Vehicle & asset tracker - product development
The Box tracker PCB is populated on both sides, predominantly with surface mount components to maintain a compact layout and fulfill the customers size constraint.
Particular attention was paid to board layer impedance's to ensure optimal efficiency of antenna feed lines.
Low power design to ensure maximum operating time from an integrated lithium polymer battery coupled with vehicle and USB charging for flexible application arrangements.
Embedded ARM CortexT - M3 based microcontroller core for fast real time response. Standard interfaces include USB and RS232 serial channels, 1 wire (iButton), Analogue inputs and Digital I/O. Pre-compliance testing was overseen to ensure standards compliance before full type testing.
Communication module - Design for Intrinsically Safe environment
3Minds were briefed by a Derbyshire based manufacturer, specialising in electronic control equipement for demanding environments to help redevelop their Minewatch monitoring product.
The requirement was for a Serial to Ethernet bridge. To maintain the Intrinsic Safety (IS) of the product the solution made use of power limiting and protection circuitry and that the board was mainly surface mount and able to be encapsulated.
The client has been provided with a design solution which followed their in house design rules and was documented within their corporate identity.
We also provided pre-production board assemblies for the IS approvals and certification.
