That is so true. and not only that but a lot of shops, even reputable ones will farm out or have A/B/C teams. I used a largish company in Los Angeles for defense/military work and they’d been great. But when we ran thru some boards that were just for regular commercial/industry and it was really bad. Lots of rework require, they did do the rework but after getting it back i’d rather we’d have done it ourselves…
Any idea if the NEODEN 4 may be worth the price difference? We are thinking on wether to pick a NEODEN 4 or a CHMT48VB (half the price) but there is a huge disparity of opinions. I sometimes wonder if it is just bad faith competitors shit posting.
Alternatively we are considering HW-T4SG-50F (very similar to SMT550, if not the same) as in the same price range of the NEODEN 4 but I’ve found some guys online very frustrated with the software…
If you plan to have frequent swap outs of loaded part, then the Neoden 4 with parts feeder is the better way to go. If you change the parts loading often, then the CHMT48VB and similar machines are annoying to load/reload.
1 Like
There was a bit of a prominent blow up with Charmhigh about two years ago:
1 Like
We will be assembling just 3 designs, one batch per design. Quickly swapping feeders I believe is not very relevant to us at this point.
On of our designs has 0402 passives and a STM32F7 0.5mm pitch. That is one of my main concerns. I can’t find a uniform review on what to expect.
I am aware of it but that same guy seemed happy with CHMT36VA…
I have a TM240A - the progenitor of machines like the CHMT48VB. As long as you have enough feed slots on the fixed-feeder designs so that you can load all the parts you need, it should be fine.
With vision, I would expect 0402’s and 0.5mm pitch to be achievable, though you might need to slow down the run speed and may need to do some tweaks to dial in the placement.
Vision helps to remove the picking error that comes from the parts floating inside the tape pocket.
1 Like
The variability in reviews is IMO down to a few things:
- QA does vary a lot. Some people get better or worse machines I’m pretty sure. The manufacturer isn’t replacing your machine unless it’s totally broken. So people can both be right.
- The software varied a lot with how well it worked (especially camera), I’m using an older version but it worked well. I saw complaints with some recent versions at the time (haven’t looked in a long time).
- It’s a cheap machine so it’s not going to be as good as an expensive machine. People expect too much from it. Also people haven’t used any PnP before so also expect too much from the PnP in general IMO. Even fancier PnP are moderate-touch machines most of the time, they could be dialed into being low-touch for specific runs but that is also a time investment. Don’t trick yourself into thinking it’s load & go without much thought.
- The quality of your paste printing is a huge part of the success/failure (along with reflow oven etc).
0.5mm TQFP are almost the worst part for this thing to deal with, as any rotational error causes shorts. One issue with the CHMT36VA is (at least on my machine) a “rotational jitter”, which seems unrelated to anything else (even trying to fix the pickup position, pickup height, strength, camera, etc). I suspect it’s just related to the step angle resolution being too low, so it never gets a “perfect” placement rotation.
Those STM32F / 0.5mm TQFP / 64-pin need constant nudging, and occasional rework for shorts (solder wick). It’s very doable but be aware it’s hands-on. We’ve done 100-LQFP, they work but similar.
The major downside with the CHMT48VB is the SW is all via touch screen, no separate PC. If you aren’t going to be changing files or stuff a lot this is less of an issue, if you just want to run a few designs it means the initial setup time will be a bit longer (setting up which parts are on which feeder, etc). But once you are setup you won’t care (and in fact the built-in PC is probably an advantage for you).
Hope this helps!
2 Likes
i have a neoden 4 and a tm220a , the neoden 4 is a much more capable machine…
i can’t really add much to what colin and ToyBuilder said, except to just amplify the heed your expectations these machines are all cheap and cheerful, we have juki’s and philips pnp’s as well and they’re a lot better built but they cost a lot more and i still use the n4…
reel mount and dismount on the neoden 4 is a PITA thats my biggest remorse about it that it’s not a swappable cartridge and in some ways its harder to do than the TM220 style… there are a lot of little things that you just have to try and adapt too as well, the software is like most software made for these machines, it just about gets the job done
not sure if i’m a bad faith chap or not, but there are notes on the neoden on my wordpress too.
would i buy it again, yes i would, but i’d still have remorse about the loading system. but like i always do first, i’d check ebay to see what older machines are available (though we are pretty much out of space now! )
2 Likes
I know I saw tape reel feeders… And I have seen package listings that have the machine plus some number of feeders…
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32810465571.html
Oh… Now that I am looking at it much more carefully, it see that the peeled-cover-tape take up is ganged! D’oh! I just lost a chunk of my lusting for the Neoden 4!
This is so very very very true. I have had a few times where I got a little sloppy/lazy/hurried and then proceeded to regret it a lot after reflow.
2 Likes
indeed, they’re fixed into place with screws and they’re fiddly to remove. you can remove them individually to a degree, but not like a normal PNP feeder.
we had been contemplating a way to design a new removeable feeder or change the mounting plate so it can take like a yahama feeder but its one of those things that is just on the ever growing list of things to do and life is short and violent.
as for pasting, absolutely, garbage in, garbage out.
2 Likes
One thing I learned from this Amp Hour episode with Ken Burns is to always use fresh solder paste. This changed my success rate with our PNP massively. Our machine, a SmallSMT VP-2500HP-CL32 is pretty good, but the software isn’t exactly a dream. It’s also lacking some failsafes, so it’s possible to do stupid mistakes that could have beem avoided. It’s not exactly low pirce, but not too bad either? One of our members purchased it for a personal project, but the goal is that the hackerspace/makerspace will take over the machine eventually (as we do with many private machines in the space that are being used by many).
some people have used loctite gc10 to get around the freshness issue, i haven’t fully gotten into that headspace yet and tend to still use new paste. the consistency of the gc10 has been different for us, but still working it out
The VP-2500HP-CL32 looks very versatile actually. We are also considering HWGC HW-T4SG-50F aka SMT550 as it is in the same price range as the Neoden4
I use a SMT550 for assembling 0201 compenents.Works fine.