Just got my Neoden4 and here is my review:
I ordered -
Neoden4 Machine w/ Rails
Solder Paste Stencil "Machine"
Some Extra Feeders
Stand
Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse
After placing the order, it took about 2 weeks to receive the packages. There were 4 packages, DHL brought 3 of them in a van, and the last in a box truck (it was in a big crate).
Everything was packed VERY WELL. The machine was bolted to rubber pads that were bolted to the crate floor. It looked like they put a lot of care in shipping.
Since this thread focuses on the machine, I won't go into the Solder Paste Stencil Thingy-ma-bob.
The Stand -
It is made of thicker steel (like a sheet steel), and bolts together with a zillion allen head bolts. It came with a thick rubber mat that lays on top of the finished stand. Assembly time was pretty quick and went without a hitch. It's not super heavy, but has some weight to it. I can understand when people say you should fill the inside of it with sand bags or concrete It's slightly shaky when you have that machine on top of it swinging the head around...
The Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard -
Typical old school VGA dell monitor (was it 1280x1024 or something like that?). They give you a super long VGA cable which came in handy. The mouse and keyboard were actually really nice. Both wireless and uses a little dongle that you can plug into one of the USB ports around the machine.
The Machine (Neoden4) -
It was well packed, very clean, and very heavy duty. I was very surprised at the quality of the machine. It looks like it has a lot of Steel and Aluminum parts. It fit on the stand with the help of a friend lifting it up and putting the bolts through the tabs. I had to drill out 2 of the holes in the tabs on the stand, they were a bit too small for the bolts that were shipped (no big deal, stepper bit to the rescue).
Before I started up the machine, I went through and removed all of the clips that held the X,Y head in place. I also double checked the feeders to make sure they were tight and plugged in.
Everything looked good, so I fired it up.
The software boots up pretty fast. Before you know it, you're at the main screen which allows you to pick a file. Everything on my machine was in English. It did have a few Chinese PNP files which I assume are for testing?
The software is pretty simple, it doesn't have a ton of menus or config - it gets right to the point.
Since I had a bunch of boards ready to go, I skipped messing around with their test board and went right to my stuff.
The machine came with a little plastic case with a few heads in it. I put the smaller ones in (I don't have the sizes in front of me). I then loaded up a test reel of 10k resistors (nice and cheap!! can waste them all day!). Now I had to add the part to the software - this is pretty easy to do. I will admit I watched the youtube videos about 10 times and had to decipher some of what was going on looking at the videos then back and the screen.
The software can definitely use an "English" overhaul - but if you can get past that, it's pretty straight forward.
Once I had the part in, I fiddled with a few things and tried to do a test pick ONLY. Well, the head just went down and picked up - NOTHING.
ok? so I went over to the system menus and saw that when I put my finger under the head and pressed "SUCK" there was no vacuum.
I realized (after about 30 minutes of futzing around) that the vacuum pumps weren't on. I hit up my representative at NeoDen and filled her in with the problem. In the mean time, I said the hell with it, I'm going to see what's going on... It's in our nature!
I took the gamble of fiddling with the machine - well aware of the consequences... I figured if I break something, I ain't shipping this thing back and I'm sure they're not going to send a repair man from china.
I lugged the machine back off of the stand, and took the panel off of the bottom (thanks to this thread, I know exactly where the guts of the machine were and how to get to them). I looked around, and noticed that the molex plug from the transformer was plugged into the 220v slot. Right above it was a 110v slot. I also measured the voltage on the vacuum pumps. They are 12v pumps (written on the side of the pump) and the voltage going to them was 6v. Well since I'm in the US, we need 110v So I moved the connector to 110v and crossed my fingers, and turned it on.
The vacuum pumps kicked on and the machine booted up.
In about an hour (8am Chinese time), Neoden got back to me. I sent them pictures of the change, and they confirmed that the machine was shipped for 220v and my fix was appropriate. I was surprised at how responsive and helpful they were.
After that minor hiccup, I got the machine back together and started testing some feed, picks, etc. Everything worked great.
I then wrote a program to take my data (from pcbartist) and put it in the proper .csv format for the machine, and got it all imported to do a dry run of the board.
Loading the reels... This was a pain until I got the hang of it. The hardest part is getting the plastic peel through the peel feed slot... If the plastic doesn't have tape on it to help guide it through, it is a f%$#ing pain to maneuver it through that slot.
After getting 12 reels loaded, I started working with the software to set everything up. Like I said earlier, it's not super difficult once you get through the wacky translation issues.
At this point I'm going to jump to the process of board recognition and "Mark Points".
The first thing I did is setup the edge recognition. I put the board in the feeder, and clicked FEED. It feeds the board and attempts to find the edge. It found the edge every time on my boards. At this point you can do some adjustments on the alignment if needed.
The next part was dealing with the "LEFT BOTTOM". I am not using panelized boards, so my rows/cols parameters were 1x1. This is definitely a part where the software could be more clear. The "LEFT BOTTOM" refers to the first part. (I got this from watching the videos). If someone else understands this better than me, please chime in.
What I did -
I created a part in the parts list called "FID1". I picked a fiducial and entered in the coords from the pcb software. I then went to the "LEFT BOTTOM" param and manually aligned in to the FID1 part. It seems like at that point the software can get a relative coord calculation in place.
After doing this I added the 3 "Mark Points" in which I select 3 fiducials.
Now I was ready to go.
I ran the board through - it found the fiducials, and started placing parts... It placed them all over the office Pretty much everywhere except where they were supposed to go!
Not even the double sided tape on the board helped.
I quickly learned that I had to spend some time adjusting the pnp parameters.
After going reel to reel (in the software) setting up "Pick Height, Place Height, and Delays", I got it tuned up and was able to get parts down with no issues.
I then switched of to a pasted board, and had a few problems but did a bit more fine tuning and was able to get a board completely finished.
*NOTES:
I was using 1206 passives, and a few SOT23 parts. I am in the process of making a tray that I'm going to cut out of plexi on the laser cutter to try some IC's. Once I get a tray I will try some of the fine pitch stuff.
I did about 50 components and they laid down very accurately.
Also, I had 3 SOT23 transistors that were going down about .5mm off. After blaming the machine, I realized the part center in the PCB software was off....
Overall - I would say the software is very decent once you get past the translation learning curve, and some of the minor quirks. I think the machine is great for the money spent.
Thanks for reading my long post!