|
Portfolio of our Solutions Below is a portfolio of our past work. What you see here is just a small sampling of projects we have worked on in the past and gives you a glimmer of what we can accomplish for you. Please see our services page for more details. Exercise Equipment with High Current Magnetic Resistance Control 
This project was for a company who had manufactured a full body exercise device that required varying levels of resistance. All the electronics and software to control this machine were designed and built through us. The machine utilized high current magnetic resistance, which would adjust with eddy currents through an L622F SCR Diode Bridge. The bridge converted AC to DC and set up the resistance with coils. The controller circuits feature two processors, the Atmel AT90S2313 for the high voltage driver and the Atmel AT90S8515 for the control panel. The control panel determines resistance level, workout time, stride count and also calculates heart rate. The high voltage drive board and display are optically isolated to ensure that a fault in the driver board would not affect the user, a necessary safety feature. The keypad is ESD resistant to eliminate static discharge. We also developed "soft turn on" technology which eliminated high in-rush currents. An RS232 DB9 port allowed for PC based monitoring and control of your workout. Further development of the PC software could have enabled this device to report to, track and create workouts with a web site, providing additional revenue streams. Fiber Optic Switching System with High Voltage, High Resolution Motor Control 
A start-up firm decided to design and build a telecommunications fully optical fiber optic switch, able to switch more than 100 channels of data with rapid speed. We worked closely with other members of the firm to come up with the design and solutions for this product.
Constraints The optics of the system must align so that there is minimal loss of light. This requires four hundred very high precision motor control systems that each utilize high voltage power, each dubbed a "port." The ports must conform to a specific geometry of the entire system, such that all electronics with the motor control system must fit into small volume area. Furthermore, each individual port must monitor light levels, position and health status and report this information to a main motherboard and high level software system. Solutions This technology was also adapted to create a quarter-sized closed loop X-Y stage that is seen in the top picture at right. AT91 Development Board with Full Color LCD Display 
This development board is based on the AT91S7 ARM processor by Atmel and provides any aspiring embedded programmer with the opportunity to work with a full color LCD display. The LCD display is 160x128 pixels and offers the user 65,536 colors on its 16 bit display. The board also features a piezo element for sound and a four directional joystick with center push for user input, allowing developers to design programs that use a graphical interface. To show off other features of the AT91 processor series, this board also features an ambient light detector, 4MB flash memory for data storage, and a negative temperature coefficient thermistor to measure temperature. Emulation, communications and debugging are allowed through the included JTAG and dual RS232 connectors. The board also features an external IO connector with four channel ADC conversion and 8 bit digital IO. You can program this board through the Mini-USB port, RS232 communication lines or the JTAG emulator port. The board boasts an impressive package size, measuring in at 3.5" x 2", or just about the same size as a standard business card. Power is provided through a 9V battery, similar external power supply or through the USB connector.
Real Time Plasma Coating Measurement 
We worked with a materials coating company in the Northwest to measure and calibrate the coating output of their High Voltage Plasma Gun.
Problem The materials company was unable to measure how much material was being applied to a tube while spinning. Every so often, workers would have to completely shut down the plasma gun and manually measure the amount of material on the tube, wasting precious time, manpower and operating costs. Solution To save time, we utilized an off the shelf industrial controller as our base system. The real time measuring was achieved with two laser micrometers that were spaced on opposite sides of tube. Readings were simultaneously recorded, averaged and presented to the industrial controller to determine when the machine was to be shut down. Our solution resulted in an efficiency gain of more than 15%, saving the company time and many thousands of dollars over the past few years. Hand Held Checkbook Register 
The hand-held checkbook register was a product designed for users to be able to input their check data at the time the check was written, and then later downloaded into Quicken©. We took this product completely from concept to the finished product that you see here. The electronics featured 100% RAM based processing on an 8051 processor, with a built in Hitachi LCD chipset driver. The display itself was three lines by twenty characters and the device was powered by three lithium batteries. The unit offered a full qwerty style keyboard with a built in piezo for keyclick sounds and data entry errors. Both serial and parallel interfaces enabled the device to communicate with a PC.
Ski Timer 
This ski timer is a dual lane timer, keeping track of two skiers at once. At the point where the start gate drops, the onboard timer is triggered in the device. Each timer has a lap input to show progress for midpoint on the lane. At the final gate the clock stops. Watchdogs ignore false triggers until reset. Finally, with the onboard RS232 or USB a connected PC can download logged times. Fully optically isolated inputs prevents damage to the board if a lighting strike occurs in the area. The design featured dual processors, one for each lane, so that two concurrent interrupts would ensure accurate timing. The shared precision-calibrated oscillator keeps the separate lanes from time skew.
Sump Pump Controller 
This design is based on an Atmel AVR 2313 and drives a solid state relay which turns on a Sump Pump. A solid state sensor monitors water levels to determine when to enable and disable the pump. This was an extremely low cost design with build costs of less than $5. This controller completely empties the container that holds the water and monitors how long the pump has been running to keep it from overheating. A special algorithm was written to minimize the amount of times the pump would turn on during the day. Per customer request, this was designed for in-system programming at manufacturing.
|
Yaktrax on sale at Great Outdoors Depot.com