Hardware design addresses the physical parts of the product design. Bill Grace's hardware design skills include:
Electronic design
Mechanical design
Real world connections
Infrastructure design
Electronic design
Bill Grace has designed numerous electronic products including complete computers,
display subsystems, power subsystems, data communications subsystems and environmental controllers.
Bill has successfully designed and produced many types and styles of electronic design including:
- Multiple layer
- Flexible circuit
- Live-power hot swap
- Fine pitch surface mount
- Thick copper heavy current
Examples:
- System 8000 PCI Combination PCB ( photo )
- Flight Simulator Power Distribution PCB ( photo )
- Convenience Store Kiosk Enclosure Controller PCB ( photo )
- Worldgate rack chassis fan combiner PCB ( photo )
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Mechanical design
Bill Grace has designed many mechanical systems including sheet metal enclosures for computers,
injection molded plastic parts for hand-held calculators,
mountings for optical assemblies and rack mount chassis supports.
From years of experience in designing and producing mechanical components Bill has developed
the skills needed to both conceive successful designs and to communicate those designs to
the people responsible for fabrication and manufacturing the components.
In place of the traditional "blue line" mechanical drawings Bill has developed a style of
creating clear and complete drawing sets on standard 8-1/2" x 11" copier paper.
This method allows all parties involved to have appropriate access to the drawing using
equipment and facilities which are present in all businesses.
From machine shops to in-house documentation departments to faxes and e-mail, Bill's
drawings are easily and plainly accessible (see example drawings below).
- Model 2240 rack mount server chassis ( drawing ) ( photo )
- Flight simulator peripheral power cable ( drawing ) ( photo )
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Real world connections
The use of automation is widespread and continuing to expand because it repeatedly proves useful and
valuable to apply inexpensive microcontrollers to tasks which are not handled well by people or
are the kinds of things where people would rather not spend their time.
One of the key aspects of successful automation is providing appropriate connection between the
physical world and the automation circuitry.
A simple case with which almost all of us are familiar is the thermostat on the wall of our homes
which is connected to the temperature of the air in the room and to the on/off switch of the
heater or cooler and so is able to constantly watch the temperature and turn the heater on and
off as appropriate.
A more exotic but increasingly common example is the microcontroller(s) in a new automobile having
connection to many sensors and actuators in the car allowing it to properly and automatically
control engine operation, safety issues, passenger compartment comfort, etc.
Bill Grace has extensive experience in real world connections for automation.
His combination of background and education in both mechanical and electronic
engineering provide an unusual and ideally suited skill set for effective automation design.
Examples of connections between microcontrollers and the real world Bill has put to use:
- Stepper motors
- Temperature sensors
- Analog to digital converters
- Solenoids
- A/C power flow sensors
- A/C power switches
- D/C power switches
- Fan rotation sensors
- Proximity detectors
- Light intensity sensors
- Light path sensors
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Infrastructure design
Every product design has its own unique characteristics and often needs many details beyond the usual
electronic and mechanical items.
Since each design situation tends to be unique with respect to infrastructure needs there is no
simple skill with which to always address this area.
Bill Grace's broad range of skills and experience give him an excellent ability to assess the infrastructure
challenges of a given design situation and then conceive and implement successful approaches.
For example:
- Evergreen Systems needed a communications server product featuring very high processor density
and high redundancy.
Bill designed an infrastructure including novel equipment rack layout, digital circuitry, analog
circuitry, data communications protocols and automation firmware.
This infrastructure design achieved all the goals of the aggressive system design (see the
case study "Communications Server").
- The largest provider of civil aviation flight simulators developed a new
and very successful approach to flight simulator image electronics and
encountered a critical need for computer electrical power which went
beyond the capacity of available power supplies.
Bill designed an infrastructure consisting of analog power switching components, cabling,
blind mate connectors and automation firmware which allows them to successfully apply
two power supplies to each computer chassis (see the case study "More Power for a Flight Simulator").
- Lucent Technologies needed the maximum number of computer processors possible to be installed in each
19" equipment rack for an internal Bell Labs project.
Bill developed an infrastructure including custom chassis sheet metal, novel A/C power distribution,
motherboard status monitoring and control, ancillary circuit boards, data communications protocols and
diskless operation via network bootup.
Lucent received a chassis boasting a total of 320 processors per equipment rack.
- Nacio Systems needed to track the electric power used by its internet co-locating customers but the
utility laws prohibited directly measuring that usage.
Bill worked with Nacio staff to develop an appropriate infrastructure including power sensors,
data collection circuitry, autmoation firmware, communication protocols, cabling and mounting
within the equipment rack system laid out at the co-location site.
This infrastructure successfully enabled Nacio to sample electric power usage with enough
accuracy to make fair billing categories for customers while at the same time properly
obeying the requirements of the power utility regulations.
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