In many cases our customers
come to us to discuss in confidence a a potential new product design.
We can help in outling the basic technical requirements and if required
provide a written feasability study. Initial discussions are free
of charge. It is often required to manufacture a prototype of the
final product. This allows the customer to test functionality as
well as being able to use the prototype to show potential customers
or investors what a finished product would look like without having
to pay for costly tools or stock that may be required for volume
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Outline
design
Many of our projects start with a discussion with the client
to identify the basic functions and capabilities required in the
final product. This then leads to an outline specification where
we can decide on the major functional building blocks required
to meet the product design. For example this may be items such
as keypand interface, display interface, serial communications,
memory storage etc. From this we can then choose a suitable microcontroller
or PLC solution. At this point we usually also have some idea
of the final mechanical 3D envelope in which the electronics will
be housed. The housing may be a simple box, or a complex injection
tooled enclosure. If we require a complex custom enclosure then
we will work with the CAD designeers to arrive at a basic pcb
shape and envelope that we will define the shape of the final
circuit board assemblies. Some of our customers already have all
this information and may just need a new pdb design or may be
looking to upgrade an exisiting design to add additional functionality
or utilise more modern low power technology.
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PCB design
Building on the outline specification we produce
a shematic design of the pcb. The next step is to layout the components
on the pcb and track the pcb. Our rules based design software
is used to provide a one to one link between the shematic and
the pcb. Once the pcb has been designed we produce Gerber data
files which can be used by any pcb manufacturer to produce the
bare pcb. Over the decades we have built up a working list with
numerous pcb manufacturers who we use for this stage of the process.
We also offer a pcb design service for customers who may not have
the inhouse resources to carry out this stage of the development.
We are usually asked to provide a few sample pcbs for prtotoype
testing and evaluation.
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Software
development
The majority of our designs are a combination
of hardware and software using microcontrollers or PLCs as the
brains of the design. We use a range of microcontrollers from
tiny 8 bit dfn microcontrollers up to 32 bit RISC based controllers,
and off the shelf PLC hardware and software. We have extensive
in house development hardware and software capability for programming
and debugging the systems under development. We have sophistacted
signal analysis equipment for monitoring serial communications
such as I2C, SPI and uart communictaions. This stage of the project
can in many cases be the most involved and may take days, weeks
or even months if it is a complex project. There are usually several
iterations of the origianl design where the customer will be provided
with a working prototype for evaluation. Field trials and marketing
feedback may be a cause for changes to design and we work closely
with the client to provide a final product that is ready for manufacture.
This may require several protoype builds and numerous firmware
revisions. Over the life of a product it is common that we provide
ongoing software revisions and updates to meet changing customer
requirements.
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PCB board
population
As mentioned we often provide pcb design and prototype
pcbs for tesing. We have a complete range of board population
and build equipment that allows us to produce from one off prototype
pcbs to small to medium manufacturing runs. For through hole boards
we use standard multi-tip solder stations, precision solder tweezers
and infra red reflow heaters. To build surface mount prototype
or low volume we have a precision manual pick and place machine,
hot air reflow guns and a prototype reflow oven For higher volume
production we have a semi automatic solder stencil printer, programmable
automated pick and place machine with laser precision component
measuring and a mutli zone reflow oven and a high power manual
inspection viewer.
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Prototype
machining
Along with the electronic design and build equipment we also
have a cnc machine that we can use to engrave panels and machine
casings. For sheet metal and custom injection tooled enclosures
we work with a series of quality designers and sub-contractors
to provide the final piece of the jigsaw.
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