I also have radial CAP's that are 10mm high and your machine picks up parts that are up to 12mm high so its nice that the machine could place the caps also. With the CharmHigh & Neoden 4 machines the max part height is 5mm so I was going to have to place the Cap's by hand.
The machine can take parts 10mm height but you need to take care to avoid collisions. I think the modern caps can replace your 10mm height component at 6.6mm height which is much better for your placement.
I wanted to ask you about how much more accurate using the screw drive and linear rails are vs using the Belt Drive that most other systems use. The CharmHigh vision system now has encoders which I think is ideal for a belt drive but can you educate us on why you made the machine using the screw drive?
First of all you need to know a belt machine need to be calibrated because the belt length change over time. A belt need to be replaced too depend on your usage.
So you loose precision over time and need to adjust from time to time. Second problem is the belt machine loose precision if the speed is high because if the head need to stop it swings around the position. A ball screw machine stops immediately. We add the servo motors to our high precision machine because you suppress the vibration of the placement system caused by a stepper belt drive combination. So finally if you add the linear guide you achive the best precision over time especially if machine runs on high speed too.
A lasercutter has the advantage to cut when moving and it is mostly traveling one direction so if it stops the laser stop too. That's a different way of use.
Also you say on your website that you using your machines to professionally produce finished PCB's and you would not sell a machine that you were not personally happy with. That is good to hear, is there any way you could share some pictures and video of the production runs and boards that your machines are producing?
I showed some things on Twitter but I prepare some vidos and results soon.
Is your PC software open source or is it something custom? Do you consider it better than the PC software that comes with the NeoDen 4 based on what you have seen or do you know?
I think neoden 4 software is at the beginning and need some care to get finished but I believe our software is more user friendly.
We are now running our software for more than one year and it's been used on more than 140 machines so I can say it's not perfect but well tested.
The main problem of an integrated pc is the machine vibration and you need to maintain two systems as manufacturer.
As I asume Neoden software is running on windows XP did you ask if the software is licensed? And how about the network functions of an unsupported operating system?
We use an external PC and a windows 7 up to windows 10 compatible software build in dotnet.
Our main knowledge is inside this software so we can't share the source sorry!
I think the more you can share via pictures and videos of the machine in action the more people you will have interested in buying one. There are quite a few options on the market now in the 5-10K price range so its getting harder for the beginner to choose which is right for them and as a beginner it's important that we get it right since most of us are working with limited budgets.
I think the main problem is to buy a machine without the knowledge to operate.
We offer a online web training free of charge and before you buy the machine too!
We have operating manual and maintainance manual in english for our machine.
So you know all advantages and disadvantages before you buy!
I didn't cover our disadvantages.
Neoden 4 has a nice conveyor function if you need to produce long PCB we can build up to 360x500mm PCB's.
The addressable clear tape peel off is nice too because Neoden 4 can move a single feeder line to peel of the tape we can only run the peel off for the whole feeder on one side this can cause a tape cut on unused feeder after some time.
Modular feeder is only an option for Neoden 4 machine because you can't move out feeder and reel together. It's only to have a flexible configuration for your machine to apply different feeder sizes before you mount all the reels. A bigger pnp machine use a feeder cassette to carry the reel too.
We have a similar placement speed for a single or double head operation depend on the distance the head need to travel.
The feeder count on our machine is higher depend on machine and feeder size we can use up to 93 Feeder 8mm lines in one placement job.
Neoden 4 can take a picture for all 4 nozzles at one time we need to take the pictures in a line.
We add a nozzle changer soon and it is possible to upgrade any machine in field.
The vibration feeder on south side is coming too.
And for the last point I think our HP machines are nice because of ball screw spindle, servo drives, and linear guides. I was impresssed about the precision and performance compared to our belt machines.
So finally it depends on your needs which machine is better for you.
Best regards
Michael