RV4s for sale

[davidc]

I have a RV4s and stacks of feeder units for sale. Best condition machine i have seen recently and not had a hard life. If anyone is interested let me know.

[Gopher]

Curious, if you strip down what you are telling existing RV4 owners, i.e You cannot or do not really want to support (all of?) them any more, what kind of support are you offering on this one? Also, what feeders?

[phonoplug]

Gopher - I can supply:

1) Replacement (and improved) Feeder controller boards

2) Replacement (and improved) Arm boards

3) New DSP cards that sit on the ISA card (inside the PC)

4) New ISA cards.

Also custom machined trays for odd / off tape / large components.

Will be putting together a webpage with more details shortly.

[Gopher]

Phone, you have clearly been hard at it, well done! Perhaps you should try making actual feeders too? Ones that can take things like SM electrolytics and are not quite so damn pernickety when it comes to plastic tape.

How many RV4's are there out there I wonder...........

[phonoplug]

The new feeder controller attempts reduce tape rippage by ramping the speed that the tape feeds at rather than suddenly starting, and it also micro-steps the movement to give a smoother ride for the tape.

As for electrolytics, that was one of the first reasons I made up some trays! The caps I wanted to use were just a mm too tall for the feeder. I'm told the lanes can be machined a bit deeper but until I take that risk...

[Gopher]

I don't think I even saw an SM electrolytic until 3 years ago on any products we built. Then one appeared but out of 250 parts, a pair of tweezers for that was more than adequate. Now I have boards that have 7 or 8 on in batches of 100, luckily they are mostly case B and just fit . I seem to recall VSMT talking at one point of a new feeder design but whether that ever hapened I do not know

However newer products are using signficantly more SM in a far wider range of packages which means we are starting to look at what to buy next, this means we don't want/cannot (to) spend money on the RV4. Bless it

This is something of an undertaking, other similar machines like the TWC are equally limited, 2nd hand machines require you to be in just the right place at the right time and are often either very old or very beaten up or were seemingly created before people started using tall SM components. If my 2nd hand feeders are anything to go buy they are also poorly tested and totally unsupported. Newer machines from say Europlacer or Ipulse are utterly ludicrous money for our volumes and weird imports like the MDC look pretty damn poor from what I can see of software screenshots. VSMT's machine is very compelling, but once bitten twice shy, Versatronics must have gone into liquidation within months of our RV4 being delivered and while David seems a top bloke what kind of entity VSMT is these days is far from clear.
Manncorp have a similar focus on Low Volume High mix but if something went wrong, bringing someone in from Texas could be painfully expensive.
Has any one looked in any great depth at whats available in a similar bracket to what an Rv4 was new?

[Gopher]

I agree VSMT has provided excellent service for the most part since then and has rescued our machine several times when bits have failed,as our contract stipulated. My point, rather than being any form of attack, was that what happened in 2002 highlights the risks involved in buying a key piece of production equipment from a smaller/Independent vendor. What if it happened again and a VSMT did not rise from the ashes? As a potential buyer I know you, but I think I need to know more about Vivo-smt - headcount, existing installs, backing, partners; all the stuff that keeps one reassured when splashing out the cash.

As the RV4 gets older I have been looking around just to work out who sells what, as I mentioned the Vivo is tempting from a spec point of view. Not entirely convinced by the decision to divide the range by lane count tho'- a wrong decision there could really bite you on the posterior. Personally I'd have gone for head count, especially if that could be retrospectively upgraded.

I know technically its some kind faux pas to compare your product directly with the competition in marketing circles, but obviously you will have done it during your research as you ticked off various  boxes, any chance of sharing this lovely data?

My basic (no prices) surfing around says your competiton is probably:
Maddell- Can't really see anything to justify this as a good choice.
Manncorp/Autotronik - look to be the same machine, the yanks do a blinding job of selling its features, software screenshots look promising.
MDC - sold in this country by a one man band who never calls you back, nuff said, and that's before you note this is a glorified tabletop placer. Software looks hideous.
APS novastar- Outdated comapared to an RV.
MECHATRONIKA- doesn't look very promising either
DIMA - ??
TWS Quadra - a step sideways not up.
Fritsch -
iPulse M8 - billed as a slimmed down iPulse, I'll wager its pricey.
Weird Chinese imports - just no.

2nd user: You need to be lucky! also too many machines meaning you are too reliant on the seller selling it 100% on the level,or finding a wise 3rd party to advise.
Entry level machines rarely/never seem to appear on the market - people keep them or run them to death?