Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

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Highvolt
 
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Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by Highvolt »

Hi everyone,

Is there anyone here that has something to say about SMTmax and their line of pick and place machines ? (http://www.smtmax.com)
We are looking for an entry level machine because we prototype a lot and have low volume. They seem to be a bit new on the market, but seem to be making a lot of promotion on the internet.
The video's on the QM1000 sure look promising, but then again, I don't have the experience to judge. Regarding reviews, there is nothing out there.

Happy Holidays and thanks,
Y
Last edited by Highvolt on Wed Dec 22, 2010 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

adafruit
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by adafruit »

smtmax sells the same stuff as madell from everything we have seen

Highvolt
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by Highvolt »

Aha! thanks for that. Reviews on Madell are abundant and not very promising.
Any other brand that is worth looking at? 30k is really our complete target budget for stencil, PnP and reflow.

adafruit
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by adafruit »

this forum is kinda specialized on the MDC 7722 you can read about here
http://www.ladyada.net/wiki/mdcpickandplace
we have no experience with others

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alphatronique
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by alphatronique »

delete dy me
Last edited by alphatronique on Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ray1234
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by ray1234 »

You are right, I have not seen any reviews before so buying one was a leap of faith for me. BEST $15K I've ever spent!!! It's the perfect sized machine for the perfect price. Joseph, the company's CEO made the buying process very easy from the time I wrote the check to delivery of the machine to training right in my shop. The QM 1500 is very easy to learn to use. With about 6 hrs. of instructions from the included training program I was up and running. Joseph is a terrific instructor who also managed to train my friend who had no experience in running any automation. He was also very helpful afterwards by answering technical questions which I had many. Compared to learning CNC the SMT MAX machines are MUCH EASIER to learn to use and nearly fool proof. I would buy from SMT MAX again when I need a bigger pick and place machine.

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alphatronique
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by alphatronique »

at least when try to plug your own stuff try to be more subtil ..

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gnyzio
 
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Re: Anyone familiar with SMTMax pick and place?

Post by gnyzio »

My experience with our SMT Max P&P machine is not as rosy as the previous writer. Maybe I was spoiled by my SMT industry experience with Mydata pick & place machines. Those machines had a very intuitive and graphical interface which made programming a breeze. SMT Max's software on its top of the line QM3000 is very DOS-like with very poor documentation and hundreds of menus, settings and variables that are either poorly explained or not explained at all in the manual.

The overall machine seems very well built however it lacks a touch down sensor which is a huge oversight and complicates programming of pickup and placement heights of all components (must set them up manually by lowering the tool to surface incrementally while observing with a magnifying glass). You must be very careful adjusting parameters in your program because you can easily crash the gantry into its hard stop due to an oversight in the software.

After my training with Salvador for two days in Chino Hills CA. I realized all the shortcomings of the machines operating system. I had a long talk with Joseph about the issues and offered my suggestion to research other p&p machines such as Mydata and try to upgrade their machines operating systems to something similar to those. That was over two years ago but I do not believe they have updated anything yet (not even sure if they are working on it).

This is not intended to bash SMT Max, I think they offer a lot of technology for the money. I just feel disappointed that they are very close to having a really great product if they could only offer a better more friendly operating system. I know that companies are afraid to charge more money for their products but I would have gladly paid more for this equipment if it was easier to program and use.

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