We've had our My500 for about four months now, and couldn't be happier. We are a super-high-mix, super-low-volume shop, and the flexibility provided by the 500 over stencils is stunning.
So, you buy 5-10 stencils a week? That's 260-520 stencils a year. At an average of $200/stencil, that's $52,000-$104,000/year.
And, if you decide after receiving the stencil that there are issues that need to be resolved, you're into buying a new stencil for that project.
At a cost of $200k, it looks like your ROI on stencil cost alone is 2-4 years.
Then there's the paste cost. How much do you pay, on average, for 500g of paste? Around $100? How many times per year? The cartridge cost for the My500 is $15/100g. And, that 100g cartridge is lasting us, on average, about a month. There is no waste, no throwing away dried up paste that's been sitting on a stencil all day. No worrying about work time, or kneading/over-kneading the paste.
Now, is it slower than a squeegee cycle? Sure. It's rated, though, to keep up with 36,000 cph throughput on the machine. When conveyored in line, that's a pretty zippy paste cycle :)
Maintenance is quite a bit less than I had anticipated. The ejector head through which the paste passes is about $5/ea, and gets thrown away with each new cartridge of paste (so, yeah, that raises your paste costs a touch). Clean the machine, replace the disposable parts on schedule, and that's about it.
Programming takes us about 30-60 mins depending on the complexities of the board. The software suite that comes with it is pretty powerful when it comes to scanning gerber images. And I have a fully functional paste program in an hour, which, even at fully loaded costs for an engineer to perform, is less than the cost of a stainless stencil. And, if we run a job, and decide that we needed a step stencil, the re-program takes about 5 mins. Beats having to order, pay more for, and wait to receive a new stainless stencil. Oh, and if you decide you want to home plate the 0402's on your board, and leave the 0603's and larger with regular paste on pads, it's a 5 minute change.
We've also recently successfully deposited paste on 01005's, first try.
Now, the downside is that they are only doing no-clean at the moment, which sounds as though it could be a deal-breaker for some folks. Our post SMT processes are completed with water soluble, including selective solder, touch up, and hand soldering. We wash the boards in a standard DI wash process, and have found that there is no effect to the no-clean flux while doing this! That's right, no more white-cruddy deposits left over where the no clean flux has remained on the board.
It's certainly not for everyone, but, it's definitely been an awesome addition to my shop.
-I receive no compensation from Mycronic for these statements.-
cheers, ..rob
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