Congratulations on the release, Stephen! I'm sure it feels incredible to get production rolling, and you have a lot to be proud of. It looks fantastic!
Having followed this project on youtube for a while, it would be nice if Stephen posted a video of the machine actually working. All of his prior content has been related to trying to solve problems with his design. A minimally editted video or two demonstrating all the features of this PnP machine reliably working would go a long way to help potential buyers decide if they want to commit their money and time to get Stephen's PnP.
For the price and the huge OPEN SOURCE sticker on it though, I don't think this leaves much room for interpretation. The design of the machine will be further refined over time, so expect /some/ level of fiddling to be an integral part of the experience. No need for shade.
@@hardwareful Does "OPEN SOURCE" mean "This won't actually work well or at all, you will need to tinker a lot with it in order to maybe get passable results"? The specifications published on the site are minimal. "Maximum PCB Size: 225mm x 400mm" - will you actually be able to use 225x400 or it will buckle and vibrate during operation? "Minimum Component Size: 0603 (0402 in Beta)" - what about maximum component size and weight? What about the rest of the specifications? Minimum PCB thickness, placing speed, feeder capacity, etc etc etc. Personally I got burned with a chinese PNP machine that was great on paper. However, each feature came with an asterisk. "Works with 0402"* * - but at 50% speed, with many misspicks and bad placing accuracy because the camera resolution was too low "Max part size 15x15x15mm"* * - vacuum is not actually strong enough for the weight and parts drop or rotate on the nozzles "Max PCB size 500x300mm"* * - no support pins so at that size the pcb will buckle about 5mm in the middle When you design something and publish it as open source, people have no expectations from you. If someone asks for support or a new feature you can just say "All the code/documentation is public, you can do it yourself". However, when you start selling kits, people expect proper documentation and support for that money. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater, I've been following this project from the beginning and want it to succeed, but as a commercial enterprise people will have commercial expectations. OPEN SOURCE is just another feature of the project, it's not an excuse for lack of documentation and support. Just saying "Hey man, it's OPEN SOURCE, what did you expect?" will not cut it. Right now, from what I see, all the documentation on the site is related to the assembly of the machine and almost nothing about the specifications, what the machine can actually, reliably do.
@@FreezeS I agree that the amount of footage of this machine in a finished state actually operating is minimal. I mentioned this on a video a couple of months ago, in fact. The other thing that is different to most other projects is that kits are being sold as a product, albeit one you build yourself. As you say, people will expect more. Ultimately this will succeed or fail on people's reviews. I'd love one, but I can wait.
The project is not finished yet, by its own github, its in the "MVP" stage. The only reason kits are being sold, is that some people want to build it *today,* even in its unfinished form. If you want the actual, finished product with specs and full documentation, you need to wait for the project to actually get there.
I hear ya. To be fair, I have posted it working on a few previous occasions, making full motherboards and ring lights, and every board shipping with the kits was made on the machine. I think a video like you describe could be helpful though, showing the process and demonstrating its use in something other than a timelapse. Thanks for the insight!
Congratulation Stephen! It was nice following your journey and now seeing a final product! Ps. I love the name opulo & i think we now officially have the same glasses 😂
When I was starting my business I was looking for a pnp the only one's available were expensive or crap. so I decided to make my own then I came across your videos and I knew this was coming out. I could focus on my product rather then another project . Thank bro 💪
You should be sooooo proud of what you have done here. This is a great place to start with PnP. I jumped from 100% hand assembly to a commercial Pnp and it was rather painful, expensive, and huge. Well done.
Congratulations man, I’ve been a subscriber since the beginning I’m so glad to see you actually be doing something especially making your own business out of this I really hope it blows up in the future I wish the best of luck for you
Only found your channel a few weeks ago, I have literally binge watched every single one of your videos since then. I always made my projects by simply soldering some components to development boards and never really gave thought to working with PCBs. I have learned so incredibly much from your videos that I feel confident I will order one of these kits as soon when it seems realistic to. At the moment it's too expensive for a few personal projects but you did give me some hope I could develop my own products and will probably go through with it. Also seems like an incredibly fun and rewarding project to assemble. Thanks for your awesome videos :)
This video has just popped up as a suggested. Never did I think something like this would be possibly for at home use. Very impressed with the effort and enthusiasm gone into the channel and product. I probably have zero use for one but it drew me in anyway. Well done guys.
Congratulations! Please make a product video giving us some specs on its assembly, performance, configuration, etc. How fast can it populate a board? What size pcb can it accommodate? How small of an smd can it pick up?
Congratulations, Stephen! I know firsthand how much effort goes into a product launch for something you've designed yourself. This is a tremendous accomplishment and one I'm sure the Maker community will feel for years to come. I hope you sell out!
Awesome to see this become an actual production ready product. Might not be something I need for quite a while but it's definitely something I'll keep an eye on in the long run. Great work getting this massive project (mostly) completed!
The price point is so attractive, any maker who can afford it would buy it. I have dreamt of making a pnp, but the challenge has been so daunting. Congratulations on finishing this, I hope to see get one of these.
Man, that's awesome! I'm glad you managed to bring this project to this stage. You will be the second Josef Prusa, only you'll be known for designing the Pick And Place machine. You can and should be proud of yourself! :)
Fantastic. This is the kind of innovation that actually makes a difference in the world and puts power back into the hands of people! Thanks for reducing the barrier to entry to make electronics :)
wow congratulations. even though I don't need a pick and place machine I have enjoyed watching the design journey. It has been fun to see the development of your product and how you have gone from nothing to prototype to production.
Huge huge congratulations! Subscribed and watching since early days and absolutely delighted all that work has come together. Going to look at my sla printer volume and scratch my head a bit whether I can print the requisite parts using my kit. Well done on selling out on the early bird deals so quickly.. (sigh).
Congratulations, that is so awesome, thank you and your team. Hope it will sell like crazy, you deserve all the success for the amazing work you put into all of this.
Is there a list of the current features anywhere? This project seems very interesting but I'd like to know more about its current capabilities and planned upgrades.
I’ve no need for one of these, but I do want to say congratulations on launching a successful product, especially given you’ve already sold all the early bird ones.
Congratulations, I've been following you for pretty much since you started the project so I'm really pleased that it's been achieved! Also a shoutout to Joel Spolsky for his investment.
You need to mention in your videos that it has "Top and Bottom Vision Systems with integrated lighting". My immediate reaction to the video was, "meh, it wont have a vision system so it will be shit" I had to visit the website to find out that it does have one. But i almost didn't bother checking because cheap pnp systems almost never have it.
I've been watching Stephen from the start after researching PNP for my own build. I liked his efforts so much I decided to wait for his commercial release. Sadly I did not get the early bird notification? I will buy regardless as $1145 is decent compared to the lite placer but I'm curious what the early bird pricing was?
I'm in. Found the early bird price with the way back machine. Don't feel so bad. Great price and a great future. Pretty excited! Well done to the whole team!
Congrats on progress. What's the story on feeders? None seem to be included, reasonably so, but I don't see them mentioned at all on the site, either for sale, or kits or??
