DDM Novastar L-SF40 benchtop PnP any good

[johnnyfp]

Anyone got or reviewed a L-SF40 Pick and place from DDM Novastar?

Seems to have Vison, is nice and small for short runs and the base unit is rumoured to be US$2000(not confirmed).

[Dielectric]

Nope, although I tried to get some quotes and got no response from DDM.  They were nice enough to add me to their announcements/spam list though.

[johnnyfp]

They have redirected me to an Australian Reseller, now I wait for a reply.

[johnnyfp]

Well I was an order of magnitude out. $20k! correction $17k How is that "entry-level affordable"?

Wonder if the Aussy firm has put a massive markup on that.

Could someone from the States get a local quote please? Just to check that we are not being riped off.

[rx8pilot]

I have been lookingat this machine recently. In general I have been scared of the ultra cheap junk out there for the hobby market.  I want a low volume, easy to use P&P that is made for professional use. Since I make my living designing electronics, it is important that I find a reliable solution that is supported. I have no experience with DDM Novastar, but after some conversation with them, I feel good so far.

$16k USD is not a bad pric for a professional piece of gear like this. I learned many hard lessons whrn I built my CNC machine shop. In the end, I found that the least expensive machines and tools ended up being very expensive. I went high-quality up front and ultimately spent less money. I expect to find a similar experience with electronics assembly.

If I buy one of these, I will certainly be vocal about the experience.

Carlos

[johnnyfp]

Yes but would you buy one at that price just on hearsay and reviews vs actually seeing one in operation? It's a lot of money to spend for something that you might not get on with.

[rx8pilot]

I think I would fly over to see it functioning first. There are no reviews or user feedback that I can find. The brochure PDF is limited as well. I did, however, have a  great conversation with them last week and they were very helpful. It should be said that they are realistic about what this machine is intended to do. It probably will not be a good choice for super fine pitch and certainly not right for real production volumes. The draw for me is that it seems to be easy to change over to different board designs. Sometimes I need to make 10pcs of 10 different boards quickly.   

[odingalt]

I tried contacting them three times, around the time they changed their company name to DDM.

They never contacted me back.  I ended up taking around $80k of business to MannCorp instead.  MannCorp - service is A+, prices are very high for what you get however...  I'd like to see a DDM machine in person some day, does anyone had a vid or demo of their software?  The MannCorp (aka autotronik) software is completely awful.

[miguelvp]

A quick youtube search found this:

[johnnyfp]

Yeah that's the stock low quality only You Tube movie of the machine. Need someone who has actually bought one to give us a video.

[donovan]

I tried contacting them three times, around the time they changed their company name to DDM.

They never contacted me back.  I ended up taking around $80k of business to MannCorp instead.  MannCorp - service is A+, prices are very high for what you get however...  I'd like to see a DDM machine in person some day, does anyone had a vid or demo of their software?  The MannCorp (aka autotronik) software is completely awful.

They gave my startup the same silence and runaround treatment. I can not understand how a company can stay in business handling potential customers poorly. What i know is that when a company changes name usually from getting bought, it undergoes significant organizational restructuring and that can causes internal frictions, bug down operations and cause it to isolate itself from the outside world while that goes on, and that hurt its dynamism in the short term. It then either re-emerges as a better company or ... well, starts spiraling down.
So i am also about to take a business of about $50K to Manncorp instead because they at least are doing their job and responding and treating people decently even though I agree they ask too much for what they offer. If the way i was ignored repeatedly by DDD Novastar is indicative of what to expect from them in product support then i should be thankful for finding that out upfront. They seem stifled by organizational bureaucracy and not knowing whose job it is to take care of customers. Unless they are swarmed by requests which I doubt, all other companies reply in 1-2 days but novastar asked me to wait more after a week of no response to multiple requests and then just ignored me. Good luck with a company like that sourcing your critical equipment (sarcasm).

[rx8pilot]

They answered my calls right away and answered my questions. I too was tempted by Manncorp, but my feeling was that the product was not very good. I never used one for real, but looking at the design closely, I was not getting a good vibe. In the end, I got a used Quad machine.

My business struggles with timely communication as well. It sucks and I am not proud of it, but I have to be careful about adding dedicated sales people. Good sales people will answer quickly and work a deal, but they have a huge learning curve, they are expensive, and they end up passing questions off to engineering anyway. Just saying, that DDM Novastar is a small business. When I called, I talked directly to the designers that know all the details. The problem is that they are not always available. I would rather deal with that limitation than Manncorp products where they are a bottom feeding broker.