Do you need electronic product design for something that is not available on the market? Require a professional electronic circuit designer and/or printed circuit board (PCB)? Or perhaps a proof of concept? Maybe you just need some electronic experts to review your circuit schematic or PCB layout? Perhaps you need an embedded programming / coding expert? In any case, we are confident we can support your needs. We have a wealth of experience with electronic design, electronic development, electronic prototyping, electronic production advise, and firmware programming. We are proficient with various EDA tools and various OSs. We started using Protel in the 1990's, before it was rebirthed as Altium. We still use Protel/Altium if/when required, however prefer to use gEDA (and some times Eagle). We use gEDA because it is open-source and therefore can be integrated with our custom Python tools to auto create PCB footprints, auto create BOMs and price lists using the Octopart API https://octopart.com or Digikey API https://services.digikey.com. This allows automation of some of our services/skills, which requires less human hours, and therefore higher efficiency and lower development costs.
Our custom electronics experience is broad: analogue electronics, digital electronics, RF electronics, TI MSP430, ST STM32, FPGA, WiFi, Bluetooth, custom wireless protocols for long range, power management (PMIC), buck and boost converters, lithium (Li) battery charging, lithium polymer (Li-Po) battery charging, wireless induction charging, various sensor interfacing (IMU, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, image sensors, ultrasonics, IR, encoders, radar, laser range finders), various control interfacing (brushed DC motors, BLDC, servo motors, stepper motors, linear actuators, pneumatics, hydraulics). With a deep understanding of electronics, sensors and computer networking we find IoT devices straight forward. We even have a sewing machine for conductive thread and LilyPad's to embrace wearable technology.
We believe that a good electronics design will use a microcontroller (MCU) or microprocessor (MPU) that allows one to develop firmware (i.e. software for hardware), so the features/solutions are flexible and extendable. We have expensive experience with programming at all levels from embedded programming, to application programming, GUI programming, cross-platform development, and web development. We are Linux experts and confident with all programming languages (e.g. C, C++, Python to say the least) and all operating systems. Our desktop computers typically run Ubuntu/Debian and use VirtualBox to run all operating systems (OSX and Windows) at the same time.
A design wouldn't be complete without PCB assembly, prototyping, testing and debugging. We typically get our bare PCB's manufactured in China along with a stencil (about 5 days turn around time). We then use our reflow oven to do surface mount soldering, and the rest is done with a solering iron. We have tools and tricks of the trade for PCB surface mount and through hole rework. We are confident with manual soldering components down to the 0603 level.
Some of our Electronics Design and Prototyping Experience
The CTO of COLETEK (Luke Cole) originally worked for Hemisphere GPS (purchased by AgJunction) as a "Robotics Engineer" implementing auto-guidance solutions for agriculture tractors and quadbikes. Luke Cole also worked at Location Aware Technologies (433) developing indoor tracking devices. And also worked for leading research institutes such as NICTA, CSIRO and ANU Robotics System Lab (lead by Alex Zelinsky).
Lance Cole has also worked at NICTA and has a background of various hardware development, such as working for a contract company to the US millary (EOS), building the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS).
Information About Hawker
Hawker is a town in the Flinders Ranges area of South Australia, 365 km north of Adelaide. The town population is about 300, with another 200 people in the surrounding district. It is in the Flinders Ranges Council, the state Electoral district of Stuart and the federal Division of Grey.
The main economic activities in the area are tourism and pastoral runs of sheep and increasingly cattle. Due to the arid environment, the stocking rates are low, at about one sheep per three to four hectares. Hawker is 55 km south of Wilpena Pound, a unique natural dish-shaped range of hills popular with tourists, as well as the spectacular scenery of the southern Flinders Ranges.
Hawker was a thriving railway town from the 1880s until 1956 as it was on the famous Ghan railway line, until the route was moved further west when the line was upgraded.
The town, population of about 300, offers visitors all essential services needed for their stay in the Flinders Ranges or for those venturing further into the Outback of South Australia.
Hawker is administered by the Flinders Ranges Council based in Quorn, another unique location which has so much to offer the visitor. A large variety of accommodation styles is available in the district at affordable prices. A number of establishments provide meals or takeaway food, and there are several stores to stock up on provisions for that short or longer stay in the north.
Our Clients
COLETEK Amazing Customer Testimonials
We met with Luke Cole from COLETEK and very quickly realised that he was very knowledgeable in robotics and prototyping. What separates his company from the rest, is that he had a unique value proposition - COLETEK offers a tele-operated / robotic unit for rent and with the flexibility to be modified to build proof-of-concepts. That unit lowered both the cost and time for us to produce a video showing a very challenging concept. In general COLETEK's service was great value. We would recommend them - they will get it done.
We engaged COLETEK to conduct a series of research projects on robotics and we very pleased with their technical skill, creative thinking and hard work. If you need to prototype a complex technical idea, they are a great partner to work with.
COLETEK has been providing us with machining solutions for intricate and bespoke spacecraft designs. The team are very professional and always approachable with quick responses to ensure our needs are met. COLETEK offers a competitive solution on price and lead time and we have yet to give them a real challenge so it seems!
Intuitive, innovative & efficient are three words that would appropriately describe the COLETEK service. Luke and the team at COLETEK have taken our concepts to the next level.
We had the pleasure of doing business with COLETEK who provided us with service work. Their level of service and the quality of their work is exceptional. They communicated with us through the entire process to let us know when the work would be completed. We are very happy to have worked with them.
Delivered excellence on time, great work and great team, thanks!
Great delivery, and great relationship orientated services.
I recently discovered COLETEK after I accidently managed to fry the PCB on my hard drive. The drive contained 13 years worth family photos and wasn't comfortable sending it off where it could be damaged more or lost in the post. After spending hours researching and emailing different data recovery companies, I decided on COLETEK. Luke was very helpful and let me know the estimated costs up front, and was able to quickly do the repairs necessary to get my drive running like new again. I was able to back up the whole drive and the bill ended up cheaper than the original quote. I can highly recommend them and have already sent a friend to get their drive repaired too.
I have been working closely with COLETEK for the past 6 years now, and I must say, it is a success story :-). I highly respect their team, they are a pleasure to work with and top skilled professionals. In addition to their top Technical service, their customer service is brilliant and it is a rare find. Their PCB repair rework skills are top notch and a rare find in this industry. I have been working in the IT industry for the past 20 years in various fields and seen it all so I can say with certainty that they are the best around and I am looking forward to keep working with them in the future.
Entrepreneurs, inventors & companies come to us to turn ideas into reality...
We work on a broad range of hardware and software projects, such as: prototyping, product development, robotics, electronics, computer security, surveillance, graphics and IT.
We also review complex problems, with the aim to find solutions.
We are able to do all this due to our background in robotics R&D.