Deeplocal - Sharpsburg, PA
Deeplocal - Sharpsburg, PA
Engineering Intern
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May 2019 - Aug 2019
Engineering Intern
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May 2019 - Aug 2019
Hellbender - Harmar, PA
Mechanical Engineer II​
Apr 2023 - Jun 2024 (Laid off)
Dash Camera
A dash camera with visual/stereo capabilities that could be mounted inside or outside a vehicle, sealed for outdoor use, has an externally accessible sim card, and low BOM cost. The initial run was for 20-50K units and had to operate at -20 C to 35 C, stored at -30 C to 90 C, passively disperse 12W of power, 80-90% of the assembly process was automatable, 4x current maximum unit assembly speed.​​
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This camera was for the client's largest customer and had seven months from kickoff to production parts in-house ready for assembly.
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Designed dash camera's mechanical components; the main components included an injection molded lid, base, antenna, SIM card cover (over-molded), light pipes (ultrasonically welded into the base), three molded/die-cut gaskets, optical window, a die-cast camera rail, and die-cast heat sink. In similar products, typically the enclosure would have five main parts and use epoxy for sealing. To save production time and mold setup costs, the standard architecture was reconfigured to reduce the number of enclosure parts to three and epoxy was replaced by gaskets.
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Collaborated with electrical engineers to determine board layout, component selection, and heat dissipation. Kept the project manager up to date to ensure the timeline was on track, and roped in manufacturing technicians to improve the design for assembly and remedy prior issues.
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Worked with injection molders, camera vendors, die-cast houses, glass cutters, and other vendors to select materials for RF, WIFI, LTE, and Bluetooth, determine ways to condense timeline, and design elements for ease of manufacturing and assembly.
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The design was extremely compact, focusing on tolerance stack-up, FOV, heat dissipation, and material performance, which was key to ensuring the design met all requirements. As the mechanical engineer, the responsibilities included doing housing design, tolerance stack-ups, meeting and following regulations, conducting reviews, creating drawings, holding reviews, prototyping, testing, communicating with vendors, assembly packages, automation support, to post-launch support.
Shelf Camera
Four strands of 20 compact cameras were daisy-chained together, stemming from a center control box, aimed to help inventory management. These cameras needed to be low-cost and designed with the intent to use the same electrical board in three different projects. ​
Worked with the electrical engineer to ensure the board layout and components would fit the three different camera housings, reduce overall package size and cost, and meet all three requirements.
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Designed a space-efficient heat sink for all three camera housings, performed thermal analysis, created five enclosures (one camera two enclosures), and designed mechanical features to reduce BOM cost, such as reversible snap hooks. ​
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Research - Ultrasonic Welding and PCBs
Learned how to design for ultrasonic welding and created housings for multiple materials to determine how ultrasonic welding affects pre-installed PCB boards for future projects. ​
Determined materials and manufacturing methods that would provide similar results without the need for injection molding, as a small quantity was needed.
Coded scripts and loaded them on a Raspberry Pi before ultrasonic welding to later determine testing success or failure.
​​Drone Cameras
Created three cameras for a drone-based system; a visual camera attached to the drone for overall FOV, a visual camera attached to the payload, and a thermal camera attached to the payload. ​
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Designed housings/heat sinks for all three cameras, tested units on the drone, and created a heat sink for the thermal camera.​
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Created accessories for additional accessories for the project.
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Although one of the main projects during my time there, due to the project clearance issues, pictures or additional details on this project can not be provided.
Red Boards
Red boards were prototype boards that contained electrical components for software development and electrical testing.
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Designed accessories and mounts for multiple red boards for different projects.
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Designed the overall layout for various projects.
Testing
Sealing and thermal tests were necessary to conduct on many of the designs to validate the camera/systems performance.
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Wrote and conducted sealing and thermal tests for multiple projects.
Additional Projects
Assisted other mechanical engineers on their projects to help hit the deadline. ​
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There was a significant number of projects happening, many with quick deadlines. When projects needed additional support, the lead engineer would delegate tasks or pass off projects to help rebalance the workload. ​​
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​Emergency Switch
Low-cost housing for a box that would be implemented in senior living to assist in cases of emergencies.
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Worked with electrical engineers to determine board layout and component selection.
Designed cutouts, access points, and assembly steps to meet the requirements of the product.