TVM802A Pick & Place Plastic Tape Support

I have a TVM802A China SMD Pick & Place machine. This thing works great for the price. It has a few draw backs compared to a higher end machine. One of which is the feeders. It uses a pin, via a coil, to advance the tape components. This seems to work fine for paper tape devices, but it DOES NOT work well for plastic tape devices! The pin fires and the tape defects, so it does not drag the tape to index the next part.

So I designed a solution in Sketchup that supports the plastic tape, at the holes, so it indexes every time! I have been testing this for 2 years-ish. And it still works, every time!

I designed 3 types for 8MM, 12MM and 16MM tape widths. (that is all this machine does) The device is attached to the feeder rail with a small piece of 3M tape to keep it in place. Then the machine works as normal. As the pin goes down to index the tape, the support keeps the tape from deflecting. They are made from PA12 Nylon, 3D printed on a HP MJF printer.

This is a great solution for thin ICs or small parts. But it does not work well for tall devices. Such as a coil inductor.

If you need some, I have a few for sale in My Store.