Dual lane vs. single lane feeders for high mix

A pattern emerges, but really I think it means plan/optimise for your day/week not a single job. Our machine uses 10's, this means there's a significant chunk of the feeder that is not easily accessible if something like a brass shim gets stuck or flimsy plastic tape folds itself up inside the feeder. This kind of issue doesn't exist with many single or dual feeders as the mechanisms are pretty exposed. In 10's there are some significant cost advantages - perhaps 1/2 the cost of single 'gun' feeders and the feeder density is quite high, enough so that reels no longer fit next to each other in the feeder bank and instead are raked in 5's one above the other.

However even with planning by the time you have 10 lanes in every bank you basically can't optimise after a number of jobs as the "common" parts will have changed and become scattered across the bay. At that point there's a good chance you end up stripping them all and starting again but this does depend a bit on just how many feeders you own and how large your line is.

MyCronic€placer blur the lines with theirs by essentially splitting the feeder in two, the mechanical half is a large bank and the tape holding half you can move wherever you need it for optimal placement.

And lastly of course there's the question of how much difference the feeder location makes for your machine in the first place. A head mounted component camera/laser is affected far less by the distance from feeder to PCB. Arguably with high-mix headline placement speed isn't a primary concern anyway.

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"Pros: -You can fit more feeders on your machines. -One dual lane feeder is cheaper than two single lane feeders"

none of these is true for Sony SI-G200 machines we have

dual lane feeders are bigger than the standard 8 mm feeders so no space saving at all - you have to place two 8mm tapes next to each other and in the same distance with the other feeders' tapes so the head optimizing algorithm do not play with different steps between the feeders

one dual lane feeder cost x4 times the price of single feeder from other vendor

"The key is to properly optimize jobs so parts common between builds don't need to be moved or unloaded from the feeder."

This would never happen with high speed shooter, where each saved second makes great impact on the production. The optimizer always place the components to optimize the path of the head and components on one dual lane feeder are never at the same position for different boards, which leads to total re-loading of all feeders with each job changeover.

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As mentioned above, Mycronic and Europlacer seem to be designed toward high mix so would consider them but would also like to consider a more traditional machine too. Right now I have around 220 feeder slots across two machines inline. Mycronic and Europlacer aside, a traditional machine manufacturer "A" may hold 120 feeders with no dual feeder option. Machine manufacturer "B" may hold 80 single feeders but can hold 160 if dual lane feeders are used. If dual lane feeders do not work well with high mix, then I would have to buy 3 "B" machines vs. 2 "A" machines so upfront cost becomes a significant factor. Traditional machine "C" may hold 260 if dual feeders are used which might go head to head with My or Eur as a single machine solution. My gut feel though was that dual lane feeders might cause setup hassle for the reasons listed. I would expect that any intelligent feeder enabled machine would pull the correct part no matter where it is placed on the machine (not forced by the program).

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