There are a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in this PCB design!
Something I visualised many years ago. Something clients have asked me for, many times, and I have not been able to deliver fast enough.
Something that can be generic. Something that can easily be pivoted to whatever the client needs in that moment.
An industrial IoT system that allows the collection of new data streams, or safe reliable control of actuators at extreme distances.
A system rugged enough to be thrown out into the desert with a solar panel, or thrown into the engine bay of a truck, or into a control cabinet of a coal seam gas wellhead.
A rugged, generic, data logging and control system allowing event and insight detection, at the edge, 100x faster than the communications connecting to it.
An electronics system that can be expanded. A distributed system of sensing, compute, and control.
So many iterations. So much exploration. So many dead ends. So much money and time... not wasted... learned... and pivoted into something better!
Cranio is so much more than just another IoT device. It's an ecosystem built from the ground up to facilitate whatever aspirations you may have!
All devices in the system speak the same language. It's flexible, scalable, and rugged.
This is the 'Analogue Input, Digital Input Output' board of our Pro-IO stacking module, the Cranio Pro-IO MAD1.
It gets paired with a ‘Communications and Control Module’ that completes the sealed rugged system above it, the Cranio Pro-IO TCW1. We lovingly call a Top Hat.
The system is patent pending and allows the use of simple hand tools to interface with the world’s best sensors and actuators, no expensive crimpers or connectors required, whilst being scalable and sealed.
It's a hard job, but it’s nice to see it coming together one part manufactured in our workshop at a time!
You can connect your sensors and actuators to those green headers and be ready for data logging and control, right at the edge, in all kinds of harsh conditions.
We’re using the Raytac MDBT53, a new Bluetooth low energy (BLE) SoC component based on Nordic nRF5340 cores, as the only microprocessor on this prototype circuit board.
Our previous design has two separate microprocessors, with the secondary unit re-flashing the primary with new firmware using Bluetooth.
This new design with only one dual-core microprocessor will reduce system latency for data transfer, speed up actuation and response to trigger events, and decrease the number of chips we must develop firmware for.
With a single-core chip, the intensive and time critical Bluetooth operations will interrupt and stop all other Cranio OS processing, causing unwanted lag.
We need the two cores to have dedicated processing power for our Cranio operating system handling IoT services while Bluetooth functions at the same time.
Plus, these new chips are faster and use less power!
There’s lots of advantages to using this new component, and we’re excited to test it out in the weeks to come.
To see more Cranio, check out the website!
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