Essemtec Fox - thoughts?

[Ice-Tea]

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Pretty much my dreammachine. Not a chip-shooting dreadnaught, but a compact machine with room for a *lot* of feeders and (drumroll) does dispensing, ie no paste screenprinter required. Seems like the perfect match for a small shop, protos, small series...

So, any experiences? Anyone ever got one quoted (with the paste dispensing option)? What about feeders? Anyone got feeder prices for Essemtec? General Essemtec feedback? Anyone want to give me one for a kidney?

[harry4516]

a very high quality machine. Would buy it immediately if I have the money.
As I know its in the 50k+ price range.

[wraper]

Seems like the perfect match for a small shop, protos, small series...

Except likely they cannot afford it.

Anyone want to give me one for a kidney?

Don't think your kidney is worth enough 

a very high quality machine. Would buy it immediately if I have the money.
As I know its in the 50k+ price range.

And thinking it being on the bottom of that 50k+ range, would be quiet optimistic.

[harry4516]

And thinking it being on the bottom of that 50k+ range, would be quiet optimistic.

you are right, so lets continue with the Chinese toys.
For 50k+ I would buy a BMW, cannot place parts but makes lot more fun :-)

[mikeselectricstuff]

Found a posting saying 55K Euros excluding feeders.
Considering what's coming from China now, it's looking quite expensive.
If Neoden were to get their act together they could probably do an equivalent for 10-15K with feeders.

[Smallsmt]

Very nice machine!

The price is 46000€ plus VAT and 1200€ for 8mm feeder.

But I think this is ok.

[Ice-Tea]

Hey!

Thanks for the feedback ;)Is that number with the solder paste dispensers?

And, eh, 1200 for a single feeder? Oh, crap...

[mikeselectricstuff]

Hey!

Thanks for the feedback ;)Is that number with the solder paste dispensers?

And, eh, 1200 for a single feeder? Oh, crap...

With pick/place from big-name players, it's not uncommon for a set of feeders to cost as much as the base machine.
Making a reliable feeder is surprisingly hard.

[Ice-Tea]

I know, but 1.2k€? I mean, there's room for 120 feeders, so, uhmm... *counts on his fingers* Good Lord!

Edit: 1.2k, not 2.

[wraper]

I know, but 2k€? I mean, there's room for 120 feeders, so, uhmm... *counts on his fingers* Good Lord!

That's why I said EUR 50k is optimistic. I thought, it could cost 50k without feeders, but... when you stuff it with accessories it needs, it will be well over 100k.

[sparkswillfly]

I know, but 1.2k€? I mean, there's room for 120 feeders, so, uhmm... *counts on his fingers* Good Lord!

Edit: 1.2k, not 2.

From the video it looks like feeder cartridges are 10 units wide, for example 10 8mm or 4 8mm and 4 12mm, so maybe not so bad?

[Ice-Tea]

If it's 1k2 for effectively 10 feeders, then that's pretty decent..

[mikeselectricstuff]

If it's 1k2 for effectively 10 feeders, then that's pretty decent..

That's cheaper than Neoden..!
Hopefully the wider feeders would come as a mixed bank, so you didn't need to buy a whole feeder for 12,16 and bigger tape

[Ice-Tea]

Whar continues to amaze me is how little price info about "big brand" SMT equipment there is out in the open, not just about Essemtec, but everything. Bit of a bummer.

[technotronix]

Seems like the perfect match for a small shop, protos, small series...

Except likely they cannot afford it.

Anyone want to give me one for a kidney?

Don't think your kidney is worth enough 

a very high quality machine. Would buy it immediately if I have the money.
As I know its in the 50k+ price range.

And thinking it being on the bottom of that 50k+ range, would be quiet optimistic.

Did you tried any china manufacture. You will get in your budget i think.

[mairo]

If it's 1k2 for effectively 10 feeders, then that's pretty decent..

That's cheaper than Neoden..!
Hopefully the wider feeders would come as a mixed bank, so you didn't need to buy a whole feeder for 12,16 and bigger tape

http://www.essemtec.com/products.asp?ArtNr=hyQ-Feeder

At the bottom of the above link is a video showing single feeders as well, so I believe the 1.2k price could be for just one of these feeders. Mechatronika sells its bank feeders (10 or so per bank) for the M10V/MM600 machines for ~2k, so I doubt the Essemtec guys will be cheaper..

[LouisS2p]

I think this machine can fit what they call HyQ double tape feeder. I got a quote for 25 of these feeders in 8mm and it was 1.7k€ each.

Regarding the price this machine won't be under 100k with dispensing option and feeders. There is also the jetting head option which is much more stable and fast for solder paste.

All in all this is a high quality machine for people who can't afford to stop the production for reliability issues. In the component assembly business it is considered as a "slow" pick and place and aims the manufacturers with a high mix of products. The programming is very fast and intuitive.

[Ice-Tea]

Each? 😢 WoW. Thanks for the info, though..

[Kjelt]

If you look at 0.42 you see at left and right inside absolute encoders, probably optical from Renishaw or the sorts. Linear rails are probably from Rexroth so only those guides and optical encoders will cost >3k€ . Add the other axis, motors, etc etc and you look at 20k€+ on hardware costs.
This is necessary for the 50um accuracy for the 0201 components and that kind of quality is what sets it apart from the cheaper machines.

[SMTech]

The Fox is the baby brother to the Paraquda (240feeders) that I have and replaces the older FLX, I can tell you the hardware on some of the Paraquda.
Encoders - Are marked RSF
Drive Motors - BOB Gmbh
Drive Control Indel
All the pneumatics in the head are from SMC who have a range of bits specially for Surface mount machines.
The "workstation class" control computer, is not, mine shipped with the motherboard manual and its a decent consumer class model from ASUS built into a case by Moxa - who do make industrial controllers.
All the various modules that make up the control system are linked back to the control PC with gigabit ethernet and maybe a touch of legacy serial connectivity.
Software is heavily touchscreen optimized with all the features you might reasonably want in a machine like this, some of the features to improve workflow are optional extras and it uses dongles to enforce that.

You should still be able to spec a machine to come with CLM feeders which is what the FLX used to use, these are 10*8 lanes wide (in 8mm) and cost around €6500 the price comes down with larger tape sizes as you get fewer lanes. They do come in some banks that are a mix of sizes 3x24+16 & 4x8+4x12 for example.
An 8mm HyQ would be a dual lane feeder, the HyQ feeders are much faster, advancing something like 3 times faster than the CLM ones. In fact the Paraquda4 is slowed down by having them fitted by somewhere around 20-30%.

Dispensing options are varied, but forget about it, it seems like a brilliant idea but printing with a dispense head requires very specific paste formulations to work reliably and it will require continuous cleaning and maintenance. To get decent results you'd want the most expensive option which is €15k+ and that is an awful lot of stencils and its a whole extra step the machine has to do first, one dot at a time. Dispensing is brilliant for glues or extra paste if you have  designs that need that kind of thing.

Whatever you might like to think the Chinese machines are nowhere near getting close to even these machines, we've had ours 6 years now, and apart from 2 odd hiccups right at the beginning, one of which was related to power, completely problem free.

Oh when buying a machine like this, supply it with clean dry air, not straight from some dirty paintshop compressor or you will end up with a very expensive bill to repair the head.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Whatever you might like to think the Chinese machines are nowhere near getting close to even these machines, we've had ours 6 years now, and apart from 2 odd hiccups right at the beginning, one of which was related to power, completely problem free.

I don't think anyone would claim they are. You always get what you pay for. These machines are designed to run all day long for years, and so only of interest to subcontractors and mid-size companies with the volume to keep it fed.
The interesting thing is that before the Chinese machine, there was simply no option at all below around $50K, but now teh Chinese machines make it viable for much lower volume users to do production in-house.
Unfortunately so few people have first-hand experience of running a pick/place, there are a lot of unrealistic expectations.

[Kjelt]

I also never saw a chinese cheapo P&P place 0201 or smaller accurately, now I know why.
You need much higher accuracy in terms of place coordinates for placing, they don't put those expensive Renishaw absolute encoders on the axis just for fun, it gives the absolute coordinates in 10um or better resolution thus compensating all backlash and other time/movement related errors also making it unnecessary to home on a regular basis.
Their motors probably have the named 50um step resolution making that the weakest link.

All I am saying it sounds very expensive but looking at all the used parts and not to forget the good software what that costs to create (chinese software is usually garbage) it actually is quite decently priced at the named 50k€ although I have doubts about that price, it is probably much higher.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Feeders are also somewhat critical with 0201

[Kjelt]

They use linear motors on X (2) and Y axis 
Now the Fox² is released it has a jetprinter for paste and glue.
Looks awesome.
https://youtu.be/HH1e7qir3jk

[mrpackethead]

The Essmetechs i've seen are all impressive.  I'd be cautious about the paste dispense for really fine parts, and i'm not sure if it solves any good business problem.