This Machine Finds Soldering Mistakes

The pogo pin programmer jig for the Index Motherboard is nearing completion! Last time, I got all the electronics designed and operating, but in this episode Lucian and I work on getting the mechanics of the jig together. The last step is software, then we'll be testing boards easy peasy!
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[@LudwigBrechter]

As a test-engineer for one of the biggest automovie suppliers, I can tell you the way you did the jig is almost identical to our jigs, running since decades for a wide range of products. One point I would have done different: Get rid of the Raspberry Pi. I have had problems, even with high quality SD cards, of data corruption. Use a standard PC or laptop with test script on there, log data to a redundant and safe place (NAS with RAID). Having a GUI on the PC with a big screen in my opinion is far superior to 4 buttons / switches and no screen. Also, then you could have used a normal (USB) label printer to print your results. Also, print a unique code / serial number (e.g. QR or DMC) on every board and reference it to the test data. If in the future, if there are defect boards at your customers, there might be a correlation to a specific test criteria so you can in future lower tolerances on that measurement result. We do that by first, scanning the code with a handheld (or integrated) QR reader, then starting the test. There is no way to start a test without scanning. We also sometimes include mfg date and mfg line (pick and place line/station number) in these codes. So if one line at one day did something wrong, you know which boards to recall. Anyways, great to see your progress! May your success continue. Greetings from Germany, Ludwig.

[@LudwigBrechter]

Also, print a unique code / serial number (e.g. QR or DMC) on every board and reference it to the test data. If in the future, if there are defect boards at your customers, there might be a correlation to a specific test criteria so you can in future lower tolerances on that measurement result. We do that by first, scanning the code with a handheld (or integrated) QR reader, then starting the test. There is no way to start a test without scanning. We also sometimes include mfg date and mfg line (pick and place line/station number) in these codes. So if one line at one day did something wrong, you know which boards to recall.

[@Manawyrm]

Totally agree on the Raspberry Pi! You can get USB-SATA adapters with a high quality SSD these days, which will make regular Raspberry Pi 4's really fast and reliable. Highly recommended!

[@frollard]

This - super lots. or at the very least do all the mods to raspbian to make it rarely if ever write to the sd. They're pretty much indestructible as read only but after some database queries they don't last long. We use one for our access control for the makerspace. Previously it phoned home for the database and cached it to sd immediately. Now it keeps everything in ram and only writes something like once a week for power failure. Instead of 3 month sd cards we now get several-year sd cards.

[@DrakeTain]

They need to pull a jeff geerling and have their raspberry pi boot from SSD.

[@xxportalxx.]

@@LudwigBrechter hey what sample schemes do you use?

[@lucianchapar]

Oh hey it me 😳 - this was a fun project! Got a little bit of a taste for all the work Stephen does making a video twice a month with all the filming I did for this one!

[@quinnfoster4671]

Nice

[@fronders]

hey, that looks awesone!!I just bought the same mechanical jig for doing bed of nails :) can you guys share more pictures or a model of your 3d printed adapters?

[@JustCallMeKoko]

Hope to see more Lucian content here. This was a great video. Now I am contemplating assembling a bed of nails kit for my project.

[@jimmytumbles9640]

You're the shit, Lucian. Subbed.

[@AlienLogic775]

In Industrial Automation we usually do some negative masters of the product to test (with known problems) to test the machine over time and guarantee that the test it’s valid

[@xxportalxx.]

Don't forget all the 'step-reset' testing for hours...

[@PolyShaper]

Can you tell us where did you find that press in kit, please?

[@andrewarcher2239]

That looks like a great fixture kit. Can you post the link to where you bought it here?

[@Muddles178]

Did you ever figure out what they’re using?

[@stevewalston7089]

I looked in the video info hoping to find a link but did not. I did a quick search and found it here: www.cncest.com/products/cncest-universal-pcb-testing-jig-pcba-circuit-board-test-fixture-tools?variant=40477779689642&currency=USD&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxveXBhDDARIsAI0Q0x0Y252-kupWz5yS_Ofx_fT5X1uWml8CpAOe46qHf344kkLI7dj7EoUaArryEALw_wcB

[@nastygamer7929]

Imagine how cool it'd be to have a nice grafana dashboard on the central server, showing different graphs with all the errors, passed test etc...

[@cwbh10]

big facts, grafana is great for a bug buster - IndexBuster ? :eyes:

[@stephen_hawes]

We're planning on doing EXACTLY that!

[@nastygamer7929]

@@stephen_hawes That's awesome! Can't wait to see it.

[@AlexMadinger]

Love seeing videos on what goes into midscale manufacturing. Quality control is essential and not something to only start thinking about in the 11th hour.

[@oswynfaux]

Add feature to reprint last test report in case you run out of paper while printing report

[@lucianchapar]

Good idea!

[@you_just]

Remember- you don't need "es" when saying "me llamo ____"

[@ChipWeinberger]

Is it uncommon to test the physical ports themselves? Im making my own product too, and was thinking about a jig with motors that inserted cables into the ports to test them. Is that overkill?

[@AJMansfield1]

Getting a jig that can reliably plug and unplug a connector over all the test runs is actually extremely difficult, and sooner or later you'll run into problems with parts of the test jig wearing out; it's honestly more cost effective to manually plug the cables in each test than build a connector-plugging jig unless you're operating at a much larger scale. Also, if what you're trying to test is just the off-board connectivity (and you're not specifically trying to verify that the mechanical connector isn't defective) it's much easier to add that same connector to the pogo pin board, with pogo pins that attach that connector in parallel with the one on the board and the outboard device just permanently connected to the pogo pin board's connector. (And if you _really_ need to be able to test hotplug behavior, you can add some relay switches to connect and disconnect those lines.)

[@Chris-us2ls]

When i was in the physical test stage with my team's product we thought about doing the same thing but what we ended up doing was simply adding a couple extra pogo pins to the bed of nails connector then using that to test connections before soldering the acual connectors on, testing the connection before soldering has been sufficiant for now since each one we've tested hasnt had any issues, simply the same reason Anson mentioned, it becomes to complex to create a motorized machine to plug then unplug and then dealing with wear after a while, just test your connections and find yourself a good supplier for your connectors.

[@crashlandingcity]

I thought your name was "Dawes" and I have been watching the entire Index series. Best youtube of a long project start to finish I've seen maybe ever though.

[@irukard]

Cashino CSN-A5 use larger paper roll (50mm diameter instead of CSN-A2's 39mm)

[@azyfloof]

Never heard of drill taps before today, added that to my Amazon basket! That test jig looks really smart, and I love that it comes with cutouts for switches and things, plus space for electronics.

[@NicksStuff]

It's cool and all but it doesn't find all soldering mistakes, probably just shorts and bad components Wouldn't it be cool to have a DIY machine check for cold joints and shit like this?

[@cwflemmer]

Stephen, love your work and how you structure your videos. Great content man...Im always excited when i get notified of new uploads by you...keep it up

[@adagioleopard6415]

Hi. Is the link to the pogopin jig machine in the description? I can't seem to find it. We desperately need something like this at work

[@rickeymh]

I think the printer logger is not needed. The data is normally sent to the SFC (shop floor control) at the board shop.

[@rickeymh]

Made of Chinesium. The orange Delrin gave it away.

[@allenlorenz]

Nice video. So which link is the pcb programmer kit ? if not posted could you please post.

[@CollinBaillie]

Search for "WUPYI Professional Universal Test Frame"

[@DJ-Sellout]

Absolutely love the direction this channel is going! Keep up the good work

[@CollinBaillie]

Unique serial numbers bruh!

[@hugo-4715]

How do you input the id of the board you tested for the logging part?

[@vtrandal]

Testing The Index motherboard? Suggestion make a Pick and Place machine that uses a cell phone (or just a computer ) as the controller. Everyone has a cell phone and/or a computer. I think you’ve spent far far too much time on the motherboard since the beginning of this project. More important than the motherboard is the software it runs. Ideally, I’d like a Linux-based Pick and Place machine.

[@DrakeTain]

You're going to want to add some kind of touch screen to that raspberry pi. Buttons are highly reliable, but you have so little info from that machine right now.

[@peteroleary9447]

What? No link for the jig kit? We've built some custom jigs using a Destaco plunger clamp similar to yours. We recently purchased and set-up a jig kit from Ingun which is really nice and modular - but expensive. Would be nice to have something in between.

[@lonewulf0328]

Honestly, this jig looks better than the one we were using to test the "product-that-must-not-be-named" (unsure if I'm still under NDA or not even though it was like 15 years ago) at a company I worked at years ago. Months before the "product-that-must-not-be-named" first released, there was a bug found in the circuitry involving one of the voltage regulators, and there was a board rework needed to fix it. "product-that-must-not-be-named" already manufactured a few hundred thousand units when this was found, so they contracted my work to handle fixing them. We had a similar test jig design to confirm operation of each unit after the rework, but is was nowhere near as clean as this one. We would get shipped in pallets of these fully assembled (and fully packaged) products, open them, disassemble them, rework them, test them, repackage them, and palletize them to ship back to "product-that-must-not-be-named" warehouse. I was in the parts department, so I sourced the parts, components, solder stations and screw stations, etc. It was a fun learning experience to see what happens when you make an "oops" in a product that retailed for over $100 a unit, and have about half a million defective units to repair based on the design changes to fix the bug.

[@der.Schtefan]

Doesn't PCBWay offer assembly and flying probe tests?

[@Stinktierchen]

LOL that one dark haired dude looks like a forgotten German rapper from the old days called "ecko fresh" ,,, his brother probably :D

[@afayimo]

Your testing holder equipment is so old in Germany. We use very new methods of testing holders. Learn German way of Quality testing product.

[@kingggerald]

Stephen, do you know what printer language your printer is using, if it's ZPL/EPL and you need a hand, hit me up! :)

[@eugenes9751]

Nobody will care about the printed test results, as the only possible option that they should ever see is that everything passed. You can just print a bunch of receipts separately and include them in the box with all the fully tested boards.

[@SlavkosHobbyChannel]

I like the idea that you used the already created things and didn't try to be "smart" and start doing it from scratch. Excellent idea, just found your channel, like it, keep up with it 😀

[@eirenrain]

Do you maybe have a link for the base of the jig? I've been looking for it for some time, but googling leads me in all the wrong places somehow, until it got me to your channel :D

[@martynaslukas4340]

Maybe another sticky label printer for SN of the motherboard? so you can track time and patch of manufacturing?

[@chromosundrift]

Great video. Little tip, make eye contact with the cam instead of watching your camera's screen. I know it's hard!

[@tentative_flora2690]

So if you are tracking a board's history. Would you be uploading a board ID number with the firmware? Could just be a counter that ticks up in the test jig for each test done.

[@danielb.9137]

Regarding all the plastic... did you think of esd or do you think esd is no problem?

[@RokasSondaras]

I'm quies in shock right now... I been developing the same jig for my product too. Well it has almost the same stuff. Bed of nails. Custom build press for pressing down pcb on bed of nails. Printer for receipts. Logging etc. If there anyone who would like to get more info. Please write a comment down.

[@Muddles178]

I would be very interested in knowing more about the test jig clamp. I have a 3D printer for printing out something to go around my PCB’s, but I have no idea where to look or what to search for with the clamp.

[@MartinBogomolni]

My boards took 6 days from sending gerbers to getting boards back from JLCPCB -- so we're off and ready to go to the next step!

[@fyremoon]

I'd say you could reverse engineer this and re-assemble it into your 3d pick and place framework so you pick the board and place it precisely into the test jig then use a stepper motor and strain gauge to measure the pressure on the jig as you press it to the board. You can also incorporate this feature into your pick and place controller and return the test results over the RS485 interface so you use a single controller board for everything. I also noticed that some thermal printers use TTL serial so that should be quite easy to interface to RS485 too. That way you have the pick and place, dispense solder then reflow and return then test and print the results, and if successful put the board in one place and fails in another.

[@DIYGuitarMods]

nerds

[@Waitwhat469]

I wonder if an ELK stack and kabana would be a reasonable log data tool for your testing, nice graphs and ml is pretty easy using it from what I've heard Could also include machine data from the pi it's self (more useful on larger scale too)

[@taranagnew436]

what's that soldering tools organizer and can you provide the stl??

[@nagasaipurvaz4251]

our company uses the test similar to this but we also do heat and vibration tests by heating the boards and vibrating them seeing they work and we also use the same thing where we test the devices and print the receipt of working test points and their performance edit:in case you are wondering we make the radar's

[@barismetin1014]

Homemade ict

[@linksmith1057]

This reminds me how similar and old some of the test fixtures I work with every day, and how some of them really could use a modern upgrade.

[@decee1157]

Any idea how you are gonna keep control of each board that passed QC if it matters. You can get some QR label scanners and put on the JIG and then a small QR code on the PCB that you can scan so you know exactly what PCB is in the jig. Sometimes you also just store it in OTP(one-time-programmable) sections of the MCU but if the MCU does not work it is hard to put it in the OTP :D

[@dumle29]

I'd imagine they'd keep the printed test receipt with the board, tho some kind of serial-number would probably be needed for later tracking the board. I think just printing a serial number on the receipt, and having a white silkscreen rectangle on the board to then mark with a permanent marker would do fine, and probably be as fast or faster than a QR code printer. Adding a little lable printer would be neat tho, and remove the problem of poor or wrong hand-writing

[@decee1157]

@@dumle29 True! A labelwrite could also be used! Would be awesome with a labelwrite that has automated cutter!

[@lucianchapar]

There’s a big white square on the back of the mobo for us to put a barcode sticker, write something, or just put a check mark! We got hella options! 💪

[@decee1157]

​@@lucianchapar Awesome! It satisfies me that those kind of things are already considered! Sadly a high quality barcode scanner for testjigs are a bit pricy.. BUT I'm sure you two can hack something together ;)

[@lucianchapar]

@@decee1157 $20 for a good enough USB 2D barcode scanner 😎

[@hardwareful]

3:29 tip: drill two holes for the corners first, they act as a visual guide and act as chamfers to the contour finished by filing to dimensions.

[@jessstuart7495]

I hope your boards don't use no-clean flux.

[@deangreenhough3479]

I will absolutely be building a few of these. Thank you for the inspiration just when I needs it 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿👍

[@avejst]

Great test jig Great walkthrough Thanks for sharing your process :-)

[@hojirick]

I just finished binge watching all of your videos. It's extremely inspiring to have seen your work and progress. Hope the best for you!

[@alisaraeb7973]

thanks

[@Milkex]

Damn, you got a Maker Knife? Nice

[@kashyapkoshti]

add an encoder and lcb/oled screen for selecting specific test to retest after making changes in pcb if

[@Lu-ql5tj]

4:13 Don't make the pins depressed. Make them happy instead!

[@Jandodev]

I want to do the receipt printer!

[@petermuller608]

Where did you buy that rig?

[@jasonkuehl6985]

Im so happy, this is amazing

[@superslammer]

*swoon*

[@oswynfaux]

Not sure how drilling and tapping in one operation is lazy

[@lucianchapar]

Machinists will give you a stink eye for using Drill Taps on serious things, that’s why I said that haha

[@gazehound]

why does lucian remind me of simpleflips

[@lucianchapar]

What does that mean aha

[@frankmcalinden3699]

Nice work guys !!!

[@certified-forklifter]

wow, impressive!

[@wesleymays1931]

317th!

[@Leezorc]

Brilliant!

[@giovannislab1454]

Love your videos

[@giovannislab1454]

First !!!

[@draco5991rep]

Congratulations for your worthless achievement

[@giovannislab1454]

@@draco5991rep congrats asshole achievement unlocked