MakerPnP

Cross-platform Pick-and-Place machine software, for Makers!

Machine Operations

This repository is for the machine operations software which will include a GUI and control board firmware.

Other repositories in the MakerPnP organization contain GUI and CLI tools for pcb assembly planning, gerber viewer and related libraries.

Architecture and Responsibilities

There are currently three main parts to the system:

• the server application (see server folder)
• one or more IO-boards. (see firmware and ioboard folders)
• the operator UI (see operator_ui folder)

There is some shared code in common, refer to the dependencies of each application.

• The server's job is to own the configuration, coordinate ioboards, run/step jobs, do computer vision tasks, do high-level machine operations such as homing, diagnostics, feeding, picking, moving, placing, discarding, measuring, recording statistics, centralized logging, etc.
• The IO-board(s) job is real-time machine control (sensors, motors, etc).
• The operator UI's job is to allow the operator to control the machine by interacting with the server.

The IO-board, server and operator UI can run on the same machine, or on different machines; depending on the implementation of the IO-board firmware. The architecture is specifically designed to be flexible and allow for different use-cases.

Example Use-Cases

1. Raspberry-Pi server, single MCU based IO-board, UI on Raspberry-Pi touch screen + 2nd monitor.
2. Raspberry-Pi server, single MCU based IO-board, UI on remote desktop machine (running natively, not VNC, etc).
3. Windows/Linux/MacOS server and UI on same machine, MCU based IO-board.
4. Server + RT linux based IO-board, remote UI.
5. Multiple MCU based IO-boards (3-axis + head mount + multiple networked feeders), Windows/Linux server, UI running on MacOS.
6. Other combinations of the above.

Note: You can substitute 'Raspberry-Pi' with your favorite single-board Linux SoC platform, the Raspberry Pi is just an example, though it /is/ specifically used and tested with during development.

Links

Please subscribe to be notified of live-stream events so you can follow the development process.

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MakerPnP
• Source: https://github.com/MakerPnP
• Discord: https://discord.gg/ffwj5rKZuf
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MakerPnP
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/MakerPicknPlace

Authors

• Dominic Clifton - Project founder and primary maintainer.

License

TBD (Probably GPL3, Apache or MIT)

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute, please raise an issue or a PR on the github issue tracker, work-in-progress PRs are fine to let us know you're working on something, and/or visit the discord server. See the section above.