If you haven’t listened to the latest Amp Hour (episode #126) you may not have heard about this $269 High Speed Automatic Pick and Place Machine. I have very little information on it since I can’t read Chinese, the videos demo the system quite well though. For such a small machine it sure looks impressive, the tiny screen looks to have a ton of very usable information although most of it looks to be Chinese. I did see a language switch so there might be an English version available. The price on this system sounds to good to be true though, I would love to hear from someone that can read Chinese if there are any hidden charges that bring this price up significantly.
UPDATE: The title has been updated to reflect the actual USD price. For those who saw the original price listed, sorry about that. I did a quick Google conversion which converted it from the Japanese Yen. I didn’t realize until now that the Chinese and Japanese use the same currency symbol. Thanks to the commenters below for catching this pricing error. So the price isn’t as jaw dropping as I thought but it is still quite tempting, I can see this as a way for a basement hobbyist to start cranking out some production type quantities in no time. A solder paste station, a skillet or converted toaster oven along with this pick and place could get some boards cranking with just one person!Â
 The pictures look impressive but make sure you have a look at some of the videos.
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