#608 – Vapor Phase with Saber Kaygusez

Welcome Saber Kaygusez 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!