Safer Beach Days with the Sun-A-Wear UV Tracker

Sam joins us on Fika Bytes this week to talk about developing the sun-a-wear UV tracker going from prototyping to production. My favorite part was what he decided to do when they were having difficulty getting a battery into the design... Listen to the episode to find out what he did.

My 3 Takeaways: -Good engineering follows the rules. Great engineering knows the rules well enough to bend them.

-Think about specifically how your customer will use this device when making design decisions.

-Use off-the-shelf parts to validate your idea before going to custom designs.

Chapters (thanks AI)

00:00 Introduction and Overview

00:54 The SunAware UV Tracker

01:46 The Importance of UV Radiation

02:08 Motivation for Building the SunAware UV Tracker

05:39 Prototyping the SunAware UV Tracker

09:01 Trade-offs in Prototyping

09:31 The Value of Rapid PCB Prototyping

10:23 The Challenge of Battery Charging

11:08 Innovative Solar Power Solution

12:14 Exploring Specialized Components

13:03 Making Design Decisions

14:18 The Importance of Thinking Outside the Box

14:46 The Engineer's Journey

15:58 The Challenge of Firmware Updates

17:33 Future Plans for Over-the-Air Updates

18:21 Exploring Solid-State Batteries

19:22 Advantages of Solid-State Batteries

21:03 Building a Support System in the Hardware Ecosystem

23:54 Embracing the Strengths of a Small Company

24:31 Considerations for Design and Manufacturing

26:50 The Importance of Part Availability

27:49 Hidden Synergies in Component Selection

30:37 The Fun of Engineering and Deep Diving into Design

30:59 Where to Follow SunAware