Consultancy

Our wide range of experience since 1993 means that we are ideally suited to troubleshooting problematic systems or circuit designs. We are regularly called in to assist with particular problems within exisiting projects. We can use a variety of techniques to isolate the problem and these include:

• Thermal imaging for identifying stressed components that are likely to lead to premature component failure. This information can then be used to identify the cause of the component exceeding it's design tolerances and to develop a solution.
• Signal analysis using a high speed oscilloscope that can monitor several different parameters simultaneously to identify anomalies.
• Design testing by exceeding normal operating conditions or introducing electircal noise to identify potential failure scenarios.

We can identify and solve problems with existing designs and ensure that they conform to industrial best practices.

We can also act as an independant third party and provide objective advice on products or designs.

We offer a full consultancy service for our customers. We realise that problems may occur out of hours any where within a company and for this reason we will always endeavour to provide you with the best service globally and at any time.

Design

We have experience in designing

• Signal conditioning electronics
• Induction motor, stepper motor and dc motor drives
• Analogue to digital conversion and computer IO cards
• DC power supplies
• High frequency AC power supplies for ultrasonic devices
• Optoisolation of analogue and digital signals
• EMC (Electro-magnetic Compatability) - Problem solving

Where noise considerations are very important, we can design all of the signal conditioning from microvolts to many hundreds of volts (three phase) to protect surrounding electronics.

When using specified motors, we have designed the electronics to overcome particular problematic charateristics such as execessive speed or torque

We have digitised many different types of signal and interfaced these signals to computers via

• ISA bus cards. We have designed our own IO cards with up to 256 of analogue or digital input.

• Serial communications port. We have used the serial port for interfacing portable computers.  We have achieved acquisition rates of up to 5000 samples per second by writing our own comms drivers.

• Parallel port. We have used the parallel port in a similar way to the serial port, but also taken advantage of the increased number of control lines available.

• USB We have used USB ports to replace exisiting serial and parallel ports on newer machines that do not have either.

Similarly to the motor drives, we have designed DC power supplies for applications where off the shelf solutions are not available.

An example of a particular PC application, was the monitoring of multiple joint temperatures on a copper buzz-bar, so that it was possible to shut down sections if the temperature became too high.

High frequency (20 KHz) AC power supplies were designed and built for an ultrasonic transducer, which is used to weld plastics. A particular design feature was matching the impedance to the ultrasonic head to produce resonance.

Digital and optoisolation systems were developed for interfacing PCs to:

• Harsh electrical environments
• High voltage signals
• High current signals

The designs allow for high speed low distortion to minimise degredation of any signals

Manufacturing

We provide a variety of solutions including:

• design and layouts for PCBs
• production of prototypes
• production of sub-assemblies for 3rd parties
• small production runs