Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1456062
90 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2022 are not the fastest or most accurate, but if they are fit for purpose, any machine that has been amortized costs only the floor-space on which it stands, the energy it uses, and the odd bit of maintenance, all of which can make it very cost effective. Are the potentials of modern, digital communication, visibility, and control enough to justify a replacement of a machine, or for the machine vendor to go back and develop CFX support as an option? In many cases, espe- cially beyond the SMT manufacturing area, the answer is "no." Historically, as computers became increas- ingly used in manufacturing, we have seen val- iant efforts where users try to extract useful information or establish a form of remote con- trol with machines that are without the ability to communicate, oen to the detriment of the machine, sometimes in catastrophic ways. e cost and risk of customized hardware and so- ware, as well as the increasing need for middle- ware, all contribute to ensuring that communi- cation in such cases has remained basic, inac- curate, and unreliable, as well as a risk to the performance of the machine. e CFX standard is intended to replace all that. With the free open-source, community- supported Soware Development Kit, CFX can be provided with a fraction of the develop- ment effort required for bespoke interfaces or the support of other standards. e CFX fully- defined single language for data ensures that middleware is not needed. e IPC qualifica- tion program ensures that, when buying new machines, manufacturers have the assurance that they can genuinely plug the machine into the CFX network, and the communication works. No coding needed, no customization, and no unexpected costs or delays. Machine vendors are increasingly embedding CFX into their new machines, and where capable, ret- rofitting it to recent models. is does leave however, a third category of machines, usually older models, where the native support of CFX is seen as ranging from uneconomic to techni- cally impossible. As such, MES and other smart, analytics- based solutions that use CFX data are le with gaps in their visibility and control, reducing the overall value potential. Existing mature solu- tions do offer alternative machine interfaces that fill in some of the gaps, which is effective in those cases where CFX will be provided by the vendor at some point. Looking at assembly beyond SMT, there is a far higher proportion of machines that have no communication abil- ity or use a bespoke method without interop- erability or compatibility. Where there is no way to extract useful data, custom third-party or in-house hardware solutions have been cre- ated and attached to the machine mechanics and electrical systems, that derive data from specific signals and actions. ese have proven to be quite costly both to develop as a case- by-case customized item, and to purchase and maintain. ey are usually developed in isola- tion from the machine vendor, with end-users le to bear the consequences of their actions. The Solution Applying the same principles to a hardware- based solution, as has been applied to soware, the key "gotchas" of additional hardware/mid- dleware solutions can be avoided. Creating open-source hardware means that predomi- nantly off-the-shelf components can be assem- bled in a standard way to create a proven modu- lar, flexible interface, driven internally by so- ware based on the existing CFX SDK with addi- tional firmware. is project has been started Almost every PC in use today is therefore destined to be scrapped or remain on legacy versions of Windows forever.