I don't understand what you are arguing with. First of all, the price of 0603 is about 25-50% higher than 0402, and is on the order of $0.003 per piece. So no, not considerably. I'd be surprised to see a design where cost of resistors dominates or even takes non-insignificant part of the total cost of BOM for the entire device.
Second, why do you keep talking about yourself? I think we already established that this product does not suit you
This is not a "small scale production machine", it is barely a prototyping machine. I.e. if I want to build 10 prototypes of my boards with 160 parts that I want to machine place, this is already 1600 parts. Loading that many parts in strips is a non-starter, there is not enough space on the machine to hold the PCB and parts. Running any kind of production on this is out of question.
Not necessarily, but certainly far from ideal. If you have a low-volume product where you need 10 boards a month, a machine like this could still be a viable option, but lack of the option to add reel feeders makes it a dead end if you're likely to need more capacity in future.
I have around 5-6 PCB designs that I need 10pcs/month typical. As you said - the absence of reel feeders is very cumbersome. Each board has way more parts that will fit into the machine meaning I could never assemble a whole PCB. These boards are not particularly advanced either. They all have 0402 passives and cannot go bigger because of space restraints.
I don't see the lack of reel feeders as being the deal-breaker that everyone else does. If the machine is cheap enough, just pipeline two or more of them.
In china there are prototype PCBA services which have ended the need for home PnP machines for hobbyists; they have a library of a few hundred passives and a long line of PnP machines that have the parts permanently loaded, so there is no set-up and very little labor needed per design.
2. The small footprint on a desktop (I mostly design boards less than 4-6 square inches with a BOM of less than 20 parts)
Prices:
0402
10000+ € 0,0006
50000+ € 0,0005
1206
25000+ € 0,153
I'm sorry I missed the indiegogo campaign on this,
2. The small footprint on a desktop (I mostly design boards less than 4-6 square inches with a BOM of less than 20 parts)I think you would be better off spending money on a microscope. You will need it anyway, since inevitably placement of this type of machines need to be checked and often corrected. If you limit yourself to 1206 or larger parts, you won't have any problem placing them manually under microscope. With the size of your PCB and small BOM this restriction is no need to use smaller parts.
Prices:
0402
10000+ € 0,0006
50000+ € 0,0005
1206
25000+ € 0,153
You do the math.
Well, it's not just about eyesight.
but the ol' manual dexterity is not the same as it once.
If I could insert a board into a machine with pre-filled feeders, press a button and return in half-an-hour, this would be of great help. But such machines are too expensive for prototyping.
If I had to stick cut tapes into the machine every time I want to make a board, I don't really see how this would help me.