Charmhigh 560P4 Pick-and-Place

[cmantunes]

Hi!

I currently own a CHMT36 but have been following what Charmhigh has been doing lately. Their new machine with Yamaha feeders, particularly the 560P4 appears very impressive, as seen in the video below. 2017 may be the year I upgrade but if anyone gets one first, I'd like to hear your opinion. BTW, I requested a quote and will post it once I get it. I'll also tell their sales manager about this thread in case she'd like to stop by and answer some questions.



Carlos

[cmantunes]

As an update, price of the machine given to me was USD $5950.00 + shipping, which to the US amounts to roughly $1050.00 via DHL.

I'm considering upgrading to this machine in 2017 but if someone gets it first, I'd love to hear your experience with it.

[glenenglish]

Hi Carlos

I'd buy another QiHe TVM920- QiHe have (so far) proved their commitment to getting things right even if it costs them money... The factory is quite open to suggestions and their English speakers are pretty good. Quality is excellent. Management seem committed to having a quality product and understand it.

And also, the OpenPNP support is progressing quickly.

Agreed, TVM920 costs a bit more than the Charmhigh.

Glen.

[Spikee]

TVM920 is 39800 rmb on taoboa -> 5780 USD at this moment

[cmantunes]

I'd buy another QiHe TVM920

The TVM920 is certainly under consideration but it is the opinion of quite a few people the software sucks big time. I don't know if I want to rely on the promise of a fully functional OpenPnP in the future. The Charmhigh people are not software wizards for sure but their software works well, at least on my CHMT36. If QiHe were to facilitate the conversion of their machine software's to OpenPnP, I'd give it a higher chance of being chosen.

[Spikee]

If i would buy a machine at this moment it would be the CHM-T530P4 (4400 euro on taoboa) or the
CHM-T560P4 (5400 euro on taoboa).

TVM920 seems like a good machine but their software does not seem quite there.
If you really want to do openpnp it is probably much easier to just change the driver board
to something thats just compatible with the openpnp.

According to Qihe sales they are not working on openpnp integration at this moment.
Or just retrofit with the SMALLSMT controller when it comes out.

There are many videos online of the CHM placing 0402 , ic's , mixed boards ... so that seems to work fine out of the box.
and it is the only one that seems to sell in decent quantities:
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.5-c.w4002-14546583440.13.D1J1f9&id=526223800445
(56 sales)

And at 4400 euro the T530P4 seems like a good fit, cheap enough that it is ok if there are some small issues
but more than capable for that sort of money.

Qihe seems to be improving their software and their marketing but it seems like they have some (months) to go.

SmallSMT has a nice machine coming but it is at least twice as expensive as the 530P4.
Better software but depending on your needs that does not really care.

I saw with my liteplacer that you don't need complicated vision for this stuff. As long as you align on the "rectangle" of the IC it is fine.
even for bga. For sensitive chips like BGA just take it slow.

I have assembled BGA by hand before and in my opinion it is easier than QFN. So it should be easy enough for a decent pnp to do it.

I'm going to wait till march and see how Qihe / smallsmt / CHM have progressed. And pick one at that time.

---
The pro of the TVM920 is that it is heavy (220 kg gross) my experience with cnc's tell me that weight makes a (fast) machine much more stable.
Some people that have the TVM920 say the software is not there yet but the question is what are the big problems?
is some simple pre-processing on the PNP file enough to get it working well or are there bigger issues. What the specific problems are remain unanswered now.

Qihe at least have english support and seem to answer questions pretty quickly.
The TQFN offset correction seems a bit "loose" in their manual. I wonder if it would work well with small BGA's like BMA222 and WCLP packages (i do this by hand now)

[Ribster]

Anyone has got experience with the CHM-T560P4 ?