New and preowned Pick&place machine for 10K USD? Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[jvadillo]

Hi all!
after hours of manual hand soldering and after spending thousands of euros subcontracting PCB assembly, we have decided to buy a fully automated pick&place machine.

Our main assembly requirements are 0805/0603 for passives and TQFP-64 0.5mm pitch for ICs.

We have a very limited budget (10k to 15k EUR / 15K to 20K USD) for the PnP machine and we were wondering if it is better to purchase a new unit or a used one.

We have been investigating different alternatives for new equipment, and these are the conclusions:
- Manncorp FVX Benchtop is the basic one from Manncorp and it is already out of our budget.
- Termway TP300V: this one has vision and seems to be quite good and costs USD18000. However this is a chinese manufacturer and I cannot get any feedback from people using it in the real world.
- Essemtec Pantera without vision is in the range of the 40K EUR, so it is out of our budget
- Mechatronika M10V: this one has vision and the total budget including some feeders is almost 20K EUR. It is slow, as it can place 1600 CPH, but up to what we have now, it is the best option, although it is over our budget. I have read some info about it here http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=25866, but it was from last year and maybe there are more people there using it.

In the second-hand market we can get here in Spain one TWS Quadra Mechanical for 12k EUR, but up to what we have heard they are not reliable assembling small parts and fine pitch. And we have the option of an Autotronik BS383V1 for around 35000 EUR, but it is out of our budget.
We have seen lots of offers for 15k USD machines outside Spain, and we have written a lot of emails asking for details and 90% of the people are not even answering us.

Well, what is your advice? Would you go for the Mechatronika? Do you know any other manufacturer for low cost PnP machines? Any one of you wants to sell his old equipment and ship it to spain?

Juan

[alphatronique]

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[jvadillo]

Thanks for your comments. I can see that you have a vast experience in the field.

We have several second hand options that are really low cost solutions for the assembly capacity that can offer. Among them we have:
- Contact 3AV
- CSM84VZ
- GSM1

However I really fear that buying a second hand unit might be a great deal but it can also become a nightmare. I have only one chance to get something working. If I spend the money I have for the PnP and the unit I get is not operational, or has so many issues that it becomes painful, then I will have an economical problem.

The PCBs I plan assemble are placed in a bench top drawer style oven, so I cannot expect high production volumes. With a 10000CPH the oven will become definetly the bottleneck.

You say that low cost machines rely on vision to do the job, and I agree. An old machine with no vision or with less vision capabilities, might rely on mechanical precision, but you know that a well used machine will have wear, and might have problems with fine pitch or 0603, which are the range of components I mount.

I have been looking carefull into xline, brandford and DoveBid. In fact all my oscilloscopes come from there :-) and I am quite satisfied. But one thing is moving one oscilloscope to Spain, and a different thing is moving a 2000 kg machine. The transport costs a fortune (from 2000 in Europe up to 6000 if it comes from USA)

Thanks for the comments regarding the Zevatech. I have seen plenty of PCB assemblers in my area using those machines, and I wondered if they were good or not.

I will continue looking, but I plan to take the decision next week. I will post it here.

[alphatronique]

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[tonnyneoden]

This is Tonny from China ,I am a salesman at NEODEN TECH CO.,LTD .
We’d like to introduce my company and products to you ,hoping that we may build business relations with you .

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My email address is : Tonny@neodentech.com

[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:
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