Freelance Solutions Designer for
Embedded Systems
Web Based User Interfaces
Process Automation & SCADA
A seasoned designer and developer of hardware and software systems, I enjoy helping people to realise their goals through identifying with and understanding their specific project needs with clear and concise communication.
Starting at a young age with electronics, then a large part of my career as an engineer working in the industrial automation sector, I have been fortunate and able to develop a broad skills set.
Some days you will find me working on reasonably complex industrial projects, while most other days will find me tinkering away from my hidden mountain cabin carefully crafting away on some piece of code, or an interactive art collaboration or maybe just learning to integrating new methods of internet web technology.
I also like to maintain my sense of sanity and so enjoy a number of other activities. I hope you will also enjoy reading about as I write them up to share.
I am focused on embedded systems once again after spending the past decade in main stream automation and instrumentation of process control systems.
Development with a variety of micro-controllers over many years has provided me a reasonable foundation in embedded systems architecture. My days started with the Signetics 2650 8bit CPU many years ago and these days see me working with popular Atmel 8 and 32 bit micro-controllers.
Optimised and unique in each case, embedded control systems have always been my first love. Even while designing complex PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) systems I would often think of how I could achieve the same using a smaller, cost effective solution.
With the increase in the widespread development and acceptance of the ubiquitous micro-controller and embedded systems generally, especially in new and emerging areas such as the arts and home automation we will shall see an exciting period ahead with new concepts and innovations.
Coming full circle, I actively utilise embedded systems when I see this is the best solution in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness for the job. For any given project I will research ready made or off the shelf solutions as a guiding reference, and I might propose that if that is the appropriate solution.
Some project examples:Experienced in wide range of process control systems engineering, from small to the medium sized industrial projects. For automation project work, I offer my engineering services within the Australian territory only.
Past Projects:I live on the small island of Tasmania, which hangs below Australia.
Tasmania is not a separate country, it is a part of Australia which has surprised many people.
Our time zone here is UTC+10 plus an extra hour in our summer time.
For projects that are automation of process control systems where the project is likely to use PLC equipment and need PLC and SCADA system programming I will need a full functional description of your project, or you may have me do this for you.
Then please contact me with the at least some of these details:I try to be flexible with how I charge for my time, and may even work free of charge if your project really grabs my interest or if there is a possibility of teaming up with you and your project, where, together we might make a gazillion of some form of high value currency.
But if you prefer, I can work with you on an hourly rate or if you wish I can provide you a reasonably close approximation of project costs for my involvement.
There are many situations where I don't charge for my time, for example, when I need to learn something where you would generally expect me to already know this. This is normal and is my way of keeping myself well informed of new technologies and techniques.
My rates for engineering work in automation process control where I work with PLCs and SCADA systems are generally much higher than my other forms of work. For this sort of work my charge out rate is AUD$85 per hour.
You may contact me by the following methods:
Email by the button at the bottom of this form.
mobile: +61 466 968 395I made this web site especially to operate on a small Linux single board computer, a Cubieboard2. It has a dual core Allwinner A20 ARM Cortex A7 CPU each operating at 1GHz. I set up the server using Node.js rather that the traditional Apaché and PHP configuration to minimise the resource load. Apaché and PHP are great for standard web sites but not so good for real-time systems such as what I am using this little board for.
This web site operates on the Cubieboard2 and has a 80GB SATA hard drive connected as the root file system. Also, connected to this Cubieboard2 is an Arduino DUE 32bit micro-controller board. This Arduino DUE is setup control and monitor my home based renewable energy system, which I have named 'HydroSolar'. You can see it from an adjacent tab here which will open up a new tab to view it.
At present, this site lives on my host site and will transfer to the Cubieboard2 soon, planing for March 2014
For my own project, I am developing a combination system, using a small low cost low power consumption Linux single board computer connected to a micro-controller system.
My aim is to have the micro-controller system handle the IO component and to be able to respond quickly to any interrupts. The Linux SBC will play the part of SCADA host and live WebSocket server to provide internet connectivity.
To view the current development of my home based renewable energy system I am developing.
HydroSolar