As a 3V owner, I have been following and contributing to the threads about the Neoden 4 pick and place... such as:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/neoden-4-pick-and-place/The machines have a lot of similarities, especially the software, as well as the company itself and technical support. (which for me so far has been excellent)
I thought it might be worth starting a thread as a placeholder for 3V issues like the other thread has been for the 4.
I purchased the Neoden 3V Advanced 44 feeder in April 2018 and have so far done about 1000 boards.
I chose the 3V over the similar competition as it seemed to be a reliable and economical choice for a machine with a lot of feeders. I run a lot of difference designs so having a lot of feeders was important for me to keep machine changeover times down. I chose the 3V over the 4 as it's significantly cheaper and most of the features that make the 4 more expensive were not things I particularly needed.
For my uses, overall speed was not a large factor, my total quantities are low, and my manual stencil machine and (hacked) T962A oven make for a usable assembly line to do up to a hundred boards or so in one session. The 3V seems to keep up well enough, and I'm always hovering around so the automatic board-feeding capabilities of the Neoden 4 are impressive but not needed in my world.
The boards I produce are mostly 0805, SOIC, and SOT23, with through hole components added later. The smallest parts I have needed to place are TSSOPs (0.65mm pitch), which placed accurately. I have not needed smaller although the machine will apparently place 0402.
My designs are done in EAGLE, and to produce the placement file, I use the same ULP script as the 4 users do, the one from RaysHobby. It produces a file that you move to the machine with a USB stick, configure and align your feeders, and then mount. It works well although the component rotations might need adjusting after the first test. This might be related to the side and back feeder orientation on the 3V versus the 4, but for me some components came out sideways on the first run.
All the vision and alignment features work well. I usually use one small and one medium nozzle, so most of the 0805s are placed with the small nozzle and the ICs are placed with the larger one. This probably slows the machine down as it does most of the board with one nozzle, but it will pick two components at once until it runs out of components that are set to use the larger head. I could probably tweak this for speed but at this time not really necessary. The ICs place better with the larger nozzle or else they rotate slightly during quick movements and misplace. It also helps to set the travel speed slower for heavier components, which is easy in the UI.
For components that don't come on tape, it can be set up to load from a tray. I have just ordered a 24mm feeder from Neoden to try out, in the meantime I've been taking 20 pin SOICs off their 24mm tape and placing them in a 3D-printed tray on the work surface which works well. I have not used the vibration feeders yet.
Although taller than officially allowed, I have also placed 5.5mm tall capacitors from the same tray. It helps to place them last as there is no way to program the machine to avoid the taller components already placed during head movement. With some trial and error I've always found an order that works and then it is repeatable for every board.
In short, I'm happy with the machine, support has been excellent, and it does what it's supposed to do. I'd be happy to answer any questions from other owners or those considering.
Cheers.
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