Revolutionizing Product Design: Full Gauge Controls' Transition to Altium Designer

技术

传感器 - 环境传感器
传感器 - 触觉传感器

适用行业

电子产品
设备与机械

适用功能

采购
产品研发

用例

快速原型制作
虚拟原型与产品测试

服务

硬件设计与工程服务
系统集成

挑战

Full Gauge Controls 是一家开发和生产用于控制和指示温度、湿度、时间、压力和电压的数字仪器的公司，其旧的开发流程面临着挑战。该过程严重依赖基于原型的设计验证，这给设计进度和设计团队带来了压力。传统流程涉及将完整的 PCB 设计发送给原型制造商，大约需要 7 天的时间来准备采购订单、生产和运输。这个过程不仅成本高昂，而且通常需要额外的原型来进行进一步的设计周期和测试。 2007 年，该公司试图通过购买一台快速原型机来加快这一进程。然而，原型板仍然需要手动组装，效率低且容易返工。此外，该公司还必须承担机器的维护成本，其中包括从国外运来的更换零件的高昂价格和时间延误。

关于客户

Full Gauge Controls 是一家自 1985 年以来一直致力于开发和生产用于控制和指示温度、湿度、时间、压力和电压的数字仪表的公司。该公司被认为是制冷、供暖、空调技术的卓越中心和太阳能供暖。 Full Gauge 因其对质量和客户满意度的承诺而享誉国际。该公司参加全球多个展会，拥有温度计、恒温器、压力控制器、电压监测仪、远程管理软件Sitrad等80多种产品。除了 ISO 9001 和 ISO 14001 之外，其所有产品均符合国家和国际准则、标准和认证，例如 UL 和 CE。

解决方案

为了寻找更好的解决方案，Full Gauge 将其电子设计环境从 P-CAD 升级到 Altium Designer，并将其与 SolidWorks 机械设计工具集成，以最大限度地减少原型设计的需要。电子设计师 Maurício Hüsken 现在使用 Altium Designer 生成所有设计和机械文件，而公司的其他人员则使用 Altium Designer Viewer 访问和查询设计文件和文档。在数据导入过程中，Full Gauge 将其 SolidWorks 中的 3D 零部件信息迁移到 Altium Designer 库中。这样可以实现精确的元件占用空间和紧凑的设计。产品设计师绘制办公产品的初始设计并导出 PCB 文件。该文件被导入到 Altium Designer 中，并根据设计标准定位和验证组件。然后，电子设计人员以 3D 形式导出 PCB 的完整文件，将其放置在机柜内，以便检测和解决所有机械冲突。 Altium Designer 还自动生成 Gerber 制造文件，从而节省时间并最大限度地减少制造错误。

运营影响

The adoption of Altium Designer has revolutionized Full Gauge's product design process. The company has successfully adopted a fully integrated process for designing and verifying electronic and mechanical designs for each product, eliminating the need for physical prototypes to validate the product design. More accurate component information is driving down margin-of-error production and rework. The prototype now looks like a finished product, requiring only minor adjustments. The 3D simulation provides a better sense of space and physical design, allowing for the detection of possible problems that may go unnoticed in 2D views. With SolidWorks integration, the end product can be visualized during design, which can speed up client approval. The company can now explore new techniques to facilitate the fit between the plates of the product and eliminate the need for male and female connectors that were previously used. The company has also added approaches to simulation, automation, and revision control to further simplify project management. With the help of Altium Designer, Full Gauge has been able to reduce design time, improve the development cycle of electronic and mechanical designs, reduce rework, and explore more creative electronic designs.

数量效益

Reduced the design cycle by as much as 86 percent
Hardware development time has dropped from 30 to 50 days to a maximum of seven days
Significant reduction in costs associated with prototype manufacturing and maintenance