THT elements could also be simpler to get into place and solder by hand, however SMD elements are extra automation-friendly, reasonably priced, and lead to much more space-efficient boards. However as a result of they’re so small, it may be tough to shortly seize a reel and rely out a particular variety of SMD elements — or to rely what number of are left on the reel. That’s why Serhii constructed ReelTrack, which is a useful handheld machine that makes it straightforward to shortly rely the variety of SMD elements on a reel.
Utilizing ReelTrack is easy: simply press the buttons to set the pitch and feed course, after which pull a reel right through to rely the entire or cease at a particular amount. The show will present the present rely. You may even mark the reel at particular intervals to shortly divide a protracted reel up into desired portions.
ReelTrack works with reels with widths of 8, 12, or 16mm and pitches of two, 4, 8, 12, or 16mm. It’s appropriate for many SMD elements ranging in dimension from 0201 to 1210. It could scan as much as 1 meter of reel per second and rely as much as 9,999 items, with a tolerance of +/- two items.
Sadly, Serhii hasn’t but printed design recordsdata or particulars on the {hardware} inside ReelTrack. We all know it has an OLED show and a 3D-printed enclosure, however every thing past that’s hypothesis. It seems to make use of an LED with a photoresistor to detect the darkish spots on the on reel, which correspond to SMD elements. It’s protected to say that there’s a microcontroller doing the counting and updating the show.
Hopefully Serhii will present extra particulars quickly, as many individuals could be all for utilizing ReelTrack to rely their elements.
