Services

Hardware R&D and Product Development

For companies without an in-house hardware team, we act as the R&D department — feasibility and proof-of-concept builds, architecture and part selection, and prototype iterations through a pilot run. We take it from a one-page idea to a tested board and the files to manufacture it. Each phase is scoped and quoted on its own, so you decide how far to take it.

Feasibility studies and proof-of-concept boards; system architecture and part selection; prototype iterations with test data; pilot runs; hand-off package for manufacturing (or manufacture here).

Printed Circuit Board Design and Layout

Schematic capture through a routed, manufacturable board — stack-up, impedance-controlled traces where the signal needs it, and a layout reviewed against the parts it actually places, not a generic template.

Laid out in KiCad. 2–6 layer boards, impedance-controlled where the signal needs it.

Schematic Design

A clean, reviewable schematic as the design record — the thing an engineer can read a year later and trust, not just a step on the way to a layout.

Delivered as PDF plus KiCad source, so it stays readable with or without the tool that made it.

Bill of Materials

A bill of materials built from parts that are actually sourceable, checked against the assembly process before the board is ordered — footprint, orientation, and panelization reviewed as manufacturing decisions, not fixed after the fact.

Sourcing and alternates called out per line, with a DFM review before anything is ordered.

Membrane Switch Overlay

Overlay and tactile-switch integration for panel-mount products — graphics, dome placement, and connector routing worked out against the enclosure and the board underneath it, not designed in isolation.

Overlay artwork and tactile-switch integration worked out together, against the enclosure it mounts to.

Mechanical Design, CAD and Fabrication

3D models and assemblies built in SolidWorks or FreeCAD, with production-ready technical drawings — tolerances, finishes, the works — for machined, sheet-metal, or molded parts, not just enclosures. Enclosures, panels, brackets and fixtures are designed against the real board, then cut and printed on our own laser cutter and multi-material 3D printers for a fitted prototype. When volume needs it, the same drawing package goes straight to a machine shop or molder.

SolidWorks and FreeCAD; 2D drawings with tolerances and finish callouts; STEP/STL/DXF; enclosures, sheet metal, brackets, fixtures; in-house laser cutting and multi-material 3D printing.

Firmware Programming

Firmware written in C, bare-metal or RTOS, against the part's datasheet and errata — not a generated HAL default. We're comfortable working across vendors rather than tied to one, so the right chip drives the design instead of the other way around. On top of that we build the connectivity a product needs: BLE, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, CAN, USB, RS-485, and the wireless links behind a remote control or a radio-linked sensor.

STM32, ESP32, Nordic nRF52, Microchip PIC/AVR/SAM, TI MSP430/CC, Arduino-compatible. BLE, Wi‑Fi, Ethernet, CAN, USB, RS-485, sub-GHz/2.4 GHz radio.

Apps and Software for Hardware Products

The software a hardware product needs around it, not just the firmware inside it: mobile companion apps for iOS and Android — BLE pairing, configuration, firmware updates — and web apps or browser-based device tools such as Web Serial and WebUSB flashers and configurators that need no installer. On the bench, that's desktop utilities for macOS, Linux and Windows, and the test-station and production software behind our own line. For connected products, it extends to cloud dashboards and device connectivity.

Web apps and browser-based device tools (Web Serial, WebUSB); iOS and Android companion apps (BLE); desktop tools for macOS, Linux and Windows; Python and C tooling; device dashboards and data logging.

Small-Batch SMT Assembly

Automated surface-mount assembly on our own line, built for start-ups, R&D labs, and pilot runs — from one proof-of-concept board to several hundred units. Parts are placed by machine with dual-camera vision alignment, not by hand, and reflowed lead-free (RoHS). Every board comes off the line and goes straight through the automated test station before it ships, with conformal coating available for boards that live in humidity, vibration or outdoor enclosures. Prototypes as fast as four weeks from files to assembled, tested boards, depending on parts availability.

The precision of a production line, at the pace of a design studio.

Automated Test Fixtures and 100% Production Testing

Custom test fixtures — pogo-pin or bed-of-nails, with swappable fixture boards — for PCBs and membrane switch overlays, plus the station software that runs the whole test with no operator judgment: power-up and current limits, sleep current for battery products, every indicator read by camera, every overlay key pressed and read. Each unit is serialized and its results logged, so there's a per-serial quality record for returns and audits. We build this for a client's own production floor, or run it here on boards we assemble.

Fixture mechanics designed and built in house (laser-cut and 3D-printed); test firmware and station software; optical verification of LEDs and displays; membrane overlay key-scan testing; serialization and CSV/JSON logs; pass/fail with limits, no manual steps.

Obsolete Parts and Board Redesign

When a part goes end-of-life or NRND — or a shortage hits — we find and qualify an alternative. If the footprint changed, we respin the layout around it, porting the firmware to a new microcontroller or framework when no drop-in replacement exists. Then we rebuild and test the board so the product keeps shipping.

Alternates sourced and cross-referenced; footprint and layout respin in KiCad; firmware ported across vendors — STM32 to Nordic, Microchip to TI, and others — or to a new SDK/RTOS; last-time-buy planning.

How an obsolete-part redesign works ›

Reverse Engineering and Legacy Boards

When the documentation is gone — no schematic, no source, and the original designer unreachable — we recover the schematic from the board itself, capture and document its interfaces and protocols, and analyze the firmware where the device allows it. What comes out is a maintainable design record, the same as if the board had been designed here. From there it can be re-manufactured as-is, repaired, or redesigned around parts that are still in production.

Schematic recovery from PCB; interface and protocol capture (UART, SPI, I²C, CAN, USB, RF); firmware extraction and analysis where the device allows; redraw in KiCad; path to the obsolete-part redesign service.

For products you own or are licensed to maintain.