Less fragile nozzles

[Cyril_C]

Hi.

I am a new user, experimenting with a V-one I bought 2nd hand.

I also bought brand new 150 um nozzles and broke 2 of them already. I did both the Hello World projects and experimenting with 0.5 pitch because I have a FPGA (VQFP100) board project.

One broke because I tried to print on a half clamped board which was a stupid idea. So that one is on me.

The other, well, no idea. The nozzle got too low and crashed while calibrating.

Height was set to 0.6mm.

I clean switches every time, I try to be extra careful, and still, it is so easy to break nozzles.

Everybody seems to be frustrated by that.

So please Voltera team, engineer nozzles that do not break that easily.

They do not have to be this thin externally.

They are also ridiculously expensive if you consider the price of manuacturing pcbs over seas. I got 10 qualiy boards manufactured for $2, shipped!

I think this is the key issue with this printer right now.

For the rest, the software is impressively good and everything seems to be well thought. So congrats and thanks!

~Cyril

[cjonas]

This is the biggest issue of the machine. The price of nozzles cannot be justified, and they still break even when all the instructions are followed exactly. There is no reason that the nozzle tips need to be so extremely fragile. 3D printer nozzle have an opening that is not much larger, and you would have to hit them with a hammer for them to break.

[cborn]

I agree that the nozzles seem far more delicate than required.A while back I chased up some possible alternatives, howvere they would be way more expensive than the standard Voltera ones.

Strengthening the Nozzle

The Voltera people can correct me or provide expert opinion on this, but I think there could be a couple of reasons for not using a robust head like on a 3D printer.

The first is the need to accurately position the nozzle tip in X, Y and Z. With a large rounded or angled head this would be much more difficult than with the present narrow parallel sided nozzle, especially given the alignment method used on the V-One.

Secondly the characteristics of the paste coming out of and perhaps adhering to the nozzle tip could be a factor, I know this can be an occasional problem with my 3D printers.

It could be a good project for someone, though. Try turning a brass nozzle of perhaps 2mm external diameter, compatible with the Luer fitting used by the cartridges, polished interior, same tip hole size, and experiment with tip profiles to overcome paste sticking and curling up during printing.

[Janernst]

Dear users,
I bought the V-One for soldering my boards while I am doing the pick & place of the components by hand. My expertise is about one month old and all the mentioned problems are well known to me. I lost 3 nozzles and spanned lots of unusable paste and time. It makes solder pasting a very expansive hobby. I would like to have the pasting process under control, but I have not it really yet.
The bad news is:
I’m convinced solder pasting is a really complex issue. Viscosity, humidity, temperature, pressure and timing: they all have influence on an accurate process. If you are using smd components with a very fine pitch, than high precision nozzles are needed for doing the necessary small steps. That costs you money! You also need a paste with a very fine structure. Otherwise the paste cannot go through the needle. Solder paste consists of small balls with all kinds of chemicals in it, so; the smaller the balls, the better. Therefor the paste has a type number (e.g. 3…5). The highest number is the finest. The solder paste provided with the V-One had a type 4. A nice fine structure.
The good news is:
If a 1.27mm pitch is good enough, then there are also cheaper alternatives working just fine.
I assembled 72 boards with a good result using a ¼ “ stainless steal straight blunt end tip from “Fisnar”. They are epoxy sealed to a double helix Luer lock polypropylene hub (ID=0,41mm.) for a price of €. 0,65 and they do not break easy!! Because of the length you cannot cover this needle with the original cap. So, when ready, remove the dispensing needle, close the barrel with a lure lock cap and put him in the fridge. Clean the tip directly afterwards.
At this moment I’m still using my own solder paste from stock “chipquick SMD4300AX10”. It is a water-wash T3 Solder paste Sn63/Pb37 and worked over the years just fine with manually dispensing. With the right needle I’m glad to say it also works with the V-One.

[cborn]

I assembled 72 boards with a good result using a ¼ “ stainless steal straight blunt end tip from “Fisnar”. They are epoxy sealed to a double helix Luer lock polypropylene hub (ID=0,41mm.) for a price of €. 0,65 and they do not break easy!!

Good information, Jan! Do you have a part number and supplier for these tips?

I found the “Fisnar QuantX™ 8001078” on their website:
https://www.fisnar.com/products/dispensing-accessories/dispensing-tips/blunt-end-dispensing-tips/
with Ellsworth Adhesives as their supplier, a good price but they won’t ship online orders below $50 so I would have to bundle them up with something!

I also found similar products but fully stainless on eBay, $5 for 12 units including shipping, but only down to 1/2" in length.

[Janernst]

Hello David,
I do not know if I can help you. Were do you live? I live in Holland (Europe) and so are my distributors.
My main supplier for this is TME (Transfer Multisort Elektronik – Poland).
On there site http://www.tme.eu you will find the following articles by nbr.:
“FIS-27-1/4-ES” = part fisnar 8001081 (ID=0,20mm)
“FIS-25-1/4-ES” = part fisnar 8001080 (ID=0,25mm)
“FIS-23-1/4-ES” = part fisnar 8001079 (ID=0,33mm)
“FIS-22-1/4-ES” = part fisnar 8001078 (ID=0,41mm)
There is only a minimum of 3 for each article! I bought myself recently the hole combination for a very good price, so I can do some experiments with pasting. It may be a good idea for you too! Wish you good luck.

[cborn]

Hi Jan,
I found the items on the website, many thanks for that!
I registered and am waiting for their confirmation before I can log in and purchase, it said 24 hours but apparently it is a public holiday in Poland so I may be waiting for a bit longer!

[cborn]

…24 hours but apparently it is a public holiday in Poland so I may be waiting for a bit longer!

Well it took a couple of days, the but account confirmation just came in. Price wasn’t bad, under US$10 for 3 each of those 4 nozzle sizes, plus US$23 for UPS delivery.