-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Feumotech Delivers Custom Made Fire Trucks Ahead of Schedule
October 22, 2020 | ZukenEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Feumotech’s fire trucks are custom made and highly specialized. This usually equals immense development efforts. By using Zuken’s E3.series electrical engineering software, the Swiss manufacturer was able to significantly reduce the development effort per vehicle. At the same time, they were able to increase the quality of their electrical design documentation.
For over thirty years Feumotech has been specializing in customized designs that customers appreciate for their ease of operation and reliability. One-off productions and small-batch sizes are not an exception, but rather the standard. Efficient and flexible engineering tools are therefore a vital element for Feumotech’s success.
Complexity? Under Control!
For a number of fire engines that were recently produced in a small series, various assemblies had to be designed from scratch. In addition, the end-users were to be given the choice between different chassis configuration and a range of equipment options. Thanks to the options and variants functionality of E3.series the electrical equipment for the newly designed assemblies could be quickly and easily integrated into the circuit diagram as subcircuits. The vehicle-specific differences could be selected at the push of a button.
As several new assemblies were to be manufactured externally, they had to be built and tested in advance as prototypes. Consequently, the development time frame was extremely ambitious. In addition, part of the development and circuit diagram design had to be carried out from the home office. Due to corona safety measures the company had taken to ensure its employees’ safety.
Thanks to the efficient and flexible capabilities that E3.series offers, they managed to achieve the time schedule despite the difficult circumstances. In some cases, the vehicles could even be handed over to the customer before the initially planned delivery date.
Spaces tighter than the time frame
The flexibility of E3.series also proved to be an advantage in another project. Multiple systems had to be fitted into a small space. In this instance, several ICT systems, large screens, control panels, cameras, air conditioning systems had to be integrated into one complete system.
The challenge was to accurately integrate the subsystems of external suppliers and to document them concisely as one complete system. Numerous change requests surfaced during the design process, which needed to be integrated into the current project. With the help of the block functionality of E3.series, the engineers were able to keep the documentation process lean and up-to-date. Externally engineered systems were integrated into the master wiring diagrams with minimal internal effort.
Suggested Items
Connect the Dots: Designing for Reality—The Pre-Manufacturing Process
05/08/2024 | Matt Stevenson -- Column: Connect the DotsI have been working with Nolan Johnson on a podcast series about designing PCBs for the reality of manufacturing. By sharing lessons learned over a long career in the PCB industry, we hope to shorten learning curves and help designers produce better boards with less hassle and rework. Episode 2 deals with the electronic pre-manufacturing process. Moving from CAD (computer-aided design) to CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) is a key step in PCB manufacturing. CAM turns digital designs into instructions that machines can use to actually build the PCB.
Indium Corporation to Showcase HIA Materials at ECTC
05/07/2024 | Indium CorporationAs an industry leader in innovative materials solutions for semiconductor packaging and assembly, Indium Corporation® will feature its advanced products designed to meet the evolving challenges of heterogeneous integration and assembly (HIA) and fine-pitch system-in-package (SiP) applications at the 74th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), May 28‒31, in Denver, Colorado.
Siemens Delivers New Solido IP Validation Suite
05/07/2024 | SiemensSiemens Digital Industries Software introduced Solido™ IP Validation Suite software, a comprehensive, automated signoff solution for quality assurance across all design intellectual property (IP) types, including standard cells, memories and IP blocks.
Altair Acquires Research in Flight, Forging a New Path for Aerodynamic Analysis
05/07/2024 | AltairAltair a global leader in computational intelligence, announced it has acquired Research in Flight, maker of FlightStream®, which provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a large footprint in the aerospace and defense sector and a growing presence in marine, energy, turbomachinery, and automotive applications.
Happy’s Tech Talk #28: The Power Mesh Architecture for PCBs
05/07/2024 | Happy Holden -- Column: Happy’s Tech TalkA significant decrease in HDI substrate production cost can be achieved by reducing the number of substrate layers from conventional through-hole multilayers and microvia multilayers of eight, 10, 12 (and more), down to four. Besides reducing direct processing steps, yield will increase as defect producing operations are eliminated.