Dear All I am an Electronic engineer with semiconductor manufacturing background . I have designed and produced embedded boards of various types (Microcontroller boards, motor driver boards, sensor boards etc). Due to my background I have sufficient knowledge to anticipate what these will boards will go through in field and accordingly add protections and safeguards during design. This has not given me huge market as only a few people are able to appreciate it. However it does gets me repeat business but most important it gives me peaceful sleep. I have my own 4000 sq ft of factory space in Asia. I am retaining 2000 sq ft for electronic assembly (a modest setup). In order to expand I am planning to produce some real stuff like tracked robot and educational scara robot to start with and selling them through my established channel. These need to be reliable and that is where real engineering comes in. Though I know a few contractor with machine shop who build small parts for me, but I am not able to find time for designing parts and completing a robot (and skills??). I am too busy in electronic stuff and their upgrade etc. In fact lagging behind there too. I am looking for mechanical expert who can independently produce complete mechanical assembly and I will load it with all electronics and control software and then find ways to volume produce. My preferred and established platform is Zigbee based Robot controlled through PC. Why I think this area is interesting:- I have been in embedded programming for over a decade and the uControllers always lacked computation power. With recent ARM based SBC (Single board computer) full power of ~1GHZ pc is available on a small board. Plus these have reasonable GPIO available for low level hardware control like motor driver, manipulator etc. You can have a vision processing zigbee robot (electronics only) for ~150$ with a 8MP camera. My Plan is simple I am willing to enter into partnership with mechanical engineer for finished mechanical products like robots and other future products under a newly established entity. My partner will be responsible to build the Mechanical prototype at his expense and I will load it with all electronics. Once ok, we will establish subcontractors and production line and will sell through our channel and share the profit ( or loss??). I will handle all the electronic related issues ( including website and online advertisement) and my partner has to do it for the mechanical side. I am looking for a Innovative mechanical engineer with proven hands on prototyping experience. I can offer many concession and finance should not be an issue. As for competition, I am confident of setting up a very competitive and low cost manufacturing from the experience gained by over 5 years of manufacturing for online selling. All opinions are welcome. Thanks
Hi Below is the video of my control and drive side using zigbee for long range control (this is not WiFi which can only run indoors). I have done the following. 1) Design Optoisolated Dual H Bridge controller with SPI interface and program its firmware in Assembly. 2) Write PC side GUI in Java on Netbeans IDE. 3) Write Raspberry pi code in C for FT232RL usb to uart and SPI for H bridge. Now planning to start the hardware side. You may contact me if you are planning to build your own hardware and would like to get the controls installed. Thanks
Finally found what I was looking for. I have met a veteran mechanical engineer with huge workshop including inhouse CNC laser cutting. I will have the parts by next week. My first Robot will be 2kg capacity 40cm x 20cm tracked robot. This will be in full aluminium to reduce weight. Thanks
