Thought I would chime in as I have gone from placing boards by hand in a shed 8 years ago with a toaster oven to now running multiple PnP machines in a commercial setting.
If you are running prototypes, 10-20-50 quantity, you can make use of a desktop PnP machine for your
common Rs and Cs and save some time by doing so.
Setting up a feeder for a random R or C that you will place 10-20 times is not worth the time, just place it by hand. When you get into the 50s, it can then be worth setting up the PnP if your board is more complex.
Placing 10-20 ICs by hand takes less time than setting up a plate or another feeder and dialing in the settings. You are also going to lose 1-2 ICs on tape if you don't have any lead tape to feed into the feeder.
Trays are great but take a few mins to setup. You also need the space for them. Some desktop machines don't have a lot of space so you might not fit a standard tray in or one at most.
You can 3D print a custom tray to hold multiple parts. Just swap them out between X amount of boards. But again, this is time that you could have just used to hand place 20-50 boards.
My best bit of advise is to work out how long it will take to place a board by hand. If it will take longer than 2 days, start moving your common parts over to the PnP machine.
Using decent paste, you can paste the board in the morning and reflow it the following evening. It will reflow fine as long as you are not in a very dry area or using old paste.
Place smaller pitch items first, the next day the paste will dry a bit and the smaller pitch items will reflow less well than if you place them when the paste is wetter.
If your machine does not support automatic nozzle changing, you either have to run the job multiple times, replacing the nozzle for each run or just hand place those few larger parts..
That being said. You can pick most parts with just 2 nozzles.
Juki 503 will pick 0402 to 1210 (slower speeds when above 0805 or the part falls off or rotates) and the 506 can pick up 1210 to ESP32s, again at slow speeds as long as your vacuum air is good.
This will cover most work.
Design your board with larger Rs and Cs if you can, you can then use larger nozzles which allows for more components to be placed using just two nozzles.
Juki 504 will place 0805 (imperial) and 5050 (metric) LEDs and even some large aluminum caps really well. Your 2nd nozzle is now free for much larger parts if you so wish.
As for ovens. The small 3 zones are great for small boards
if you send them in one at a time.
When you use a conveyor style oven, you are sending a board into multiple heating zones. When that board goes into a new zone, the heat level drops as the board enters and equalizes with the air temperature. The oven then needs to bring that zone and board back up to the target temperature.
This is why the likes of NeoDen will tell you to run their ovens very slow as they are running single phase off a 16 amp socket. You can't bring the heat back up fast enough to hit your target with only a few amps per zone.
You are better off running the boards slow rather than increasing the temperature of the zone so you reduce thermal shock to the board.
Draws are fine for prototypes and small runs. You do get what you pay for when draws. The nice commercial level ones are $3-5k for a reason.
I have one of those small Chinese draw ovens that got upgraded with better insulation, removed the paper tape and has a better controller in it. I think it is one from Unexpected Maker.
It is fine for small boards but they really do suffer from heat not getting to the outer outer edges. The bottom of the trays are sometimes not decoupled from the draw so they warp in the heat. Not ideal.
From my experience, only use the center 50% of these if you want a good reflow.
There are quite a few Chinese brands making and selling machines these days. There are a lot of things you have to watch out for when buying and I would always research what others have said about the machines and sellers before buying, especially in the budget area of PnP machines.
I have never owned a NeoDen. But I was going to get the NeoDen 4 or the newer one after that model back in the day.
I am glad I didn't and here is why.
Each of their machines is a new machine with new software every time. You can not run the NeoDen 4 software on their newer machines. This means they are making software each time for their new machines.
There is no uniformity between each machine and while they look nice and some of them have nice features, there is no long term software support for their machines.
The YY1, in my personal opinion, has been a monumental fk up since the start. I get they wanted to make a budget machine but they way they went about doing it has ruined it for a lot of the users of that machine.
On paper the machine is great and so is the price but shipping unfinished software, that is missing so many basic things to buyers that can not update the firmware is a major red flag.
There have been issues with their other machines as well. Sean has covered a lot of this himself as he has owned a few now, and I recommend checking out his channel
https://www.youtube.com/@UnexpectedMaker/search?query=NeodenCharmhigh machines are interesting. They sell the generic tabletop one that is okay if you are willing to put up with all of its flaws.
I have seen a few users use it well for doing prototypes runs and small production runs but they take up a lot of time. More than what I would have thought would be worth the saving from doing it by hand..
They also sell larger desktop style ones and full height production style ones.
The ones they sold a few years back were a bit shit, but the recent ones look a lot better.
They have nozzle changing but are also all using NXT feeders which are about $150 each for 8mm. So not something someone budget orientated will be into.
I have also seen a video where they show off one of their machines with no rail brakes/guards. If the power goes out, PC error or driver fails while that gantry is in motion, there is nothing stopping it from yeeting its self off those rails...
https://youtu.be/JIJMFGxr7Ok?t=4YX machines are made by HWGC.
I personally use HWGC machines in my factory and recommend them to everyone looking for budget PnP machines for production level assembly.
YX machines are cheaper than HWGC but they have lower quality parts on the machine, use older software and the support is basic and does stop after a while.
We have had a number of people join the Discord server (link in my signature) who have bought one of their machines and after a while needed support, to end up not getting any.
HWGC support is amazing. I talk with their sales/support rep all the time.
They have recently released a 2 head PnP machine that uses the same software as the production machines. This means you get most, if not all the production level software features in a small 2 head machine.
The software is also fully functional with very few issues. Runs on a Windows PC so no bullshit like NeoDen YY1.
Not sure about nozzle changes. It uses a different Juki nozzle than the rest of their machines so might be easier to change than standard 500 series Juki.
The machine does use Yamaha CL feeders. These are about $35 for a pneumatic 8mm right now. Maybe a little more if you only order 10-20 of them.
I got 3-4 replies on all my questions. The price is: $4580 and they offer 2x 8mm feeders if I decide quick (that's $140 value according to what they charge for the feeders).
You were told to buy quickly to get a discount or free items. This is a common trick used by some sellers who don't want you to look around. Thus you think you are getting a good deal but you are not.
They will also over charge on shipping or just send it to your local port for "free", where you will end up paying for the shipping charge once the container lands.
Also, YX does NOT have stock in the EU or USA. Do not listen to them.
They buy in goods directly from manufactures, rebadge if needed and then ship from China.
You can pick up Yamaha CL feeders for cheap when they are used. I bought about 200 a few years back at around £10-15 per feeder. It got me going when I was short of cash but these days I just buy brand new China clones. They work great and are cheap.
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