to create enough vacuum to lift 1206 sized components (to begin with...hopefully eventually larger chips).
I hope to be able to place 10-20 parts per minute so I need to turn the vacuum on and off up to 40 times per minute. I could control the pump directly with a relay, but that seems like startup/shutdown would waste several seconds, and switching on and off so often would wear the pump out quickly. Or am I guessing wrong?
Therefore I think I need a pneumatic solenoid valve, and control that with an IO pin and a transistor. If so can anyone tell me if this is a suitable one
This is just the cheapest one I've found. I'll be using 1/4" silicon hose to connect the pump to the pick up head so ideally I'd like a valve with such fittings so I won't need a bunch of adapters. If anyone has any recommendations on such a valve I'd appreciate it.
I don't think you'd wear out your pump by switching it off/on, but it would be pretty inefficient. Ideally you'd use the pump with a small tank (e.g. some PVC pipe with endcaps and a couple fittings) to create a bit of a buffer, and use a pneumatic switch to detect when you need to start the pump up again. That would make it a standalone unit that would not require Arduino control.