The robots making 100,000 Raspberry Pi computers a week #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi
Neat piece from Wired on manufacturing Raspberry Pis.
This is the robot that makes the best-selling Raspberry Pi. The credit-card-sized personal computer, which the firm announced had passed 10 million sales earlier this week, launched its third iteration in February 2016. Now founder Eben Upton is trying to increase production at the 100-person South Wales site. “We hope to hit four million of the mainline product this year,” says Upton, 38.
This target is an increase of one million on the number of Pis manufactured in 2015, a sign of the rapid growth in production since the first 500,000 were made in the Pencoed factory in 2012. Upton claims that at peak capacity, the factory (owned by Sony) can make up to 100,000 Pis per week, largely thanks to extensive automation. “The robots place the components on just one side of the board,” he explains. “This means that each board only has to take one trip through the machine.”
To make a Pi, solder paste is printed onto a circuit board before picking and placing robots add individual components. The computers are then “run through an oven that melts the solder and the components on to the board,” says Upton. Production of the Pi 3, the first to have built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, is mostly automated, but still requires humans to plug three-pin parts into the board. The budget Pi Zero is completely robot-made.
Raspberry Pi was originally made in China, but moving production to the UK in August 2012 made it possible to automate tasks which, in lower-cost geographies, would be done by humans, explains Upton. Next, the foundation wants robots do the packing. “It’s incredibly challenging,” he says. “It’s really hard to built a robot that is as good as a human being is at putting something in a box.”
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!