NeoDen YY1 Pick And Place Machine With Under $3K Price for Hobbiest/Low vol Usag

[sam512bb]

At this price point with 40+ feeders I'm seriously tempted to get one and try it...
<snip>

I agree.  However, the show stopper for me is the inability to update the firmware without buying/changing the controller... at least that what was someone stated a number of posts back. 
Cheers,

Sam

[asmi]

At this price point with 40+ feeders I'm seriously tempted to get one and try it...

Yeah, I'm thinking about getting one as well. I don't need it to do a complete assembly - if it can place all of the passives, I can then place remaining big parts manually. I like that you can 3d print cut tape holders for some of unique components for a specific assembly job without hassle of messing with reels. My thinking is to load reels of commonly-used passives, which usually make up a bulk of a BOM, then add some ad-hoc parts via cut tape/tray/loose, and then place few remaining big components by hand.

[asmi]

I agree.  However, the show stopper for me is the inability to update the firmware without buying/changing the controller... at least that what was someone stated a number of posts back.

It if works well enough out of box, I'm not really concerned with the lack of updates. I understand that at this price point something has to give.

[sam512bb]

Yeah, I'm thinking about getting one as well. I don't need it to do a complete assembly - if it can place all of the passives, I can then place remaining big parts manually. I like that you can 3d print cut tape holders for some of unique components for a specific assembly job without hassle of messing with reels. My thinking is to load reels of commonly-used passives, which usually make up a bulk of a BOM, then add some ad-hoc parts via cut tape/tray/loose, and then place few remaining big components by hand.

I was thinking the same thing... I am using this approach for my older Juki/Zevatech and it works really well.  My old machine cannot really do 0402's and so this machine would be quite well suited for these parts, etc.   

It if works well enough out of box, I'm not really concerned with the lack of updates. I understand that at this price point something has to give.

Understood... but...field firmware updating is not a new thing and would not have "truly" added to the overall development cost. Although you say that you are not concerned about firmware updates, I think your view would change if you had to reboot the machine periodically or if your particular design revealed some other issues.  Once the majority of issues have been sorted, then yes, firmware updates may not be a big deal.  However, in my experience software/firmware always have bugs, it is just they have not yet revealed themselves...

Cheers,
Sam

[Hyperlite2]

I received this machine about 2 weeks ago and have assembled 20 panels of 5 boards. Each panel has around 100 parts. It works as well as or better than I imagined it would for 4k. I love that it will pick fairly tall components.

It does require a bit of baby sitting, but assembled the boards way faster than by hand and really doesn't have much trouble. The feeders work reasonably well, but I have some sot23 transistors that seems to have no chance of feeding. They pop out every time, but work well in the stationary strip feeder, so I am happy.

If you want something that you can let loose and walk away for a few hours, you'd need something much better and likely with a conveyor. I think most people would be happy and get better than expected results from a 4k machine.

[asmi]

Understood... but...field firmware updating is not a new thing and would not have "truly" added to the overall development cost. Although you say that you are not concerned about firmware updates, I think your view would change if you had to reboot the machine periodically or if your particular design revealed some other issues.  Once the majority of issues have been sorted, then yes, firmware updates may not be a big deal.  However, in my experience software/firmware always have bugs, it is just they have not yet revealed themselves...

You get what you pay for. Want flawless experience and lifetime upgrades? Well, you'd better be ready to shell out 40K+$, and I guarantee that you will still have issues every once in a while. I understand a desire to "get it all" for cheap, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. This machine can pay for itself quite quickly, so it might be possible to just buy a new board upgrade every so often if that's what it takes to get updates and you absolutely need them.

Also, if worst come to worst, I think it shouldn't be too hard to retrofit machine for OpenPnP, even though judging by the reviews and comments I've seen so far, this machine seems to behave fairly well out of box once you figure out how to properly set it up.

[dkonigs]

Understood... but...field firmware updating is not a new thing and would not have "truly" added to the overall development cost. Although you say that you are not concerned about firmware updates, I think your view would change if you had to reboot the machine periodically or if your particular design revealed some other issues.  Once the majority of issues have been sorted, then yes, firmware updates may not be a big deal.  However, in my experience software/firmware always have bugs, it is just they have not yet revealed themselves...

You get what you pay for. Want flawless experience and lifetime upgrades? Well, you'd better be ready to shell out 40K+$, and I guarantee that you will still have issues every once in a while. I understand a desire to "get it all" for cheap, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. This machine can pay for itself quite quickly, so it might be possible to just buy a new board upgrade every so often if that's what it takes to get updates and you absolutely need them.

Also, if worst come to worst, I think it shouldn't be too hard to retrofit machine for OpenPnP, even though judging by the reviews and comments I've seen so far, this machine seems to behave fairly well out of box once you figure out how to properly set it up.

I'm sorry, but excusing this sort of behavior is exactly what lets it persist.  Nearly everything of this complexity has bugs at launch, most of which will be discovered once it leaves the factory, and the need for fixes is commonplace.  Also, there's a ton of equipment far less expensive than even this that gets regular firmware updates, even if they're all just to fix tiny little corner-case issues that don't constitute a major engineering effort.  And making the firmware upgradable on something like this in this day and age is not a burdensome feature to add.  Its pretty much an expected one.  Even if they don't plan to release any major overhauls or release updates with major new capabilities, simply refusing to even be able to fix random bugs is inexcusable.

Say what you will about the hardware itself...  I'm personally a bit skeptical of drag feeders, though they may be fine.  But the lack of any ability to update the firmware is pretty much a dealbreaker from even considering a machine like this.  I really hope that was just a sales/marketing person misspeaking and not a deliberate engineering decision.

[asmi]

I'm sorry, but excusing this sort of behavior is exactly what lets it persist.  Nearly everything of this complexity has bugs at launch, most of which will be discovered once it leaves the factory, and the need for fixes is commonplace.  Also, there's a ton of equipment far less expensive than even this that gets regular firmware updates, even if they're all just to fix tiny little corner-case issues that don't constitute a major engineering effort.  And making the firmware upgradable on something like this in this day and age is not a burdensome feature to add.  Its pretty much an expected one.  Even if they don't plan to release any major overhauls or release updates with major new capabilities, simply refusing to even be able to fix random bugs is inexcusable.

Say what you will about the hardware itself...  I'm personally a bit skeptical of drag feeders, though they may be fine.  But the lack of any ability to update the firmware is pretty much a dealbreaker from even considering a machine like this.  I really hope that was just a sales/marketing person misspeaking and not a deliberate engineering decision.

Fine, don't buy it then, go find another machine which can do what this one can, and which will come with free updates, and see what kind of money will you have to part with to get it. Having a choice is a great thing! But don't tell others what to do with their money. Like I said above, everything has it's price, software updates included. Infact I would argue that this is among the most expensive parts of the whole package, and so it's good that we now have an option to not pay for it if we feel like we don't need it, or that we are OK with paying extra for updates. The only thing is that they should openly disclose this fact before someone makes a purchase such that there would be no surprises down the road.

[EEVblog]

I agree.  However, the show stopper for me is the inability to update the firmware without buying/changing the controller... at least that what was someone stated a number of posts back.

It if works well enough out of box, I'm not really concerned with the lack of updates. I understand that at this price point something has to give.

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

Unexpected Maker on Twitter just told me that his experience with NeoDen support has been pretty horrible, so that's kinda 

[asmi]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

Unexpected Maker on Twitter just told me that his experience with NeoDen support has been pretty horrible, so that's kinda 

You can probably make enough videos about that machine that it will pay for itself even if it won't manage to assemble a single board I know I'm super-interested in such content, and I suspect a fair amount of others are too.

[EEVblog]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

Unexpected Maker on Twitter just told me that his experience with NeoDen support has been pretty horrible, so that's kinda 

You can probably make enough videos about that machine that it will pay for itself even if it won't manage to assemble a single board I know I'm super-interested in such content, and I suspect a fair amount of others are too.

Well, $5k worth of content is actually a lot of content (a good video might earn $200 in revenue), but yeah, use, abuse, make content, and then sell it if it's not useful to me, and there is no way I could lose.
The onyl question is really, do I want to really spend time making PnP machine content 
Could be fun, or could be a huge time sink.

[coppice]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

When did you last get something relying on complex software that worked reliably out of the box? It won't be long before every single piece of electronics you buy logs on to an update server the first time you switch it on, to get the latest code because it shipped with half finished stuff, which is a far as they'd got before selling units. We aren't quite there yet. My neighbour's first batch VW ID4 was over 40k pounds and shipped with half finished software, and hardware that can't update.

[EEVblog]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

When did you last get something relying on complex software that worked reliably out of the box?

In this case by "fairly reliably" I mean the mechnical side of things in the actual pick and placement process. If there are software limitations then it's likely they could be worked around.
Kinda like how I used Altium Designer as a professional and you leanred to work around all the bugs that had been there unfixed for a decade.

[asmi]

Well, $5k worth of content is actually a lot of content (a good video might earn $200 in revenue), but yeah, use, abuse, make content, and then sell it if it's not useful to me, and there is no way I could lose.
The onyl question is really, do I want to really spend time making PnP machine content 
Could be fun, or could be a huge time sink.

I hope you will go for it if anything but only for exposure, such that if you do find any problems, Neoden is much more likely to do something about them than if some random nobody (like me) complains about them, and so it will make things better for other users down the road. It probably will take a fair amount of time, like all PnP machines do, to get to grips with machine and it's quirks.
And maybe - just maybe - this machine will motivate you to finally complete some of your old projects I mean, I'm guilty of that too - got plenty of "perpetually in progress" projects that I can't get around to completing for one reason or another, and current chipageddon certainly doesn't make things better in this regard, but still I love seeing projects come to fruition, that is very rewarding.

[EEVblog]

And maybe - just maybe - this machine will motivate you to finally complete some of your old projects I mean, I'm guilty of that too - got plenty of "perpetually in progress" projects that I can't get around to completing for one reason or another, and current chipageddon certainly doesn't make things better in this regard, but still I love seeing projects come to fruition, that is very rewarding.

That's a potential side benefit. If it's there and I know it kinda works well enough, then it might motivate me to do small batch projects.
I do like making my stuff here, I used to have my uCurrent's assembled in Australia in a small factory that uses disabled workers.

[asmi]

I do like making my stuff here, I used to have my uCurrent's assembled in Australia in a small factory that uses disabled workers.

I've taught my wife to assemble boards (both via paste-and-oven and manual soldering), now she can do that faster than I can She knows nothing about electronics, but apparently that is not a requirement for successful assembly of hundreds of boards It's just some of my boards contain upwards of 400 parts, with like 90% of them being 0402 and 0603, so getting a machine which can place them would save us both a ton of time. Even if it would require babysitting, I'd much rather watch machine place parts than place them myself by hand - especially for qual and pre-prod batches which are not as exciting as first prototypes because at qual/pre-prod stage you pretty much already know that they will more-or-less work, while with protos anything can happen

[mikeselectricstuff]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

When did you last get something relying on complex software that worked reliably out of the box?

In this case by "fairly reliably" I mean the mechnical side of things in the actual pick and placement process. If there are software limitations then it's likely they could be worked around.
Kinda like how I used Altium Designer as a professional and you leanred to work around all the bugs that had been there unfixed for a decade.

That depends on the limitations. A p&p crashing part way through a job can cost real money in wasted parts, not to mention time.

[EEVblog]

Agreed. A lack of updates wouldn't concern me at this price if it works fairly reliably out of the box.

When did you last get something relying on complex software that worked reliably out of the box?

In this case by "fairly reliably" I mean the mechnical side of things in the actual pick and placement process. If there are software limitations then it's likely they could be worked around.
Kinda like how I used Altium Designer as a professional and you leanred to work around all the bugs that had been there unfixed for a decade.

That depends on the limitations. A p&p crashing part way through a job can cost real money in wasted parts, not to mention time.

Yes, but if you already tested and tweaked it to make it work on the first panel, then it's likely not going to be a software/firmware problem that prevents it working on future panels. Its far more likely to be a mechnical reliability related issue.

[EEVblog]

I hope you will go for it if anything but only for exposure, such that if you do find any problems, Neoden is much more likely to do something about them than if some random nobody (like me) complains about them, and so it will make things better for other users down the road.

I don't particually like the idea of becoming NeoDen's QA engineer, and getting paid a pittance for it to boot.

But I suspect that there isn't a sub $5k PnP machine out there that is going to not give me problems.
I was hoping that might not be the case here because Neoden is at least a larger player that's been around a bit. Heck, I've even seen them on the dealer stand at the Electronex show here in Australia. So not exactly some tinpot name. But it seems that this one has problems, and that Neoden don't have the best support rep. Shame.

[nctnico]

I'm just wondering whether people have made upgrades to improve a P&P machine. If it is cheap enough, then it might be worthwhile to up-hack it a bit.

[Kean]

Dave, have you spoken with Ramzi at Embedded Logic Solutions?  They are the local NeoDen distributor.  They seem to be limited by NeoDen in the support they can offer, but maybe there is some interest in providing a machine for review/critique.

I have a NeoDen TM240A which has no vision and terrible feeder system.  It is also starting to shows its age, and I need to do some maintenance.  It doesn't support software upgrades (I think this is an IP protection strategy), and there are a few bugs that cause it to hang and require a power cycle.  But despite sometimes poor placement accuracy it still saves me time and back pain on small runs, typically doing 20-200 PCBs in a run and I might do half a dozen runs a year between my customers.

I see the YY1 as a toy but it is certainly an incremental improvement on the TM240A, and as a TM240A owner I can understand the attraction in having some low cost some automation.  The prices jump a lot to a more capable machine that uses real feeders, and then you have the usual nightmare of selecting the right machine ... just like comparing competing DMMs or Scopes.

I also have Unexpected Makers old Charmhigh in my factory, and have been slowly getting familiar with it and fixing small issues.  I recently ran the first simple job on it and some of the feeders Seon gave me were definitely problematic.  I've got more feeders on order so I can attempt some more complex jobs, and see if despite the problems it will be usable for my volume.

If I was to buy a new machine, I would be hesitant to get another NeoDen or Charmhigh at this point ... but I probably still would as assembly for me is just a side revenue in addition to the consulting work, and I don't need the high reliability of a CM.  CL feeders are a must for me now, especially as I've now invested more $$$ in them than the two machines.

[asmi]

I don't particually like the idea of becoming NeoDen's QA engineer, and getting paid a pittance for it to boot.

That seems to be the new trend - no matter if you buy a 30$ gadget or a 100000$ car, you still run a real risk of becoming a QA engineer...

[sam512bb]

Understood... but...field firmware updating is not a new thing and would not have "truly" added to the overall development cost. Although you say that you are not concerned about firmware updates, I think your view would change if you had to reboot the machine periodically or if your particular design revealed some other issues.  Once the majority of issues have been sorted, then yes, firmware updates may not be a big deal.  However, in my experience software/firmware always have bugs, it is just they have not yet revealed themselves...

You get what you pay for. Want flawless experience and lifetime upgrades? Well, you'd better be ready to shell out 40K+$, and I guarantee that you will still have issues every once in a while. I understand a desire to "get it all" for cheap, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. This machine can pay for itself quite quickly, so it might be possible to just buy a new board upgrade every so often if that's what it takes to get updates and you absolutely need them.

Also, if worst come to worst, I think it shouldn't be too hard to retrofit machine for OpenPnP, even though judging by the reviews and comments I've seen so far, this machine seems to behave fairly well out of box once you figure out how to properly set it up.

Wait a second here... no one suggested free support or free upgrades/updates and especially for life.  The price point is indeed very nice and so one must or should not expect perfection.  I was and am not suggesting otherwise.  What I am saying is that for the machine not to be designed to allow for future field updates is problematic and for me a show stopper.  Buying a replacement board for an upgrade is not necessarily a problem... unless one has to spend a ton of time to dismantle and reassemble the machine with the new controller... or if the updated controller/firmware is a significant price when compared to the original purchase price... or the new controller/firmware has other issues and/or affects your past placement setups, etc.

At the price of this unit, I would be totally happy to pay a reasonable $ for a firmware update, but something that could be done easily and quickly in the field.  My time is worth something along with the potential of causing issues with the machine when disassembling and reassembling to install a new controller/firmware.  This is especially so if the new controller/firmware renders past placement setups problematic and so time/effort to redo these setups.

As for designing equipment for field firmware updates... these days it is trivial and adds little impact to a product's development cost and so the comment about "you get what you pay for" is really quite myopic.  Twenty years ago it was challenging to do easy field firmware updates (although I was able to design gear with this capability without  much trouble), but these days... notta issue at all.

[mikeselectricstuff]

At this price point with 40+ feeders I'm seriously tempted to get one and try it....

Video-wise this could be interesting if done with a specific aim, e.g. taking manufacture of ucurrent in-house, or manufacturing a new product. That way you could compare the pros/cons of in-house vs. subcontracting , both in terms of time and cost.

[EEVblog]

Dave, have you spoken with Ramzi at Embedded Logic Solutions?  They are the local NeoDen distributor.  They seem to be limited by NeoDen in the support they can offer,

Does that mean NeoDen are somehow preventing them providing support to customers?