AV500 Product Development

AV500

AV500 with green projection laser. Note the updated simplified user interace with sealed keys.

Joe managed the product development and was the lead engineer.

While the existing product was very successful and still selling well supply chain issues were becoming a problem. The company needed to find a new supply chain for critical and end-of-life components. In addition the product needed to be upgraded to improve reliability, robustness, and performance.

First attempts to find a replacement supply chain for an end of life component had not been successful. The company needed to find a new supply chain and product design since they were running out of parts. By the time what looked like a suitable replacement candidate was found the company had less than 1 year of parts left. Adding to the challenges was that the company did not have an in-house product development team.

AV500 scan mirrors

AV500 scan mirrors. Supplier provided scan mirrors as bare die so we needed to design the scan mirror components and assembly

Rapid development of a class II medical device. In 10 months from technology validation and supplier contracts signed with the new laser scan mirror supplier, the medical device was cleared and in production. The new product was a complete success meeting or exceeding all product requirements and goals.

AV500 front-end

AV500 front-end PCBA

Product Development Challenges:

  1. We had failed multiple times to find a suitable replace scan mirror.
  2. Because we had less than 1 year of parts left we had to develop a new product and get it cleared and in production in less than 1 year.
  3. The company did not have an in-house product development team.
  4. Previous product acceptance was good an there were lots of legacy features that needed to be maintained.
  5. A new laser scan mirror meant a change to mirror drive / feedback electronics. Also this meant a complete change to optics and all of the product timing.
  6. Field failure rate of previous product was too high and needed to be reduced.
  7. Desire to change to Green projection laser from Red laser meant a change to the laser driver and feedback electronics.
  8. An FPGA hardware and software upqgrade was needed to improve performance and reliability.
  9. We were looking to improve product sealing.

AV500 features and benefits

AV500 features and benefits