where is the hardware documented? about octopnp

[platsch]

I'm actually not aware of any commercially available hardware with support for print- and placing tools.
Obviously, there is a lot of pick&place hardware and projects (e.g. http://openpnp.org/hardware/), but I have no access to one of these machines and never tested any compatibility.

We have written OctoPNP for our custom hardware, developed during an ongoing research project and published in the hope that it might be useful to someone else.
The abstract hardware requirement is described in the readme. You can also find some information in two related papers: PDF1, PDF2 and on the project website (which was unavailable today for a few hours, hope the problem is fixed now).
Also, there is a repository for our hardware modifications, but it is not well organized and not very documented.

[brotherdust]

@platsch, I, too, am interested in the hardware. Mostly the head and bed cameras you are using. Can you please share at least that? Thanks!

[platsch]

Sure, I'm very willing to share everything people are interested in.
Currently we are using industrial cameras from Basler, the exact model is acA2500-14gc with C125-0818-5M lenses. At least for the head camera size and weight is a factor, as the thing has to be moved around with the printhead.
Good illumination is crucial, we actually printed custom LED-rings to fit them into the carriage design, but off the shelf illumination rings are probably better and more reliable.

In a first iteration we used older Sanyo webcams. The interface was easier to integrate (a webserver running on the camera, simple wget to capture an image) but the resolution was not sufficient.

Just ask if there is anything more specific.