My Portfolio

Just Add Sharks - Break-in Board

Just Add Sharks sell laser cutters. They asked me to design and layout a PCB to allow use of alternative controllers than the standard one normally built into the machine.

After producing an initial board, I corresponded with Martin by email to finalise the board, paying particular attention to the design of the silkscreen for both aesthetic appeal and ease of installation in a laser cutter.

Martin said:

"James was fast and efficient, he took the time to understood exactly what I was trying to do and helped me through the entire process, I will be using him for my future projects."

Vintage Booth

Button image © Lee Garland/Vintagebooth.me

Coin Acceptor

Vintage Booth run vintage photo booths. I was asked to incoporate a coin acceptor into the mechanism to allow payment on a per-photo basis. A standard Arduino was used to read the coin acceptor output and interface with the rest of the photobooth hardware.

USB Buttons

I was also asked to provide some hardware for use as buttons for the photobooth - sending a spacebar press to a PC when a button was pressed. The client had used other USB boards but found that they were not rugged enough to stand up to continued use. I was asked to design a solution with an appropriate USB board, plus strain relief and mounting, to ensure reliable operation of the booth.

Lee said:

"Working with James was great. We had needs for some Arduino programming, and were delighted with the result. We managed to get hold of something bespoke, that simply was not available on the market, and it really helped set ourselves apart. Highly recommended."

Re-Innovation

I have worked on several projects for Re-Innovation, designing PCBs and writing embedded software. The main project has been a datalogging unit for a photovoltaic system. The unit's features include remote datalogging over GPRS, local datalogging to SD card, configuration by human-readable text files (on SD card), SMS alerts and GPS positioning. All the high level software layers were developed to be platform agnostic. This allows re-use of those modules with other hardware platforms and also means the modules can be supported by a unit test suite that can be run without needing actual hardware.

Matt said:

"I have worked with James on several projects, mainly working on embedded code and electronics design. He has gone above and beyond what has been required and is always personable, reliable and has supplied projects to a deadline. I hope to work with James on many future projects."