1/6 - Board Forge v1.0
2/6 - Rails 'n' slides
3/6 - The vacuum head
4/6 - Rank and file
5/6 - The back end
6/6 - A series of tubes
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Born out of a collaboration at famed Chicago hackerspace Pumping Station One, Board Forge is a six-person startup developing a prosumer-grade, open-source circuit board assembly robot.
This weekend at SXSW Create, I got a chance to snap a few photos of their prototype version 1.0 while chatting with founder Jeff McAlvay about the democratization of industrial electronics assembly equipment.
“It’s like what happened with 3D printing,” Jeff says. “The first 3D printers were hundred-thousand-dollar industrial machines; soon they’ll be on every desktop.”
Their first prototype is a fully functional vacuum pick-and-place robot. I sat for several minutes, watching it carefully arrange tiny SMD components on a PCB. Their goal is to eventually integrate etching, solder paste application, reflow, and testing functions into the system as well as component placement.
I’m not sure 3-D printers will be on every desktop soon, but it would be nice if they were. And this prototype of a robot that makes circuit boards is very exciting and will probably be good for the quality of motherboards which is needed in my business.