DesignRenew also Builds and Sells Products!

While our primary business is designing electronic products for our clients, once in a while we do some internal R&D in areas that do not conflict with our clients' businesses.

At this time we have two lines of products.

HuntTimerTM   www.huntimer.com

Not long ago, a good friend who is a duck hunter urged us to come up with a randomizing timer that would cycle the motor in his "spinning wing" decoys for more realism and battery conservation. We didn't know if there was a market for this kind of product so we talked to a lot more hunters. The more we talked to other hunters, the more we became convinced that power cycling was a good idea. We also learned that every hunter seemed to have his own idea about the ideal cycle time. We designed HuntTimerTM to provide the ultimate in flexibility -- from fixed cycling to random cycling to the hunter's own custom cycle. We also became convinced that hunters need high quality gear; so that's the way we designed and built HuntTimerTM -- its even waterproof. It's easy to use, quick to install, and even a little fun to tinker with.

 

HuntTimerTM is a good example of a low cost, high quality, quick turn product. Some of the ways we did this:

  • Use proven circuits and codel We needed a microcontroller for HuntTimer that was low cost and contained some analog functions. We turned to our highly flexible friend, the PSoC. We then reused a good amount of PSoC code from our libraries.
  • Use good tools. We designed HuntTimer's ABS plastic housing using Alibre, a full functional, cost-effective parametric 3-D solid modeling software package. The software has a quick learning curve, so we saved time and cost by keeping the housing design in-house.
  • Use good talent.We also have an in-house graphic design specialist--so we were able to make instant tradeoffs and adjustments between the busy graphic overlay, the supporting details in the plastic housing, and the LED and pushbutton locations on the printed circuit board. If we did not have all three talents in-house (graphic design, mechanical design, and PCB layout), the time and cost of revisions would have been substantial.
  • Use good suppliers. We used our network of local, high-quality suppliers for all subassemblies and saved time and money as compared to finding global suppliers for this medium-volume product.
  • Total calendar time from concept to blister-packed product-on-the-shelf -- four months.

MicroCard www.drmicrocard.com

In our quest to compress the product development cycle, we created the MicroCard. The MicroCard contains a 32-bit microcontroller, a 512K-Byte FLASH memory chip, and the necessary support components. On this small replaceable and inexpensive module is the processing power and the memory for many low and medium volume embedded products.

  • MicroCard contains all the FLASH memory in the system. And, because it is inexpensive and removable, it can be replaced when field upgrading software. Maintenance personnel no longer need to mess with laptops, serial cables, and special programming software to make a field upgrade. Just program a new MicroCard at the factory, send it to the field, and then pop out the old and pop in the new.
  • Reduce development costs by using MicroCard. The microcontroller and its layout-critical support parts are already contained on a low-cost module.
  • Save production cost in many cases. In many systems, the only fine pitch SMD part is the microcontroller. Perhaps the rest of the system can be built with older manufacturing technology -- even be through-hole! Also, by putting the high density part on the MicroCard, it may be the only multilayer module you will need.

Our first MicroCard is based on Atmel's SAM7S series of ARM7 32-bit processors. We will soon be adding more ARM7 microcontrollers to the MicroCard family, as well as creating mating modules for reducing the product development cycle.

For more pricing and more information about MicroCard, please call or email.