Wow, what a great testimonial: thank you mate. You have understood and conveyed the essence of the Essemtec's product philosophy wonderfully. I am no more at the helm of Essemtec, but I am very proud that it serves your needs so well. I am now a customer myself :-)
@Braden Easton Thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm trying it out atm. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
The Fox is a bit over 100k euros if i remember right, but with a full load of feeders you could be looking at over 300k euros - it depends on what you need and how you configure the machine.
Everything you said about about essemtec is wrong! You simply cannot upgrade their old machines with their new software and new motors/drivers. Just look at the used marketplace, there are more essemtec pnp machines on ebay than other machines right now. Also, their paste dispenser is not reliable, and i definitely wouldn't trust it for production runs. It barely works with prototype boards. Its a nice selling feature, but in reality it doesn't work well.
Thanks for your feedback. I've been told they fully support older machines. I can't see a single Essemtec machine on eBay UK, or any machines which will ship from other eBay regions to the UK - its all Philips/assembleon and Juki for me right now. Just because a machine could be upgraded does not mean that it's cost effective for a business to upgrade an existing machine, it could be more effective for them to lease/trade in for a new machine with more capabilities. If your production runs are going to be more than a few hundred boards, paste jetting isn't going to be the best option, the cost of a stencil and even a manual stencil printer will be worth it - but for small runs and prototypes the paste jetter is great in my opinion. They have more than a few models of paste dispensers, depending on your needs.
@@OriginalCircuit I just checked again, and there are 5 essemtec pnp machines on ebay.com (US) along with screen printers, ovens and other parts. As for upgrades, Essemtec even refuses to update their software on their older units to ePlacer (older version called Placer) - I know because i've asked multiple times. They just want to sell new machines. Essemtec is trying to go from a mid-range supplier to high-end and they've also increased their prices significantly over the years. In North America (I'm in Canada), they are more expensive than the top brands like Panasonic, Seimens, and Yamaha (philips/assembleon), so it doesn't make sense to purchase Essemtec. The parts and service in North America is also poor. A lot of the times, the parts have to ship directly from Switzerland, and then you have to schedule a single technician from the USA to come and install the part. As for jetting, it is my understanding that the fox uses a time/pressure dispenser, (which we purchased), then upgraded to a screw dispenser (both unreliable). I wasn't aware that they could put a paste jetter on the fox, rather i thought it was a separate machine. If you want a good laugh... look at the screen where Kevin dispensed paste on a bunch of pads. This is not consistent or reliable, especially if you are pasting bga components. For small companies wanting to get into the assembly business, they are probably better off using a neoden or other smaller machines. For people that want to start or run assembly houses, where the machine runs for more than 3 days per week, then you get more bang for the buck with Panasonic and/or Yamaha, and the service (at least in North america) is 1000000x better.
@@mattodin8224 I get what you're saying, they do have a pretty small presence in the US nevermind Canada, its definitely a different story in Europe (same with Europlacer and other EU based and focused companies). The piezo jetting is far beyond what the screw and time/pressure dispenders can do, I wouldn't use either of those for paste dispensing! They are only good for glue or encapsulation in my mind. Neoden and similar small machines have pretty long setup times, and an extremely limited number of feeders - I would be unable to assemble the majority of my boards on any Neoden, or it would take multiple passes or multiple machines, requiring almost a day of configuration - and they are not capable of handling the smaller components. I guess it depends on what your company needs and the type of boards they are working on. For me, I'm primarily interested in rapid setup, ease of use, and the capability to deal with the smallest and finest pitch components - budget is somewhat secondary, as over several years the engineering talent cost to setup and run machines (no dedicated pick and place person) adds up substantially. But I also see the other side where companies only use 0603s and never any super small pitch ICs, and have small BOMs.
I'm pretty sure the ePlace upgrade is restricted to the generation before the machines ePlace came in with ( which was Paraquda&Cobra) that means FLX , Pantera perhaps? I've always considered the dispense feature a nice option and the fact it was possible helped swing Essemtec ahead of Dima its now defunct competition. However for paste jetting in our small subcontract business we can't make a business case for adding it, you an get a proper stencil too quickly and too cheaply to justify what isn't a very cheap option that will need plenty of cleaning and other maintenance as well as being paste-fussy. If you need other things dispensing however, they have you covered. However I don't think the machines themselves hold their value as well as you think, there have been 2 Essemtec Paraqudas on the UK market in the last 6 months, both selling with a decent collection of feeders apparently selling for £20k (after attempting £30K). That's an absolute steal for the feeders, assuming they are any good, giving the machine a nominal value of almost nothing @ 5-6 years old.
