Design Services

Sparkle

An Indian company, a joint venture with one of world's larger solar power companies, asked us to design and develop solar road studs suitable for Indian road conditions.


These studs, embedded in the road surface along the median, were to be powered by solar rays through a rechargeable battery to light up flashing LEDs when dark or in conditions of poor visibility because of weather. These flashing LEDs were to guide drivers to drive safely on their side of the road and thus help avoid accidents.


The studs were to be water and weather proof, and also resistant to breaking under wheels of a loaded moving vehicle.
Our brief included mechanical design of a die-cast aluminium housing to accommodate solar cells, electronics, battery and LEDs to achieve all requirements. We also worked with tool makers and manufacturing engineers to produce the housing and the stud assembly.

Electrical Test Equipment 
A well known Indian manufacturer of electrical test equipment chose us to redesign their device for automatic high voltage capacitance and tan delta testing. We were to address ease of use (device was often used in remote and difficult locations), weight (affecting cost and portability in addition to  ease of use), and appearance (device was to be sold to international users).


The device had about 50 electrical and electronic components, and high voltages were involved. We were to pay full attention to requirements of insulation, isolation and EMI shielding while rearranging these components and the connecting cables and wires.


We were also to balance the conflicting demands of low cost and low production volume while developing the new industrial design, choosing materials and developing production methods.


We completed this redesign work in less than 12 months, from start to prototyping, and managed to cut the unit weight of the device to half. The new design had about 60 mechanical parts that were made from metal, sheet metal, FRP, rubber and plastic, and met all of the objectives of redesign.

Heat And Smoke Detector

An Indian electronics manufacturer asked us to design and develop a heat and smoke detector. The detector was to be used in commercial and industrial buildings for detection of accidental fires or smoke. An optical laser sensor was to sense smoke and a thermal sensor heat.

Our brief included design of a reliable, rugged product, and required us to work with our customer to develop design specifications. We were also to work with the electronics designer.

We delivered the design work, involving 30 parts to be made from plastic or sheet metal, in under 12 weeks. Above is a view of the detector body prototype that was machined on our own CNC prototyping machine.

ADSL Modem

An Indian electronics manufacturer asked us to design and develop a ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) modem for use by telephone subscribers to connect to the internet. This was around the time broadband internet was being introduced to users in the country.


We were to help the customer develop design specifications, fix the PCB profile and interfacing components, address thermal and EMI requirements, style the device, and were to complete it's industrial design.


We delivered the design work, involving 10 parts made mostly of injection molded plastic, in under 6 weeks.

Special Purpose Machine

An American manufacturer of automobile parts wanted us to design a manufacturing station that would be part of a manufacturing line having around 20 stations. This station would receive a 150X75X1000 mm extruded Aluminium part and would have to complete six different drilling, forming and slotting operations accurate to 0.1 mm within 20 seconds.

We designed the station choosing pneumatic clamps, cylinders and actuators as well as electrical spindles from catalogues of American suppliers and detailed the station layout. Complete fabrication drawings were made too.

The station was fabricated, installed and commissioned by our customer. It was reported to us that both operation time and accuracy achieved were better than specified.

Point-Of-Sale Handheld Machine

An Indian company asked us to design a handheld machine for point-of-sale use.The machine was to be used to issue money receipts, and to record transaction data for batch transfer in to a computer.


Issuing tickets to people boarding city buses was to be one such use.The four piece body was to be injection molded from plastic.

EEG Device

An Indian innovator asked us to design a EEG device that was to be part of a complete EEG set up he was developing. An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test that measures and records electrical activity of the human brain. To run the test, sensors (electrodes) are mounted on the head and their wires are connected through an interfacing device to a computer.
This device was to have 3 PCBs, 41 different connectors and some other electronic components.


The device was to be prototyped and then produced in rather small numbers. It's design therefore was to facilitate low volume, low cost production. We chose sheet metal fabrication for this reason and developed a design which had ten different parts made of either brushed stainless steel or powder coated steel. A prototype was made and delivered in 8 weeks.