My boss wants me to price up the equipment we would need to be able
to produce up to 100 pre-production prototype circuits in our lab.
Geez! With our present methods it takes a guy a day to make one!

I'm thinking about a nice heated pumped ferric chloride etch tank (as
opposed to our 9" x 12" glass tray and hotplate we use now)  a small
CNC drill, dipping through hole boards in a solder pot (as opposed to
using a soldering iron or a $50,000 wave solder machine)  and some
kind of reflow oven for surface mount.

I know we have discussed converting toaster ovens into reflow ovens -
let's not go there again.  How bout the real thing?  Any body used
them?

Do I need some kiond of small pick and place system for surface
mount?  So far we have made surface mount prototypes (with a lot of
pain and eyestrain) using tweezers, syringes, and a soldering iron.
It makes you nuts.  What do you guys use?



Best Regards,

Lawrence Lile