There's a WORKING MX20 on eBay USA for $699+$450 shipping. If someone needs it, grab it now.
For noncommercial use I'd just look for a Faxitron cabinet. It will be much cheaper. The Faxitron only does 35 kVp versus 50 kVp, but it's rare that 35 isn't enough for basic reverse-engineering tasks and inspection of PCBs with less than a dozen layers.
The Chinese machine would come with manufacturer support, of course. Presumably.
35kVp is very limiting - it's ok on some PCBs with a few, thin layers but if you're buying something specifically for PCB work you definitely need more as there will be many boards for which 35kVp is pretty useless.
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I don't use my MX20 much, but have often been disappointed at what's visible on the max 35kv,19 sec settings
For noncommercial use I'd just look for a Faxitron cabinet. It will be much cheaper. The Faxitron only does 35 kVp versus 50 kVp, but it's rare that 35 isn't enough for basic reverse-engineering tasks and inspection of PCBs with less than a dozen layers.
The Chinese machine would come with manufacturer support, of course. Presumably.
If it's commercial, what value do you expect to get from having one?
How is the $7k going to pay itself back?
Plenty of full time assembly places have them, and they're great for running first articles of a batch through to test process suitability, but for non fulltime production, and a limited number of in house products you can really get into optimisation for over multiple batches, how much value does this imaging have?
Removing the uncertainty out of a prototype that is using BGA's etc were you can't see the pins.. Once you have a working prototype, you can be confident the design works. When its untested, theres lots of areas.. Is the board designed ok, was it soldered properly..
Removing the uncertainty out of a prototype that is using BGA's etc were you can't see the pins.. Once you have a working prototype, you can be confident the design works. When its untested, theres lots of areas.. Is the board designed ok, was it soldered properly..I think you're a bit too paranoid about BGAs. BGA reflow technology is much better than you think, and in many cases you can isolate the problem quite easily without x-ray.
Yeah nah, imagine if the BGA you are using is high density and/or fine pitch. How are you going to verify that a ball in the centre of the package has soldered down properly (good fillet with pad, minimal voids...)
Yeah nah, imagine if the BGA you are using is high density and/or fine pitch. How are you going to verify that a ball in the centre of the package has soldered down properly (good fillet with pad, minimal voids...)It's easy - even a single uncollapsed ball will not let the device "drop" during reflow (anyone familiar with BGA will know what I'm talking about) so you can easily see if there is a soldering failure. But if you follow manufacturer's recommendations regarding stencil thickness (important for very fine-pitch BGAs, <0.5 mm) and reflow profile, the chances of failure are extremely low. Unless your devices are going to be used in some super-critical systems like life support, it will take an eternity for X-ray machine to pay for itself. Just look up (or ask your assembly house if you have one) the failure rate of BGA soldering and you will see that it's very low.
Yeah nah, imagine if the BGA you are using is high density and/or fine pitch. How are you going to verify that a ball in the centre of the package has soldered down properly (good fillet with pad, minimal voids...)It's easy - even a single uncollapsed ball will not let the device "drop" during reflow (anyone familiar with BGA will know what I'm talking about) so you can easily see if there is a soldering failure. But if you follow manufacturer's recommendations regarding stencil thickness (important for very fine-pitch BGAs, <0.5 mm) and reflow profile, the chances of failure are extremely low. Unless your devices are going to be used in some super-critical systems like life support, it will take an eternity for X-ray machine to pay for itself. Just look up (or ask your assembly house if you have one) the failure rate of BGA soldering and you will see that it's very low.
would only need to eliminate the uncertaintiy from two or theree situationas and it woudl pay for it self.
Connected can be so variable. A whisker thin join would pass a boundary scan and fail a few months later.
I'm quietly hoping someone buys one of these cheap x-rays and posts some honest feedback.
How dpoes that scope see pins that are past the first row?
How dpoes that scope see pins that are past the first row?