Steve: I did a medium sized study on this last summer. There are certainly more vendors out there. I have had systems from both the vendors you mention in house. I have also looked at demo systems from ITA (their "Flying Scorpion") and Teradyne. Beyond these systems, there are a couple of others out there. Alot of decent information (but not completely comprehensive) came from an article in Evaluation Engineering (Feb, 1999, "Probes Fly Through the Air With the Greatest of Ease") They miss a couple of vendors, and include a couple of single probe systems that I would not (and didn't) include in evaluations. As I (and others) created some hard feelings in the process of the evaluation, and as I won't bad mouth vendors in public, I'll be happy to provide comments to you directly if you're interested. ------------------------------------------------------------- Robert D. Green - Manager, Test and CAM Engineering e-mail [log in to unmask] ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: [TN] Flying Probe Testers... Author: "Erat; Wolfgang" <[log in to unmask]> at smtplink-hadco Date: 3/2/00 3:12 PM Hello Stephen First, I would not buy a machine which covers "almost all boards", you need a machine which covers ALL boards, don't you ? Programming is pretty straightforward, make sure you put everything in the form of procedures to standardize things. It is easy to "customize" the test parameters, too easy. not sure who number one is just now but there are more machines out there then the two you mention. A guess at the near term future...good chance that the industry will buy a multiple of these machines per site, just like we do not think much about having a roomful of drills. hope this helps > -----Original Message----- > From: Stephen R. Gregory [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Subject: [TN] Flying Probe Testers... > > Hi ya'll! > > I know I asked about this before (maybe a year ago), but I'm gonna ask > again. > Flying Probe Testers is the subject. > > I know they're slower than ICT, but that's okay...we have a low-volume, > hi-mix type of production, so that's not an issue. > > I guess what I would like to learn, is what machine is most user freindly, > and what machine really has the flexibility to cover almost all boards? > > I've heard that programming these things can get pretty involved > (understand > that I'm not a test engineer, I was just asked to try and get some > information about these machines). > > There's two manufactures of machines that I know about; Genrad's "Pilot", > and > a company called Takaya that makes a series of different flying probe > testers...they claim to be the number #1 supplier of flying probe > testers... > > Is there any users of this equipment out there that would like to share > the > pro's and con's of these machines? > > 'preciate it! > > -Steve Gregory- > > ############################################################## > TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c > ############################################################## > To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with > following text in > the body: > To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> > To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET > ############################################################## > Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for > additional > information. > If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or > 847-509-9700 ext.5365 > ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ##############################################################