In-house Pick and Place for $60,000

[Piotrek]

Hi,
we are looking for a pick and place machine that we can put in the house, so it has to meet two requirements: firstly it must weigh no more than 400 kg, and secondly it must fit through a doorway. With a budget of $60,000 (including feeders) the obvious choice seems to be a used "professional" machine like a Yamaha, but we lack the space for such a machine.

Chinese machines like neoden are already insufficient for us. They lack precision (even up to 0603 and 0.5 mm pitch housings) and require correcting the components after finishing the board with tweezers. Not to mention annoying feeders.

The closest to meet these requirements is Fritsch machine, but a new one exceeds our budget and there is no used one on the market. Do you have any ideas how to solve this problem (apart from buying a bigger place for the big machine)?

[SMTech]

Probably the most compact and common pick and place in Europe is the TWS Quadra, definitely get those in your budget.

 Essemtec FLX/Pantera https://www.machinio.com/?location=&page=2&search=essemtec#quickview/56748039 should be possible too, but I'm not sure on the size of your doorways. However easily get several older ones of these in your budget.

Autotronik https://www.autotronik-smt.de/en/products/smd-bestueckungsautomat/bestueckungsautomat-bs281s this is the smallest one they do but there are several others comparable to a Fritsch. I get the vague impression the 281 model may have issues/compromises as I've seen a couple of instances online of people who have got hold of second hand machines with no PC and can't get support for it. https://tools.adoptsmt.com/equipment/?language=en&id=41600 but here is a 2nd user one possibly

http://www.mechatronika.com.pl/ - These are almost certainly crap, but you can see some user video on Youtube and they are local to you which might make support better.

I think you should find the Chinese machines that start around the $20k do 0603 & 0.5mm pitch just fine, so the more expensive Neodens, & Kayos that don't claim to work on a benchtop.

If you haven't already maybe try Miro @ https://smtbroker.pl/

[Mangozac]

I want to point out that the lighter the machine is then the slower it will operate. Machines need to be heavy so that they don't jump around when the gantry arm is moving at high speeds.

"Fit through a doorway" is also a bit vague - what size is the doorway in question?

[Piotrek]

@SMTech

Thanks for your PnP suggestions.

We considered the TWS Quadra, but the accuracy placement is at 100μm, which is not the best result.

I have sent enquiries about used Essemtec FLX but always used equipment carries a risk and in the end something may be wrong. To avoid unpleasant surprises you need to have experience and check the machine well before buying it, which unfortunately is not always possible.

Autotronik looks ok, I am waiting for an offer from the distributor.

My (and not only my) opinion about Mechatronika is negative, I am not going to buy a machine from them because of their approach to the customer.

@Mangozac

We realise that a large machine is more stable and therefore has a number of advantages, but unfortunately we are not in a position to put something this large in our production facility.

The doorway is 90 cm wide, so we should be able to fit several of the machines mentioned above. We have learned that it is often possible to split the machine into two or more pieces, which makes it much easier to move.

[KaneTW]

I want to point out that the lighter the machine is then the slower it will operate. Machines need to be heavy so that they don't jump around when the gantry arm is moving at high speeds.

"Fit through a doorway" is also a bit vague - what size is the doorway in question?

Not entirely correct. Yes, higher masses will generally provide more vibration dampening. But that's just the brute-force solution. Doesn't mean it can't be done more weight-efficiently.

[48X24X48X]

The doorway is 90 cm wide, so we should be able to fit several of the machines mentioned above. We have learned that it is often possible to split the machine into two or more pieces, which makes it much easier to move.

I have an 80 cm door. It took me 2 trips to China to physically measured the machine dimension *myself* to 100% ensure it could go through my door. I have to disassemble the top half cover of my HWGC machine to go through the door with 2 cm to spare and that too it has to lie on it's side with a bunch of thick cloth on the floor to slide through. I have went through many machine that could and couldn't pass through my door and for your information, there's not that many unless you have lots of money for those tiny Essemtec Fox machine. As the head count increases, the total head weight increases especially if each nozzle is driven individually by it's own z-axis motor, so it needs some correctly weighted body to take care of the huge inertia when the head moves.

[Mangozac]

Not entirely correct. Yes, higher masses will generally provide more vibration dampening. But that's just the brute-force solution. Doesn't mean it can't be done more weight-efficiently.

Sure, but is it actually done any other way in the world of pick and place machines? Weight is the simplest and most cost effective solution and up to a certain point there is no disadvantage to the extra weight in production equipment like this.

[jmelson]

Not entirely correct. Yes, higher masses will generally provide more vibration dampening. But that's just the brute-force solution. Doesn't mean it can't be done more weight-efficiently.

Sure, but is it actually done any other way in the world of pick and place machines? Weight is the simplest and most cost effective solution and up to a certain point there is no disadvantage to the extra weight in production equipment like this.

There are only two ways to solve this problem.  One is to cut down the weight of the head and gantry.  There are limits to how much weight you can eliminate.  The second way is to add counterweights that move in the opposite direction, but that increases the mass the motors have to move.  Of course, slowing down also helps.
So, it is really a hard battle to win! If you want to mount 0402 and smaller parts and 0.5mm pitch ICs and finer, then positioning accuracy have to be really good, and stiffness of the axes is critical.
Jon

[MR]

@SMTech

Thanks for your PnP suggestions.

We considered the TWS Quadra, but the accuracy placement is at 100μm, which is not the best result.

I have sent enquiries about used Essemtec FLX but always used equipment carries a risk and in the end something may be wrong. To avoid unpleasant surprises you need to have experience and check the machine well before buying it, which unfortunately is not always possible.

Autotronik looks ok, I am waiting for an offer from the distributor.

My (and not only my) opinion about Mechatronika is negative, I am not going to buy a machine from them because of their approach to the customer.

@Mangozac

We realise that a large machine is more stable and therefore has a number of advantages, but unfortunately we are not in a position to put something this large in our production facility.

The doorway is 90 cm wide, so we should be able to fit several of the machines mentioned above. We have learned that it is often possible to split the machine into two or more pieces, which makes it much easier to move.

I think we will overrun Mechatronika until the end of this year (from a commercial point of view), meaning replacing their pick and place head with a multihead version and offering single feeders for their machines. So the main machine doesn't have to be moved but can be upgraded to something meaningful. We've had the software done a few years ago already, but the feeders are unfixable; Plastic tapes just won't work reliable without a hack with their stub push feeders, and the setup time is too terrible. The block feeders are driven by a single nema 17 stepper (16 lanes), and retracting the push stub is done via gravity; plastic tapes can seriously jam the entire block.

The gantry controller can stay the same, but they're only dodging in Delta motors nowadays.
We are about to finish electronic single feeders (CNC milling/yamaha compatible but with a mechatronica compatible protocol since the volume certainly won't be that big). So far we have milled around 30 pieces (large stepper + gear and sprocket driven, 11.5mm thick).
Their gantry system is okay, and replacing the camera system isn't a big deal (I'm from that industry field).

From my experience, be sure that the feeders are okay, they're such a keypart for any pick and place machine and obviously good feeders are more difficult to design than the entire machine because things are much smaller and basically everything there is customized.

Mechatronika is and always has been a disgrace for this industry. Who else will sell pick and place head controllers without bypass capacitors... any engineer should know what that means next to a microcontroller. They even dared to deliver a machine with slightly loose pulley on the Y axis which made the entire gantry to oscillate (not a single time they commented that issue nor investigated that issue but put the problem that the user has no training and it's his fault). It required to lift heavy parts from the machine...

Last but not least the owners are >65 years old; which means they just take what comes in but no further.

Ontop of that the resellers / distributors charge like 500 EUR a year for some service that is absolutely not needed. Yes make things unnecessary complicated so customers have to get back to you... I mean if there's value behind it it shall be okay but there's no value behind that because the product is not engineered well enough
Pay attention that if you have to pay some service fee that there's real value behind that.

[jayx]

With the max weight of 400kg and fit through 90cm doorway you may be limited to benchtop machines.
I have experience with Autotronik so can advice about them, but not the service as the machine didn't even broke once in over 10 years. The only thing which required replacement were a few small nozzles.

Essemtec looks pretty good, but they may be too big/heavy.

Also I think new Autotronik, Essemtec or Fritsch will be close to your budget just for the machine and you need to add feeders to that which may be quite expensive. And speaking about feeders, you haven't specified your requirements for the machine capacity and how many you'll need initially. This is quite important factor.