Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Chat about pick and place machines, reflow ovens, assembly techniques and other SMT tips & trix

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mlamparter
 
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 3:19 pm

Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by mlamparter »

Greetings! I am in the market for a bench top pick and place machine for assembling prototype boards. Features I need include software support for semi-automatic placement of parts, vision system, dispensing option, and the ability to work with QFP components with pitch as small as 0.4mm. Feeders are not important to me, as I will be using a carousel to hold loose components.

After some searching I have narrowed my choices down to machines from Fritsch, Advanced Techniques, and LPKF. I am leaning towards the Advanced Techniques (Atco) CAT90-SA2, partially because they are an American company which may make it easier to deal with technical issues.

Does anyone have any experience with Atco or with this machine specifically? Any thoughts on the other companies? Or companies I missed? I also found models by Madell, MannCorp, NeoDen, and DDM Novastar, but was able to rule all of their models out for various reasons. Thanks for any insights!

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alphatronique
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by alphatronique »

HI

ave asked it one year sooner you have got a free atco cat-90 machine
i finally to send it to scrap last year ..
before buy try one your self and make some of your own board not company demo already programmed
and not forgot essemtec expert line ,have option for really good optical aliment system for BGA that may usefully for rework

personally i find semi auto machine it use less , not faster that place by hand and way to overpriced
only advantage if it you take high end model whit brake you save on error but price tag was more that pickplace
you may got small used quad machine for ~5K and neodem make new one for under 3k$ (china build but look ok)
and for 10K you may got something really nice ...

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mlamparter
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by mlamparter »

Alphatronique: thanks for your response. From your message it sounds like you had a bad experience with a CAT90 machine from Atco. Did you have the manual (CAT90-M) or semi-automatic (CAT90-SA1/2) machine? What exactly caused you problems? Thanks for the tip on Essemtec, I was not familiar with that company. Regarding NeoDen, I watched the review on Adafruit and I do not think this machine will work for us. We do not want fully automatic, only semi-automatic. We will not be working with tapes or reels of any sort, but rather a handful of loose components. So we absolutely must have a carousel or loose parts tray. Also, the accuracy (from what little I saw) of the NeoDen seemed pretty poor. It would also be nice to have the manufacturer or vendor located in the US in case we have problems, need parts or service etc.

I should elaborate a bit on how our machine will be used. This machine will not be used in a research/production/commercial scenario. I am looking to purchase the machine for a small university. It will primarily be used by students to create multiple iterations of senior design projects. We are looking at investing a decent amount of money to get a machine which will make working with surface mount components as easy as possible. The goal is not to have students develop the best skills possible to assemble SMT PCBs, but to make it possible for them to work with SMT components with minimal effort, and to allow them to use devices which otherwise would be out of reach without a pick and place.

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alphatronique
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by alphatronique »

HI

was semi auto type from atco ,but older model of SA ,main problem was not from atco but only to machine type
lose part was not easy to handle ,resistor was flipped not flat so hard to pick in center if not pick on center VAC
on needel tip make it slip and go on the side or else ,so tape exist for a good reason ;-)
same for IC pin will mix-up ,then when take one chip it will raise other to or/and bend pin then cause assembly issue
so end up to make it by hand and never use the machine ...

so use cut tape and tweeser free-hand make better job and almost same speed and no need programming machine
scotch tape cut tape on a plate whit a good hand rest for be stable and it work good

as for essemtec it only one i knot whit prism vision that really great/must for BGA and QFN
and that a big advantage compared to hand placement so that may wort to use/buy a machine
since even whit assisted X ,Y system place a BGA/QFN was not easy since silk may off whit pad , pcb outline bit off
and else so that wly pick place rely on local fiducial for place that part ,essemtech solve it by use prism show you 2 image
one for pcb pad and one for part ,then you place for bot image melt into one (better refer to image my english was limited)

as for neodem sill not to bad for it price range ,i think it will become popular and not use real feeder

Best regard
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tonnyneoden
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by tonnyneoden »

TM4120V(NeoDen4-with internal rails)with cameras, the brand new and long awaited model of NeoDen, is a desktop Pick and Place machine with vision system.
As a professional PnP machine designer and developer, NeoDen has been doing research in SMT industry from 2010.

NeoDen4 is with dual cameras, auto rails, auto electronic feeders and 4 placement heads, which could help to handle 0201,
BGA, QFN and 0.8m/1.2m/1.5m LED strip. NeoDen4 is the best choice to satisfy all demands of high precision, high capacity, stable performance and low cost. This is a huge breakthrough not only for NeoDen,but also for small and medium-sized enterprises, those who want to improve placement accuracy and speed up PCB assembly with a limited budget.

Can view more videos via below link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe5Fja ... shelf_id=0

Contact NeoDen Technology for more details:
Skype:tonny-neoden [email protected]

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jacob3219
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by jacob3219 »

I've ordered a pick and place machine a few months ago from Neoden.
I'm really satisfied with it, it's exactly what I've expected.
Until now I didn't have any problems with it and I can highly recommend it.
Regarding price, I don't think you can get a better one from a different company.

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tonnyneoden
 
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Re: Experience with ATCO pick and place?

Post by tonnyneoden »

@jacob3219

Thank you for your support,any questions,you can feel free contact to our technical support person.
Our company also release new pick and place machine Neoden7(very suitable for Production).

Best regards,
Tonny-Neoden

Skype:tonny-neoden
[email protected]
www.youtube.com/user/NeoDentech

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