Sam joins us on Fika Bytes this week to talk about developing the sun-a-wear UV tracker going from prototyping to production. My favorite part was what he decided to do when they were having difficulty getting a battery into the design... Listen to the episode to find out what he did.
My 3 Takeaways: -Good engineering follows the rules. Great engineering knows the rules well enough to bend them.
-Think about specifically how your customer will use this device when making design decisions.
-Use off-the-shelf parts to validate your idea before going to custom designs.
Chapters (thanks AI)
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:54 The SunAware UV Tracker
01:46 The Importance of UV Radiation
02:08 Motivation for Building the SunAware UV Tracker
05:39 Prototyping the SunAware UV Tracker
09:01 Trade-offs in Prototyping
09:31 The Value of Rapid PCB Prototyping
10:23 The Challenge of Battery Charging
11:08 Innovative Solar Power Solution
12:14 Exploring Specialized Components
13:03 Making Design Decisions
14:18 The Importance of Thinking Outside the Box
14:46 The Engineer's Journey
15:58 The Challenge of Firmware Updates
17:33 Future Plans for Over-the-Air Updates
18:21 Exploring Solid-State Batteries
19:22 Advantages of Solid-State Batteries
21:03 Building a Support System in the Hardware Ecosystem
23:54 Embracing the Strengths of a Small Company
24:31 Considerations for Design and Manufacturing
26:50 The Importance of Part Availability
27:49 Hidden Synergies in Component Selection
30:37 The Fun of Engineering and Deep Diving into Design
30:59 Where to Follow SunAware
