Terrible manufacturing quality
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I don't know who assembles the Duet and Duex boards for you, but you need to find a new assembler.
When I bought my Duet WiFi directly from duet3d.com in the UK I was disappointed when I received it to find the back of the board covered in a thick, sticky layer of flux where it hadn't been washed off properly. As an electronics hobbyist of many years, I just put it down to a one-off and cleaned the board myself. The Duet WiFi was purchased back in October 2018.
Fast forward to today when I received my Duex5 expansion board which I bought from the Duet3D distributor here in Sweden. It came in the official packaging and the anti-static bag was still heat sealed shut.
Upon opening the bag and taking a closer look at the board, I realised that poor assembly wasn't just a one-off thing. The top of the board looks nice and shiny like it should be:
It's another story on the bottom of the board:
While it's not sticky, it's immediately obvious that the board hasn't been cleaned (or has been cleaned in a very superficial manner).
Looking at the pins of the main connector to the Duet reveals dusty remains of partially dissolved flux and some far from good hand soldering:
The motor connectors are far worse:
Moving back to the top of the board, there seems to have been some rework here where the flux hasn't been cleaned off properly. I'm not exactly confident about the soldering on the pins on the right hand side of that IC either.
The various pin connectors on the top of the board sway this way and that, with no care for being properly seated.
Sure, I can clean up the board. I can desolder the badly soldered pins and resolder them, I can straighten all the haphazard pin connectors and I can get the reworked chip under my microscope and clean off the flux, check the connections and if needed, fire up the hot air station and do the job properly.
I'm not going to though. Considering the price I paid for the Duex5, I'm really disappointed to receive something which looks as if it was put together by a student on his first surface mount project.
I also don't know how long all that flux has been on the board and if it's a no-clean type or an aggressive flux which has already started to eat into the PCB tracks underneath the solder resist.Instead, I'll ask the Duet3D guys what they suggest to do about this?
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Hi,
Yes there is a bit of leftover flux. While unsightly and perhaps sticky it harms nothing.
The bottom of your new board appears that it may have a conformal coating.
I have 5 sets of Duet2/Duex5 pairs and they all have worked fine despite the less than perfect assembly.
Frederick
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@fcwilt It's not conformal coating! Conformal coating is clear and shiny. I've assembled enough PCBs and worked in companies that do to know exactly what I'm looking at.
You cannot assume that "left over flux" harms nothing. Some fluxes, particularly those used in lead free processes are actually corrosive and if you don't remove them fully after manufacture, they will cause the board to fail as they corrode the copper tracks from under the solder resist.
In no world is it acceptable to receive what's supposed to be a professionally manufactured PCB looking like this. The fact that the Duet3D products also come with a premium price tag adds insult to injury.
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Well I worked in the industry as well for 35+ years and assembled hundreds and hundreds of boards.
But I guess you know better and all conformal coatings are shiny.
Good luck.
Frederick
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@fcwilt So you think it's perfectly acceptable to receive boards with this standard of assembly?
Even the $35 flight controller boards I buy from China for my quadcopters are far better manufactured.
The plain fact is that these boards are supposed to be high end kit and they are priced to match. This kind of poor QA simply isn't acceptable.
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hi @grizewald thanks for the report. We had an issue with one of our manufacturers not washing the flux sufficiently but I was under the impression that that had been resolved a number of batches ago. Can you email me (tony@duet3d.com) the details about the Duex so i can work out if it was from an older batch or another error by the manufacturer.
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@t3p3tony said in Terrible manufacturing quality:
hi @grizewald thanks for the report. We had an issue with one of our manufacturers not washing the flux sufficiently but I was under the impression that that had been resolved a number of batches ago. Can you email me (tony@duet3d.com) the details about the Duex so i can work out if it was from an older batch or another error by the manufacturer.
Thanks Tony. I've sent you an e-mail.
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It's absolutely not acceptable. Without question, the board(s) should be replaced at no expense to the customer. Defensive supporters of poor quality soldering and poorly cleaned PCB's contribute nothing to the improvement of the product. That's the truth.
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Often, the only time you actually get to know what a company really is like, is when things go wrong.
I'd like to extend my gratitude to Tony and Roland and commend the incredibly professional way they have handled this issue.
I have a personally inspected replacement Duex5 on the way to me and the one featured in this thread is on the way back to the UK so that the assemblers have a clear example of what isn't expected from them.
If only all the companies which I deal with were as totally professional as Duet3D!
Many thanks from one very happy customer!
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Indeed, how issues are handled is so much more important than weather or not issues can happen in the first place; and judging from the forum no one has any reason to expect less than what grizewald describes when problems do occur.
