Help needed for choosing chipshooter

Hi Arvydas,

Do you want a machine specified at 20K per hour or to run at 20K per hour?

Regarding Chipshooters I've worked with Siemens, Philips FCM's, Fuji's, Panasonics & Sanyo/Universal and the best in terms of reliabilty by a long way were the Japanese manufactured machines - namely Fuji, Panasonic, then Sanyo.

Where the european machines score are in faster changeovers and lower buy prices, and I would rate Siemens the most reliable here. However the change over times on the Sanyo's & Fuji's can be reduced if you run on one feeder bank and set up product number 2 on the other.

Most machines are easily programmable these days if you have the money to spend on the software.

One thing to consider is the length of time that you are considering keeping the machine - then go and look at one from your preferred manufacturer at, or close to that age - this will give you a great idea on longevity.

Hope this helps,

Rob.

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I would lose focus on European machines. I have used several european placement machines and frankly I think that they are garbage. The machines have been poorly designed for Preventative maintenance, replacement parts are expensive and slow to get, and the support is bad if you are in the US. I have based this off of Siemens, and DIMA. The Siemens was much better than the DIMA however.

I am sure that some will disagree.

Russ

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Hi Arvydas,

We have 2 PANASONIC 36000CPH spec.

I don't know if you have a lot of different component in your product but on my side we actualy have 200 different components 0805, SOT, SMA, SWITCH, ...( possibility of 300 0805 ). We do about 15 change-over per day ( MAX 5 minutes per change-over because all components are in the PNP ) we only have to select an other program.

I like this machine and the Hotline service is excellent. I'm in canada.

Frank

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Hi,

My experience in the past has been predominantly with Fuji, Universal and Siemens. I categorise each of these systems in different ways;

1) If I want bombproof reliability - I Choose fuji. There tough mechanical design ensures operation time and time again, with minimal downtime due to failure 2) If i want total component and product flexibility - i choose Universal, and more specifically the GSM platform. The range of product and compoents, coupled with excellent vision software allow this machine to pick and place just about anything. Furthermore, with newer introductions like the Fj3 or lightning heads, they are (relatively) fast too 30 If i want a totally integrated solution, including software integration with my inhouse MRP/ERP systems I chose Siemens. The size of this company and their R&D resource is immense, although this may be better supported in the EU than further afield.

In short, there are a lot of choices out there, and many good systems to choose from once you realise exactly what you want it to do, and how much integration you need with existing platforms.

good luck!

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