Zeus Rugged Computer

What I did for this product;

• Electronics - Yes
• Mechanical Design - Yes
• Asthetic Design - Yes
• Thermal Flow - Yes
• Radio Emissions - Yes

I designed a rugged PC known as "Zeus" which achieved, as intended, a very low levels of radio emission due to its special ground plane and careful connector layout. Also all connectors were of locking types so as to make the system immune to vibration.

This was for possible use on trains where vibration would be a significant factor. Initially I looked at military plugs and sockets but found them to be lacking when it came to safety.

Tyrell 1 and 2

In August 97 I began managing one programmer to write some new PC based Travel Terminal software to be written in C++ and known as Tyrell. It went into a control rooms about June 99 at this point there were three programmers. This product has continued to develop and is now used for the management, distribution and presentation of public transport information by twenty-one train-operating companies, city and county councils, Transport for London, Railtrack, several police forces and the major travel information media organisations. Sold over 110 units.

What I did for these products;

• Software (in C) - Yes
• Database Design - Some

Mechanical Engineering

Despite no initial background in mechanical engineering I was drawn into it as it became necessary to commission special components, initially just a few plates, to build the displays. The first display produced by NAL the IDU was simply the combination of a standard watertight housing containing a CRT, a computer in a custom built metal housing and some custom mounting plates.

Industrial Design

I did any industrial design we needed until in November 2003 I employed a product designer to take on future product design work.

Radio Work

I did or managed all the radio work for the pre-tests for CE radio emissions. We passed the tests first time on all equipment.

I was responsible for the radio communications between displays and the software involved.

Electronic Design

I managed and directed electronic design work for our display's environmental control systems.

Despite my interest in electronics I have not done any significant electronic circuit design work with NAL but I have supervised that design and checked circuit designs at component level. I was also involved in fault finding and on site repair and installation of displays.

Production Control

I was responsible for efficient assembly setup. I developed and implemented the process for controlling component stock levels for builds and spares so as to avoid stock taking between building each batch of displays. I worked on and managed builds of up to twenty displays at a time optimising the working methods. I developed a "job kits system" which broke the work down into simple jobs that could be done reliably with casual labour and also made stock control very easy.

I worked on and managed builds of up to twenty displays optimising the time spend on the jobs. I managed and participated in mechanical engineering until March 2001 after which I continued to direct some of the work.

Maintenance Control

I established a parts tracking system for our field equipment so that we could keep a history of the pagers and computers etc. that were often taken from one system repaired and then used in another.

Quality

On installing a reasonable number of IDUs we found ourselves getting an unexpectedly high fault rate. Plotting the fault rate showed a peek and I noted that this corresponded to a time when we had had heavy rain. We look for any signs of water ingress. I established the cause of the leak as badly cured fibreglass that had warped causing water to rest against a rubber seal. I suggested a fix which the supplier then manufactured but this experience, was sufficient for me to design an entire new unit from stainless steel. The LCD1.