News

What to do if you can't find an oven owned by a little old lady who only soldered on Sundays.

"If you're offered a pizza with mushrooms at a Grateful Dead concert, it probably isn't what you think it is." – Anonymous

With every new package or material the demands on processes increase and change. So, too, must equipment. However, not everyone builds leading-edge product. Hence, a popular commodity in our industry is used assembly equipment. There is a lot of it in use - of various types, manufacturers and vintages. It is not unusual to see a 20-year-old wave-solder machine working down the line from last year's chipshooter. What can work in a given facility is, as with all equipment, application driven.

Buying a used car? A great deal of sage advice is available. Buying used SMT assembly equipment? Not so much. Your dad probably does not have a lot of applicable suggestions on the latter. Somehow, "kicking a tape feeder" or "slamming the access door on a printer" is going to be inappropriate. Finding that reflow oven that belonged to a little old lady who only soldered on Sundays may be difficult as well. Well, Uncle Phil has a few helpful suggestions on how and where to buy used equipment.

It is worth checking out the OEM. As with automakers, equipment manufacturers take their older models as trades on new equipment. They also have models from demo rooms, trade shows and labs that they sell as used machines. There are a number of incentives to do this: keeping a non-optimally maintained machine from tarnishing their reputation, keeping a customer and being able to bring in a new customer.

Way back in the through-hole days, Universal Instruments was one of the first OEMs in our industry to actively take older insertion machines as trades and refurbish them. Mydata has a very aggressive program regarding trade-ins - so much so that you rarely see one of its machines on the open market. Heller recently went a step further with what it calls "H-bay," with used oven offerings enumerated on its Web site. To one degree or another, all the major printer, pick-and-place, reflow, wave, cleaner, AOI, x-ray and dispenser manufacturers have some sort of used equipment program in place, formal or otherwise.

An advantage to buying a machine from the OEM is access to the proper parts to rebuild the machine (as economically as possible) as well as the latest software. The OEM is also in a good position to retrofit the machine with whatever recent innovations might be compatible. The OEM can provide a warranty and install the machine with trained technicians. The operative word here is support; OEMs are usually the best to fulfill this critical aspect.

That is not to say that excellent support is not available from a third-party used equipment dealer. It is: Some top-notch firms have been in business for many years, have their acts together and have earned great reputations. Some have working relationships with the OEMs for software and parts and can offer warranties as well as great support. Most of all, some employ former OEM field service, applications and sales personnel who are eminently qualified to work with the equipment¹.

But, like used car dealers, they are not all the same. Be careful; take the time to check out exactly what they can offer and how well they can support what you are considering buying in terms of service and spares. If you buy used, you cannot expect the OEM to embrace you as if you had bought it direct (new or used). There is, in reality, no legal obligation that says the OEM has to support with parts, service or software a machine you picked up somewhere. You might have gotten one helluva deal on that "cream puff," but you might be left out in the cold. Assess your risk carefully.

Of course you might be involved with a "private party" deal - buying a machine directly from the previous user. There are a number of auctions held as well as direct sales. SMT assembly equipment even shows up on eBay. Again, be careful. Some used equipment brokers act as intermediates between seller and buyer. In any case, the seller should be able to give you the model and serial number of the machine under consideration. If the seller refuses, the seller likely does not have possession of the machine and is brokering it. That's OK, but don't expect any support from this type of broker or the party that currently owns the machine. I should add that it helps if the company that built the machine is still in business; not all are². Just a minor point.

There is another very important point to bear in mind, regardless of where you buy your machine. Automobiles are built and consumed in mass quantities; SMT assembly machines are not. As a result, replacement parts, due to the resulting lower volume purchasing, are expensive. The longer a model has been in the field and the fewer components it has in common with subsequent offerings, the more expensive the spares are going to be - again, due to diminished volume purchasing. While a few machine components like tape reel feeders and pickup tips are offered by third-party sources, they are for the more popular machines and models, and can be few and far between. Our industry does not have a "JC Whitney" or a "Pep Boys." Some manufacturers buy older machines just for their parts.

One recommendation for anyone purveying a used piece of SMT assembly equipment (and this is something you can't do with a used car): get the model and serial number of the machine you are considering buying and call the field service department of the OEM. First, equipment manufacturers keep a record of every machine they put in the field³. Field service can look up the machine, its configuration and options, and they have its service history. The field service tech you talk to might have worked on that machine. Second, most field service technicians are not trained in the art of salesmanship. They tell it like it is and are usually very opinionated and candid (based upon their experiences). In many regards, they are the "anti-salesman." They might disclose that the particular machine in question is a piece of %#&@ or the option that appears so attractive never really worked right⁴. Or, the machine has an option on it that is worth as much as the machine itself (and really works) or that the oven really was owned by a little old lady who only soldered on Sundays. They can also give you an idea regarding the availability and cost of spares, plus other things to watch out for that hike cost of ownership.

As someone who spent a good portion of his career with assembly equipment manufacturers and is a bit of a motorhead, I have observed quite a number of similarities between used SMT equipment and used cars. The machine you are considering falls somewhere between "cream puff" and "clunker." It is not your father's stencil printer. So caveat emptor and remember, we're all in this together.

References

1. My old friend Alden Lewis of NEA has worked with placement, repair, two printing and two oven companies. Talk about experience and knowledge.

2. Occasionally, an OEM will be acquired. For example, CVD acquired the assets (and many support personnel) of Research Inc. and Conceptronic and continues to offer and support both product lines.

3. You also ascertain whether the manufacturer is still in business. Again, just a minor point.

4. Hail to thee, Bill Burns, wherever you are.

Phil Zarrow is president and SMT process consultant with ITM Consulting (itmconsulting.org); itmconsulting@aol.com.

• Prev
• Next