VSMT QSP+ on ebay

[SteveW]

Interesting, I'd not seen one in the wild. XY gantry, and what looks like a PCB conveyor?
http://search.ebay.co.uk/151192522740

[Mike]

Those feeders look familiar...

[SteveW]

Indeed!

Speaking of feeders - anyone got a stash of feeders for these? If so, they look like being a heck of a bargain...
http://search.ebay.co.uk/141142768220  - I must have been watching them for over a year now!
Steve

[phonoplug]

Thats one of them Versatronics Q-placers. I think theres only a handful ever made (<<10).

Very over-priced at £6800. Consider nobody will service it, pretty much nobody knows anything about them, and you will never get any spare parts, I wouldn't consider buying it even at £1000 unless it was seen working and they guarantee to get you familiar and up and running with it. Apart from that though, I hear they are actually reasonable machines if working ok.

I note it says it was manufactured in 2005, and coupled with it having a VSMT CD, I can tell you for sure it was not manufactured in 2005. We all know who would have told that lie originally though.

[Gopher]

Indeed!

Speaking of feeders - anyone got a stash of feeders for these? If so, they look like being a heck of a bargain...
http://search.ebay.co.uk/141142768220  - I must have been watching them for over a year now!
Steve

Don't know if anyone has a stash of feeders, but a Europlacer P6 is a cracking machine that Europlacer now upcycles to make the iico.
Europlacer themselves recondition and sell them regularly and it was one of the options we looked at when we were buying (old machines were not compatible with our funding sadly), you would be talking about £75k or so with 3 or 4 trolleys and feeder elements for the same. A similar deal from a broker would be about half that depending on condition and there is the added bonus that this is a supported machine from a company that still exists. Questions might well be asked as to why these particular machines are still on the market, Europlacer has a proper US presence and it likes to use these machines to get its foot in the door where its newer more expensive machines are not feasible.
From the pictures, these machines are fitted with clamps for trolleys, the trolleys then take metal elements of varying sizes to hold your tape and each trolley has up 33 lanes, a brand new trolley and elements is about £15k. There seems to be a healthy supply of older units about and they should be 3-5k I would guess with the metal elements under £100 each. There are several generations of trolleys and elements but I believe they are all compatible with each other. Trolleys hold elements for 8-24mm tape, wider tapes are supposed to be handled by single feeders which either require a different mount on the machine or different trolleys, however I have seen an installation where they had made their own 32mm element for the mass tape trolley so you can apparently get round this.
Attached some specs I still have kicking around.

[Gopher]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pick-and-place-system-VSMT-QSP-Automatic-Electronic-SMTcomponent-placer-/151192522740?
It's back again for another try!

[phonoplug]

...yeah didn't consider reducing the price though!

[Gopher]

Still going, interestingly now putting a lot of emphasis on it being supported for both service and parts. Are eBay seller and provider of said services one and the same does one suppose?

[William]

Got recommended to site, looking for dispenser. Just trawling around, though sounds to one like a bit of a negative griping session.
We ran RV's and Qplacer, and yes not perfect, but got on fine, even without the mothership support. (We had a board made locally and one or two mechanical parts, at a fraction of the cost from the manufacturer) Ex boss spent £60k when he moved on, on a Swiss pick/place (you know who you are!) And had quite a few issues.
Still know a lot of people running RV and one or two QPlacer.. they seem to get on ok.
All pick and place (in fact all kit) has good points, bad points, and due to the range in price/spec. you should limit griping when spending on low budget obsolete equipment, lets face it, with or without the manufacturer being there, most of them dont want to know you after 5 years from new!
Dont mean to offend, but i reckon most people on here are quite technical (or you would be looking at amusing pics of cats doing cartwheels) and could fix the whole production line if they put their mind to it.
Any way wrong section but; anyone know of a dispenser for sale? Camalot 2800, 3700, 3800, Gemini?  Or anything?
keep Britain making stuff!

[Gopher]

Not sure I have noticed a great many dispensers on the market when I have been snooping. Eps have had a dima dd500 once or twice and so has eBay.

I wouldn't say there was that much griping, it's a fairly frank set of observations you will find in here. Plenty of assistance too.
We moved on from an RV because to continue to rely on it would endanger our business as well as limit the kind of things we could do, it's time was up. Even if volume wasn't an issue our technical expertise is for designing and making product, not fixing our kit while it's offline and not making money.
Anyone who still has an RV should be on this site, if they have had parts made up they should share that work. If they don't the criticism is wholly justified and the machines are only cheap to those who do not value their time.
The concern here is that the qplacer is very rare, to justify having this valuation might conceivably be difficult.