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Welcome Saber Kaygusuz of PCB Arts!
- PCB Arts has been developing the EdgeKit, a modular platform for AI and vision applications baesd on the nVidia Jetson
- Saber and team were building robots previously, up through 2017
- After they encountered software people not understanding hardware, they decided to focus on nvidia jetson
- They focus mostly on smaller companies
- Example application is an inspection tunnel in auto manufacturing
- Use nVidia resources to rebuild camera modules in the kernel
- They have 6 people on the team and do consulting services in additoin to the products they build
- 3 month timelines for projects
- They have been focusing on reinvesting in the business and investing in product development
- Buying parts 1.5 years ago
- Complexity of the product determines the percentage of the overall process the design piece is (vs manufacturing / certs / sales)
- The Vapor Phase One is a prosumer level Vapor Phase reflow machine
- Chris first encountered Vapor Phase when Jonathan Hirschman of PCB:ng was on the show.
- Compared to infrared ovens, Vapor Phase doesn’t have to worry about scorching or shading components.
- Normally they are 10K+ euros for oven
- Safety wise, it’s safe as long as the liquid is heated precisely
- The Vapor Phase One is available in their web store
- Also available on Mouser for US people (as are most Crowd Supply campaign products). There are 4 distributors in Europe.
- It was a hassle to get the product certified in the US
- They targeted a $1500 price, ended up at $5k (still half of most Vapor Phase)
- The liquid inside the machine is called Galden, which stays at a stable vapor temperature when heated.
- 1kg lasts 1 year or more.
- After a bit of time, you need to clean the flux out of the Galden resevoir.
- There is a post cleaning process based on water cooling built in the system. At 120C, the PCB will come out “dry”.
- PCB Arts has posted on Twitter/their blog about visualizing boards in Blender.
- They are focused on software improvements for the Vapor Phase machine.
- Since PCB Arts is based in Nuremberg, they will again be at Embedded World
- Follow the company and Saber at PCB Arts on their site.
- Follow Saber on LinkedIn
Note: Chris lost his voice at Hackaday Supercon, that’s why we had a computer intro!