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We spent a considerable amount of time evaluating low-cost pick-and-place options over the last year.

I consider the Mechatronika M10V the most desirable out of all of them, despite that it has only one pickup head, it has a very solid construction and the only one that provides solder paste dispensing capabilities. This eliminates the needs for solder paste stencils, etc.

The cost that we were quoted for the base machine is 14600 EUR. You then need to add feeders at a cost of 2700 - 3600 EUR for a feeder package. For example, 10 x 8mm, 2 x 12mm, 2 x 16mm feeders is 2700 EUR. The vibration feeder is another 780 EUR.

The solder paste dispenser and needle is approx. 2400EUR. Therefore, a complete system would run approx. 20500 EUR.

We also looked at the Neoden TM220A and TM240A, but without vision, these are just hobbyist toys, in our opinion. Alternatives based on the same form factor with vision are:

Charmhigh CMHT48VA - 29 feeders and Dual cameras and fully integrated control system for $5600 US (free shipping)
Unlike the Neoden TM220A and TM240A this uses a fully closed loop control system (using encoders) to prevent stepper motor missteps. It also uses Juki standard pickup nozzles and a retractable pull pin for advancing the feeder. The bulk of their customer base appears to be in India.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Charmhig ... 09690.html

https://youtu.be/uUojsxN_BQg

TVM802A (27 feeders) and TVM802B (47 feeders) http://www.zjyingxing.com/e_products/TVM802A-126.html
Dual camera system but requires software on an external PC. Uses USB and Ethernet for control (not sure why both are required). The camera system recognition and software appear much slower than the CMHT48VA.

Hope this helps someone.

RWB wrote: Unlike the Neoden TM220A and TM240A this uses a fully closed loop control system (using encoders) to prevent stepper motor missteps.

Interesting. Do you have more information on where you read this, perhaps with details on what encoder they use? Encoders are something I've been looking into adding.

Here are some more videos of the CharmHigh System and what the vision looks like while operating:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODc2MjUyM ... s1.8-1-1.2

Here is a video showing it using both heads with the vision: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODM4MTMzN ... .2#paction

And here is a 15 min video of a guy showing you how to setup the Charmhigh machine via the built in computer. He speaks in a foreign language. I wonder if YouTube could transcribe it automatically?

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODgwNTIyM ... 12-1-2-0&x

And one more video of the machine in action: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI1NzcxN ... s1.8-1-1.2

To me this machine and the NeoDen 4 look to be some of the best small vision based machines on the market.

CharmHigh emailed me back with the user manual for the system were seeing in the above videos. Here is a link to that user manual if anybody wants to look it over.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgnof608x1isi ... 9.pdf?dl=0