I inquired about 1-on-1 training options to get a sense of the work flow. Its a four hour minimum which is $800. Was really hoping for a more flexible answer.
I cannot imagine why it would take anywhere near 4hrs to get a basic setup and program going.
For training, yes... but I'm sure they would be able to send you a sample placement program that you could look through. I'm not sure how things are done in the Windows GUI, but on my machine, you define pickups, placements, and then a program.
Pickups are just like an excel spreadsheet, with column titles of "Number, X, Y, Z, Length, Width, Height, Description, Alternate". The number is arbitrary and is just what is used in the placement program, so for example if I just put a feeder anywhere on the machine, I then move to it with the hand control and place the component directly in the center of the crosshairs. I then press the camera offset button on the hand control which moves the nozzle to where the crosshairs were on the screen. Then I jog down in Z and press the Vacuum toggle button and keep jogging down in Z a few thou at a time until I don't see the part jump up when I turn on vacuum. Then I just basically hit enter and the X/Y/Z coordinates of that pickup are stored. I use a set of calipers to measure the length/width/height of the part. They are entered in thousandths... so 0020 is 0.020". I enter whatever number I want to call that pickup, let's call it 1. And I enter description, like "10k 0805 Resistor".
Pickups are independent of the placement program.
Then I create the program to place parts. I start by defining my placement locations. Almost the same as setting pickups. I take a PCB and put some thin double sided tape on it, then load it into the machine as if I was going to place it. I can hit "pickup" on the hand control, it then asks me a pickup #... we programmed "1" before, so I hit 1 and press enter. The machine will go pick up an 0805 resistor.
Then I just got the head over to where I want to place the part and center it using the crosshairs on the camera. Then I press the button to switch from camera to nozzle which just moves the machine the X and Y offset amount so the nozzle is where the crosshairs were. Then I jog down in Z until the part touches... then just go down a little more - like 0.010" (until I just start to see the spring on the Z axis start to compress). Then I hit enter and that is my placement location. Then I repeat the placement teaching process for each location I want to put a 10k 0805 Resistor. In reality, I don't really need to reprogram the Z setting, and if I keep track of the X and Y coordinates of that 1st part, I can set a "MARK" in Eagle at that location, and then just look at the relative coordinates of each other component and rather than teaching those locations, I can just enter them by hand as new lines in the placement screen. Keep in mind the X axis is front-to-back on the Quad (at least on mine - X positive means head closer to you) and Y positive is head more to the left. Home is back right on the machine, so all your X and Y coordinates are positive from that home position.
You also define nozzle locations the same way you define pickups - a number, an X/Y/Z coordinate - and that's it.
For the placement program, it's ultra simple... you have already defined pickup locations, placement locations and nozzle locations and assigned them easy to remember numbers.
Your program then becomes
NOZZLE 1
PICK 1
PLACE 1
PICK 1
PLACE 2
PICK 1
PLACE 3
...
...
END
That program places a 10k 0805 resistor at location 1, then 2, then 3 and so on.
I realize my machines are DOS and yours is Windows, but the manner of operation is pretty much the same. The Windows version has some part management mumbo jumbo included, but you should be able to work through it. There isn't much to lose in experimenting... the Z rod bellows just unscrews, and without that, even at maximum down in Z, the head can't come into contact with the PCB or with the feeders.... so if you are worried about crashing the machine, just pull the Z rod and try to write a dummy program.
I'd also press PPM to sent you a test program, or look through the drive to see if there are any on there... I'd be very surprised if the prior owner took the time to wipe out all of his placement programs.