Brisbane Electronic Design

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 forks such as Lepton-EDA and pcb-rnd), and some times KiCAD or 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.

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).

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, as well as the third largest city in Australia, with a metropolitan population of just under 2.0 million. It is set close to the Pacific Ocean, and is situated beside the Brisbane River on plains between Moreton Bay and the Great Dividing Range in south-eastern Queensland.

The city is named in honour of Sir Thomas Brisbane who was Governor of New South Wales from 1821-1825. The original settlement grew from a harsh penal colony established at his direction in 1824 at Redcliffe, 28km to the north. The colony was moved to what is now the location of the Brisbane CBD in 1825, and free settlers were permitted from 1842. It was chosen as the capital when Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony, in 1859. The city developed slowly until after World War II, when it played a central role in the Allied campaign as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur.

More recently, Brisbane hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and 1988 World's Fair (Expo '88), and also the Goodwill Games in 2001.

Brisbane has a humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers and dry, mild winters. From late Spring through to early Autumn, thunderstorms are common over the greater Brisbane area, with the more severe events accompanied by large damaging hail stones, torrential rain and destructive winds.