PACE XR 3700 Real-Time X-Ray Inspection System

[Hydrawerk]

Anyone familiar with the XR 3700 Real-Time X-Ray Inspection System?

https://www.tequipment.net/Pace/XR-3700-8007-0542/
https://paceworldwide.com/sites/default/files/2019-07/XR-3500_XR-3700_Manual.pdf
Why was it discontinued by manufacturer? Why is there no alternative product by PACE? Was it a bad / unsuccessful product?
Is there a similar product made by another company?

[Hydrawerk]

 
https://www.elmatik.ee/img/toode_866_XR3700.jpg

[Hydrawerk]

Nobody? So was the PACE XR 3700 so rare that nobody here has seen it?

[Shock]

It's a $40k tool and quite specialized (but handy), I doubt people have them just laying around the house. Who knows, perhaps low demand or certain parts are hard to keep sourcing.

[thm_w]

Wonder how well some cheap dental xray compares to a machine like that https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805196268689.html They don't mention the adjustability of it.

[daisizhou]

In my opinion, this device has no practical use.It is only used to check whether the BGA welding quality is complete.
If you have personally welded BGA chips, you can accumulate experience and completely avoid using this machine for testing, except for those who wish to obtain certification

[Shock]

They are super useful in a production environment and can be used at every step for quality control.

[daisizhou]

I understand that it is used for quality control.For electronics enthusiasts, its cost-effectiveness is very low

[MathWizard]

Like 100yrs ago or so, they used to have X-ray machines in shoe stores, so people could get a nice fit. But they ended up giving people cancer.

I guess it was basically just an X-ray photo machine, but still, at least it must have been fairly cheap.

[BarnowlsNest]

I created an account just to reply to this. I used to operate one of these during my time as a lab tech at Purdue University. I think they still have one there.

[thm_w]

I created an account just to reply to this. I used to operate one of these during my time as a lab tech at Purdue University. I think they still have one there.

Checking boards that students had built or?

[helius]

Like 100yrs ago or so, they used to have X-ray machines in shoe stores, so people could get a nice fit. But they ended up giving people cancer.

I guess it was basically just an X-ray photo machine, but still, at least it must have been fairly cheap.

Not at all! The shoe store fluoroscope was rather high power and operated continuously, as opposed to a brief moment in a conventional x-ray camera. That was how it made the bony image appear visible on the scintillation screen. If the x-ray tube was turned off, the image would vanish within milliseconds.

[BarnowlsNest]

I created an account just to reply to this. I used to operate one of these during my time as a lab tech at Purdue University. I think they still have one there.

Checking boards that students had built or?

Yeah. We had a PACE IR 3000 BGA soldering machine. We used the X-Ray to verify they were soldered correctly. I would also use it on QFN packages.

I should mention that the XR 3700 runs as a standalone machine as well. It does not have to be connected to an IR 3000 or anything else. It has a BNC video output on the back. We used a BNC to composite video cable to run the video to an old monitor. The main reason to connect it to an IR 3000 was that you could generate "reports" which were really just PDFs of pictures taken from the XR 3700. Since we didn't use the reports, it was more convenient to place the XR 3700 in a different spot in the same room.