Challenge: Implement a product architecture for a power electronics product. The end-use for these devices was harsh, requiring a 25+ year service life in outdoor conditions while maintaining ease of use for installers and a low BOM cost at scale.

Result: 

• Benchmarked extensively with current state-of-the-art

• Worked with EE/FW team on the client side, establishing critical interfaces such as PCB Control Drawings and connector selection/design

• Established tradeoffs for personally-developed designs and helped generate recommendations for product direction

• Explored and compared various manufacturing options for each architecture (including but not limited to: extrusion, die casting, potting, stamping, injection molding, and overmolding) using DFM from prospective vendors to adjust designs

• Worked with client to down-select to the concept used for the Proof of Concept prototype run

• Designed and released a round of machined Proof-of-Concept prototypes as part of a 3-person mechanical engineering team (personally responsible for a sealed electrical sub-assembly)

• Set up remote monitoring of test units in environmental chambers with continuous recording of outputs to minimize time spent traveling to remote testing facility

• Created test plan and optimized trials to minimize total test time and reduce time to results

• Worked with external reliability engineering resource to identify and mitigate reliability risks in design during development

Skills:

• ME/EE interfaces

• Tolerance analyses

• Seal design

• Cable assembly integration

• Test plan design and execution

• Vendor management

• Material selection research, selection, implementation, and testing

• Reliability testing (thermal cycling, thermal shock, humidity)