CONTENTSWhat We Do - PMB Electronics - PMB Background - Automation Control System |
What Can We Do For You
Electronic Hardware and Software DevelopmentThis is what I specialize in; designing and building electronic control equipment for all sorts of control applications including industrial and security. We can develop from an idea to a product. We are also able to help you develop your own ideas. Depending on the idea or requirement we may be able to offer a number of solutions:
The first option is obviously more expensive because we are working exclusively for you. Through to the third option being the lowest cost to you, we just sell you the product you need. Of course, if there's no on-going value in it for us we cannot develop it entirely at our own cost. We do develop ideas for customers requiring exclusive ownership of the resulting product. In this case we are happy to keep all related information strictly confidential. I've developed a number of general purpose CPU or control modules that are aimed at custom embedded control solutions. We use these ourselves as well as selling them as building blocks for those wishing to produce their own equipments. Some of these have been popular with hobbyists, students and schools because they provide a very capable module at a low price. Over the years we've developed a number of products and ideas, internally as well as for other companies. Many were developed because there was nothing available that was suitable, others to provide a better product at a better price.
See Products for a bit more information. See also Web, PC's and Operating Systems
Service and Repairs
Do you have a piece of control equipment or an
electronic gadget that's not working correctly? We do service and repair electronic equipment including the odd piece of industrial machinery. With control and interface equipment it is usually possible to make a successful repair for significantly less than the replacement cost of the equipment. In the past we've repaired power supplies and control equipment from a wide range of sectors including the security industry, power distribution, and industrial control. The only things I'm not keen to touch are some common household items; specifically TV's VCR's CD and DVD payers. There are too many of these out there and they are becoming more costly to repair properly than they are worth. Often the parts are expensive and difficult to source. It usually means we have to spend too much time tracking parts and we can't recover that cost. We can also look at PC's. These are generally not a problem because of their modular construction and use of standardized parts. Laptops are more difficult because they don't use standardized parts and the specific parts tend to be expensive and hard to get. It's probably best to contact the main service center if you have a faulty laptop for an estimated repair cost. It's better and cheaper if you can bring or send any repairs to us but I can come to your site if required.
On Site MaintenanceI don't do as much on site work as I could but it does make a welcome change from the workshop and sitting in front of the computer. I go on site when the equipment is part of something larger or is itself too big to transport. This is usually for installed security or control equipment or industrial machinery. We have worked on all sorts of machines including production and packing lines, machine shops, plastic moulding machines, control and data gathering systems, security, fire and evacuation systems. I've even been known to service motor starters, lighting and heating. PMB ElectronicsPMB are my initials; Paul M Bealing. We are based in Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. We've been designing and building electronic control equipment full time since about 1995, and part time since about 1985. We mostly design embedded control hardware and develop the embedded software, prototype and manufacture small runs. We can take a concept or idea right through development, prototyping and production. Mostly we develop microcontroller based products. We have done some purely audio and RF, but not so much recently; choosing to concentrate on the micro's. Having said that, just about all micro based projects do involve analog interfacing to the real world. At this time I am not working with embedded PC's. I prefer the smaller low power micros and highly efficient code. The sort of thing you find hidden within just about every gadget these days. No project too small or too big; so long as it's got a micro in it somewhere.
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PMB BackgroundMy main interest is microcontroller based hardware and software. For many years I have worked with micros, 1802 then Z80 then 6502 (a backwards step, but my employer at the time was an Apple fan) then 68HC11, 68HC05 and Microchip PICs. I started playing with electronics when I was at school, about 1970; my Dad worked for a major local electronics company so I had access to all sorts of neat stuff. I built many audio, radio and logic circuits. Then the microprocessor became available to me. When I started work in 1982 I could afford a PC and a Motorola HC11EVB development system; the real work began. My first PC was an XT (V20 chip) with 640K RAM, an EGA color display and a 20 Meg hard disk and cost about $4500; a major purchase at the time. I'm an electrician by trade. I did an electrical apprenticeship with the local power supply authority. The apprenticeship experience provided was probably much more varied than most general electrical apprenticeships; including:
substation construction, fitout and refurbishment I then worked in the telecoms/electronics department for six years doing installation, maintenance, design and construction of electronic systems. Our main role was to maintain the "supervisory control and data acquisition system" (scada) and the "control room" with its associated "equipment room". There was a lot of field work in substations and smaller equipment cabinets. The system was tied together by a dedicated underground and overhead pilot cable network. Signalling included tone systems and modems. The pilot network also supported the substation telephones. I also looked after a radio communications network which included remote repeater sites, base stations and hundreds of mobile radios. As part of this job I did a lot of project electronic design and build. Much of the scada peripheral system was custom designed. I designed and built interfaces for signal conditioning, data gathering and transmission. It was very varied and provided a wide range of experience. Following the power authority, for about 4 years I worked for one of the larger security companies in Wellington. We did domestic and commercial security and access control. As technical manager my job involved providing support for sales people, installation, technicians and customers. For about the first year a lot of my time was spent solving existing and ongoing technical problems. The security industry was/is plagued by seemingly minor technical problems that appear nearly impossible to solve. Tens or hundreds of hours are often spent on these problems. An in depth understanding of the systems, electronics and the real world application is required to make any progress. During this time I decided that the intruder alarm systems did not support access control very well and vise-versa. I thought that it would be an interesting challenge to design a system with the best features of both worlds. I began to define and document the 1604 system in 1995. PMB-1604 Automation Control SystemBack in 1995 I began developing what I came to call the PMB-1604 Control System; it was initially called the NTD-2010. My original plan was to produce a system that could perform the functions of the better security and access control systems but within one system. As it has turned out, I have a system that is best suited to home automation, security and smaller scale access control. As time permits I'll improve the commercial access and building control side. The primary target market so far has been new homes, so this is where the development time has been spent. About 1997 I met Smart House Ltd. (SH). They were a small company of five partners of which one was working full time in the business. They were doing some security alarm installation. They expressed an interest in marketing a cost effective home automation system. At the time they wanted to sell and install the system but not do the R&D. I was happy with this because it allowed me to concentrate on development while SH put it into service. During the first 2 years I put over 6000 hours and other resources into evolving and developing the major components; the Smart Switch, Dumb Switch, Triac and Relay Modules. Smart House became Smart House Systems Ltd (SHSL) when one of the five partners took it over.
In July 2002 I attended the SHSL AGM, which was an eye opener; I
decided to distance myself from them. Late in 2003 SHSL rebranded the system Kristil. I've been developing a new control system. This is a re-think and expansion of the 1604 concept giving me a chance to do many things differently. It's based on all new input, control and output modules that provide greater capability and versatility. It is possible to connect to existing 1604 systems. This requires a software upgrade of the 1604 system to improve the network operation and provide compatibility. click here for information on my new PMBACS system
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