Long list of questions about RV

[Jason]

Hi all, as someone interested in but not yet in posession of one of these machines I'd like to ask a few Qs.

- Are there any things I should look carefully at when viewing a candidate purchase?

- Can either the top or bottom enclosure easily be taken off to make it more transportable?

- What happened to the order of spare nozzles earlier in the year, are there any left over?

- I understand that the RV1S doesn't have the flying camera. Does it still have a fid cam?

- Are there any .pdfs of manuals or other training material around on the 'net?

Thanks in advance. Hope that if I do get one of these I can contribute some
knowledge back to the forums as I solve problems.

Jason

[Gopher]

My 2p....
Short of buying that Chinese NeoDen tabletop machine with no vision, RV's should be the cheapest way to get Pick and Place but be sure you are clear what you expect from them. IMHO it would be wrong for instance for a business to fully rely on one..

You can look at the wear on the rack and pinion on the z-axis, that you can see, move it up and down check it feels smooth.
I guess you can try giving the arm a little shake, it shouldn't really move/rattle much.
You can take the cover off the arm and check the belt easily, the other two belts, not so much.
Ask to see it running........

The guy who purchased ours split the machine in two, the table is only held on by four little bolts and its made of MDF, the big steppers do protrude out from under the table a bit so as a precaution it was then bolted to some wood skids. The two parts then fitted into a people carrier ( a galaxy possibly) quite easily with all the seats down.

Anybody with access to a lathe and some Acetal dowling should be able to make the tools (or at least the plastic bit). The killer is tooling if you go to a full blown machine shop.

If the machine comes with its CDROM I think a copy of the 'Manual' is on there but if not there are certainly copies around not least with the machine we sold. The Manual is labelled something like "Training Schedule" its not so much a reference as something you can work through to get started it covers most things tho'. The only place I have seen schematics is on this site, I don't know how people came by them.

[ianh]

Here are a couple of documents that I have for these.  They are not the most complete, but its all I have!
I do have a PDF 'Training Manual' also, but this is too big to attach here, send me your e-mail and I will forward it to you.

[Mike]

Hi all, as someone interested in but not yet in posession of one of these machines I'd like to ask a few Qs.

- Are there any things I should look carefully at when viewing a candidate purchase?

The single most important is that you get the RVDATA.DAT file which contains the calibration data for the machine. Make a copy of this, ideally before moving anything.

- Can either the top or bottom enclosure easily be taken off to make it more transportable?

Yes - the enclosure comes apart into 2 pieces. Once you do this you can get it into  car-derived van (just!)

- What happened to the order of spare nozzles earlier in the year, are there any left over?

Someone gave me a load of nozzles he'd had made up a while ago in exchange for a sales referral, so my immediate need disappeared.
I believe user RvSystems here has nozzles available for sale

- I understand that the RV1S doesn't have the flying camera. Does it still have a fid cam?

Yes.

- Are there any .pdfs of manuals or other training material around on the 'net?

See attatched. Note this doc assumes one or two things work which don't in practice (like prog rotate)
The RV is very easy to get going with - I think it took me about half a day to get stuff placing with no documentation at all.