As expected Chipsetter has launched a new desktop pick-and-place machine machine via the Kickstarter crowdfunding website with the aim of raising CAD $140,000 over the next 30 days.
The Chipsetter desktop machine has been created to provide developers, makers and hobbyists with a reliable and affordable desktop pick-and-place machine, that allows you to assemble your own PCB prototypes.
With your very own PCB assembly machine you will be able to get your designs to market faster, and even carry out small production runs. Watch the video below to learn more about this unique assembly machine that is perfect for any workshop environment.
Few aspects of circuit board development are as tedious as placing electronics components by hand. Contractors can assemble small batches, but who has 2-4 weeks and $1000 to spend on each design cycle? Inspired by desktop 3D printing, we set out to create a useful and affordable tool. We knew that to be useful it would need to actually save you time and effort. To do that, our solution would have to be very reliable, and we would have to solve the setup time problem.
We began this project after assembling many, many circuit boards over the past 10 years. Shrinking SMT device sizes, combined with new access to affordable prototype PCB fabrication services meant we were developing more circuit boards than ever, and constantly experiencing the pain of manual assembly. Our survey of available solutions revealed existing desktop equipment was either too expensive, or unreliable. We needed something better, and we knew all of the electronics developers just like us needed it too. So we decided to do something about it.
While other solutions have moved away from single tape feeders in favour of arrays of tape slots, many users have complained at how difficult this has made it to set up and change over jobs. We decided to pursue an economical feeder solution, which required our team to design an economical removable electronic feeder system from the ground up. It is our intention to enable owners of the Chipsetter ONE to own a sufficient number of feeders to put an end to time wasted swapping tape between feeders during a change-over. Chipsetter Tape Feeders can be easily loaded and unloaded from the Chipsetter ONE, making mechanical and electrical connections in one swift motion.
For full specifications to make a pledge to purchase your very own Chipsetter desktop machine, jump over to the Kickstarter crowdfunding website by the link below.
Source: Kickstarter
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