Filling the gaps:

   Many times, an inventor will have strong engineering abilities in one or more parts of his invention.  But, lack the necessary experience in other required fields.  For example, an electrical engineer may have no problem creating the PCB for his product. But, may not know the ins and outs of plastic molding, metal/CNC machining, micro-controller firmware, or things like thermodynamic heat transfer.  We can provide the engineering expertise to fill in the missing pieces.

Complete Design:

   Sometimes, it is not enough that a prototype actually works. It also needs to give the appearance of a marketable finished product.  Many inventors and engineers just do not have a “feel” for aesthetics when it comes to product enclosures and other appearance items.   We have relationships with professional product design artists/engineers with many years of commercial product experience.  Together with them, we can design the appearance of your product to be both aesthetically pleasing and manufacturable.  Very small changes in the appearance of your enclosure can have a large effect on the complexity and cost of tings like plastic injection molds and production tooling. 

Complete prototyping:

  SLA and Poly-Jet rapid models are all well and good. And, often, they are good enough.  But, many times, it takes a lot more than that to create a real working prototype of a product; even one without electronics. There are things like bearings, bushings, springs, fasteners, and the ability to assemble and test the system that go into a complete prototype.  These other parts must be sourced, or specially manufactured.    Also, the mechanical properties of rapid prototype materials are often not quite as good as their production counterparts.  Sometimes, it is necessary to make temporary molds to produce real plastic parts from production resins that can stand up to mechanical and temperature stresses that an SLA materials are not suited for. 

Mock-ups:

   A mockup is a model of your product that is not a completed, production ready design.  A mock-up can be a simple plastic model that has the same outward appearance as your proposed product. Or, it can be a fully functional model that is built from non-production parts, such as pre-assembled functional modules; or even competitors products!  Sometimes, for industry shows or demonstrations, we build mock-ups that are controlled via software on a PC.  In this case, the model appears to be fully functional, but is, in actuality, a “dumb terminal” for the attached ( but commonly hidden ) PC computer. 

Embedded Micro-Controllers:

     Many new products require the use of a Micro-Controller chip to support basic functions like IR remote controls and user interfaces.  These can be very inexpensive. And, can often reduce costs in other areas of your product by eliminating the need for more complex electronic circuitry or mechanical devices.  We work with an array of Micro-Controllers; from the early Intel 8051 series processors, from the 1970’s, to the latest of the PIC, AVR and ARM 32-bit MPUs.  We can assist with processor selection based on the requirements of your product and your pricing targets.  We can also provide USB or serial interfaces and Windows drivers for your product to allow you to write your Windows 2000/XP/Vista software.

Manufacturing:

    For short-run production, we have arrangements, locally, with CNC machine shops, metal casting and extrusion foundries, plastic injection molders, PCB fabricators and SMT assemblers, manual assemblers, and packagers.  We can manage, short term, local production to fill supply lines, while lower cost, offshore, manufacturing is coming online.

    If you need to produce 1 to 1000 of something, it is often most economical to build them locally.  If you need more than 1,000,000 pieces, then China is usually the best way to go.   But, in the void between these numbers, often Eastern Europe is the correct choice.  We work with factories in Romania to produce mid-volume production of electronics and mechanical goods.  The tax incentives and a highly educated tech-savvy, young population in the former eastern block nations, along with the advantages of European Union membership, has made Romania a magnet for manufacturing of both high-tech and general consumer items.  We travel there to qualify more manufacturing companies every year. 

    There are also a large number of very proficient computer programmers available in Romania for Windows, Linux, Java, and embedded system.  Romania is quite famous for it’s mathematicians, even during the “Iron Curtain” years. We find the best and most reliable programmers and mathematicians there, and match them up with customers, here , in the US.   We have agents and translators available to assist with your project. Although, English proficiency is now very common among those in the technical fields.

Besides.... Who can resist a box tat says “Made in Transylvania” ? :)