Join us on Wednesday, February 9 at noon Pacific for the Pick and Place Hack Chat with Chris Denney!

We in the hacker trade are pretty used to miracles — we make them all the time. But even the most jaded among us has to admit that modern PCB assembly, where components that could easily hide under a grain of sand are handled by robots, borders on witchcraft. The pick and place machines that work these wonders not only have to hit their marks accurately and precisely, but they also do it at blinding speeds and for days on end.

Luckily, even those of us who design circuits for a living and depend on PCB assembly services to realize those designs can, at least to some degree, abstract the details of the pick and place phase of the process away. But making it “just work” isn’t a trivial task, and learning a little bit about what it takes to do so can make us better designers. Plus, it’s just plain cool to watch a pick and place do its thing. And to dive a little deeper into pick and place, Chris Denney, CTO of Worthington Assembly and co-host of “Pick, Place, Podcast” will stop by the Hack Chat. If you’ve ever wondered about the inner workings of PCB assembly and the role pick and place plays in it, or if you’re looking for tips on how to optimize your layouts for pick and place, this is one you won’t want to miss!

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, February 9 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.