Industrial & Commercial Projects
|
|
|
Bolton Engineering designed the original retrofit electronics to work with Humac and Norm machines, and, several years later, designed add-on boards to allow the same electronics to operate with Biodex II and Biodex III systems. The original system boards were built in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s using discrete TTL and PAL logic. Each system had as many as 5 boards with a system total of more than 300 IC’s. Bolton Engineering studied the original documentation and reversed engineered the critical design sections. Most of the logic was placed in a medium-size FPGA (Field Programmable Logic Array). The final system fit on a single 6” x 10” circuit board with fewer than 50 ICs.
|
|
|
Zeo was finalizing their design and was in the process of moving production to China. They had started work on creating a flexible production test system and had written a test specification, but did not have the available design resources to complete the work. Zeo turned to Bolton Engineering to design the Production Test System.
|
|
|
The client had been producing the Blood Analysis System for only five years. The design had used a motor control board from another piece of equipment, though, which was of much older vintage. The client realized that a quadrature encoder interface IC on the board had recently gone obsolete, but was confident that a new “direct substitute” from the same IC manufacturer would provide equivalent operation. Although the new IC worked almost identically to the original IC, one minor function operated differently, and none of the boards worked. Production was halted and Bolton Engineering was called in to examine the design and make recommendations.
|
|
|
This highly efficient Power Supply provides low-noise power over a wide range of input voltages and output load conditions. The system is designed and tested to meet the stringent Military Standard 1275D transient and noise requirements for 28V military ground vehicles. The system is designed to operate down to 11V for use in standard civilian vehicles.
|
|
|
The Innov-X Acquisition Engine had interfaced to the iPaq PDAs using a serial interface, but suddenly HP had announced that new models would replace the serial ports with USB ports. Innov-X turned to Bolton Engineering to rapidly produce a new design that was form-compatible with their original board, but would incorporate a high speed (480Mbps) USB port. In addition, Innov-X wanted to add an interface to a VGA-size CMOS camera module to allow future products to store a picture when taking a sample.
|
|
|
RedXDefense produces the XPAK, a portable trace explosives detection system. The iModule adds the capability to log and map sampling locations. The iModule was designed under intense time pressure, with 60 production units delivered to the client within 6 weeks after the start of the project. An additional 40 units were delivered less than three weeks later.
|
|
|
his DSP Board operates as a programmable wide-band software radio. The DSPs perform console and management functions, while the client-designed FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) DSP engine processes and manages the high speed data path and converts it to baseband. This 22-layer circuit board has almost 2000 components and over 400 high speed tracks with critical length and cross-talk routing requirements.
|
|
|
The Client was working on a laser projection system and needed a flexible controller board to accept a variety of video formats. Internal staff and consultants had done most of the work, but were running short of time to get the job built. The company brought a mostly complete set of schematics to Bolton Engineering, and Bolton Engineering finished off the design, created the circuit board layout, and built prototype boards.
|
|
|
The client had been producing the Hemostatis Testing System for over ten years. It had acquired the product line from another firm and did not have in-house design staff to make changes to the design. The client had known that the brushless 3-Phase DC motor drive integrated circuit (UC3620) was no longer produced, but had been reluctant to make changes to the design as they were planning to replace the product with a completely new design. They were manufacturing a new run of equipment, but had run into difficulties finding chips. Production was stopped until the design could be patched to run with different brushless DC motor drivers.
|
|
|
Subscriber
Solutions had won a Bureau of Prisons contract to deliver
a high reliability modular PBX system and had eighteen months
in which to deliver a fully working system. Bolton Engineering
worked closely with Subscriber Solutions to create a detailed
system specification so that the many subsystems could be
designed and tested in parallel. Boards were designed to
be removed from or inserted into the system while the power
was running without losing ongoing calls ("hot swapped").
Redundant TDM (Time Division Multiplex) highways and control
busses were implemented to ensure that single-point failures
did not stop other system elements from working.
|
|
|
Bolton
Engineering, Inc. had designed the client’s first
generation Fingerprint ID System using a quad-processor
DSP. The client wanted to move to a less expensive dual-processor
DSP, increase fingerprint template capacity and add I/O.
The unit had to fit into the same case with similar power
requirements.
|
|
|
Subscriber
Solutions had won a Bureau of Prisons contract to deliver
a high reliability modular PBX system and had eighteen months
in which to deliver a fully working system. Bolton Engineering
worked closely with Subscriber Solutions to create a detailed
system specification so that the many subsystems could be
designed and tested in parallel. Boards were designed to
be removed from or inserted into the system while the power
was running without losing ongoing calls ("hot swapped").
Redundant TDM (Time Division Multiplex) highways and control
busses were implemented to ensure that single-point failures
did not stop other system elements from working.
|
|
|
A
wastewater treatment facility needed to detect the interface
between sludge and decanted water. The facility previously
had needed to replace their standard off-the-shelf optical
detectors every few months; the existing optical detectors
operated off of fixed density thresholds and gave false
readings as their components aged.
|
|
|
The
Intelligent Automation Systems 4DI Imager is a non-contact
gauging system that creates a three-dimensional wire frame
model of an object under inspection. The system shines a
series of laser-generated lines on an object and measures
the line locations using three CCD cameras. The 4DI Imager
board detects the laser line locations in the images and
outputs a series of points. A PC-resident application package
displays a wire frame image and performs image analysis
functions.
|
|
|
Bolton
Engineering had designed the client's first generation instant
ticket vending machine. Although the machine had proven
highly reliable with over two-and-a-half million total hours
of operation over three years without hardware or software
failures, it was not versatile enough to meet the needs
of the increasingly sophisticated Lottery Commissions.
|
|
|
The
Precision Detectors PD2000 family of molecular characterization
detectors measures absolute values of molecular weights,
sizes, and shapes. Typical applications are polymers, proteins,
antibodies, polysacchrides and other macromolecules used
in the plastics, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and food
industries. The PD2000 series is available in single angle,
dual angle and high temperature versions with or without
dynamic light scattering (DLS) capabilities. The high performance
cell design provides exceptionally accurate measurements
for a broad range of molecules from less than 1000 daltons
up to 106 daltons for most samples, and to 107 daltons for
certain proteins and polymers.
|
|
|
A
client had been manufacturing various versions of this instrument
for over 20 years. The design in production had been designed
several years before, but still incorporated manual wiring,
with critical components soldered directly to switches to
minimize parasitic electrical leakage. The client produced
two similar instruments, but the electronics for each was
unique.
|
|
|
Telepharmacy
Solutions, Inc. is a leading provider of e-commerce
solutions to the outpatient care market. TSI’s products
allow medication to be legally remotely dispensed to patients.
Other TSI products provide medication access control at
hospitals.
|
|
|
Bolton Engineering was working on several Digital Signal
Processing (DSP) projects and needed a miniature development
board that could be used to jump-start software development.
Two of the projects needed to run Linux, and also required
significant programmable logic content. Using the
Analog Devices Blackfin Stamp board as a starting point,
Bolton Engineering designed the Blackfin Stamplet.
|
|
|
Bolton Engineering had designed the
electronics for the SensAble Technologies OMNI Haptic
Device. The system was a complex mixed-signal design with
sensor interfaces, digital electronics and high power Pulse
Width Modulated (PWM) amplifiers. Bolton Engineering built a
custom test station to allow the product to functionally and
parametrically test itself
|
|
|
This unique product uses a
hardware/software model to calculate a predistortion signal
to cancel out the distortion introduced by an RF power
amplifier. This unique system incorporates a high speed
TigerSHARC floating point Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
plus a client-designed Programmable Logic Device (PLD)
computational engine that work in unison to calculate a
predistortion signal to cancel out the distortion introduced
by the RF power amplifier.
|
|
|
Redshift Systems had developed a radical new technology
that greatly reduced the cost of manufacturing Thermal
Imaging Cameras (TICs). TICs are used in surveillance, and
by emergency response personnel to identify people and doors
in smoke filled buildings. Bolton Engineering developed a
miniature Digital Signal Processor (DSP) board based on the
Analog Devices Blackfin that incorporated all video capture
and display electronics.
|
|
|
A client was developing a software
radio for base station use. They had done all the system
calculations to determine how the signal path should
operate, and what kind of signal processing they required.
They had excellent in-house expertise for the RF design, but
did not have sufficient in-house experience to do the
digital design. Bolton Engineering designed the system
using an Analog Devices Blackfin Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
|
|
|
A client was investigating the
practicality of embedding
Steganographic (i.e., hidden) signals in television
programs and advertisements. These signals would be part of
the audio stream and would trigger bonus points in a small
handheld giveaway device. The client hired Bolton
Engineering to develop a small credit card-sized battery
powered device for a limited marketing test of the concept.
In under four weeks, Bolton Engineering delivered fully
working, debugged boards and driver code.
|
| |
|
Consumer and Computer
