pneumatic actuator. The air pressure controls the contact force. You need to position the head so that the iron contacts both surfaces of the joint precisely .

The soldering head has 30 different soldering profiles. Each profile has 9 or so different parameters that define the soldering cycle. The base unit selects the profile it wants and tells it to do it. Once it receives the acknowledgement back, it carries on.

The video below shows the machine operating under the existing inbuilt software.

Selective soldering through hole components - YouTube