FEATURE CONTRACT MANUFACTURING
ADVANCED INSTRUMENTATION offers enhanced safety for bikers
Bike HUD is a new development in motorcycling instrumentation that improves safety and enhances the riding experiences. Previously, the Bike HUD design team asked EC Electronics to help solve the last remaining design challenges, optimise the design for manufacture, and begin building production units, Dave Vout, Managing Director of Bike Systems has more
B
ike HUD is a remarkably simple concept that puts important
instrumentation directly in the rider’s field of vision without obscuring the view ahead. This helps overcome some of the unique challenges associated with riding a motorcycle, such as remembering to cancel indictors, knowing which gear is selected, and checking speed while maintaining observation of the road. The system features a monocle display that clips onto the rider’s helmet and displays current speed and indicator status on a miniature OLED screen, using colour coding to highlight urgent issues such as excessive speed. Other information can include gear selected, time of day, engine speed and fuel level (figure 1). The rider can customise the display using a handlebar-mounted controller, and choose from four modes suited to commuting, leisure riding, touring or track days. The system’s central computer, known
as Bike HUB (figure 2), is mounted in a convenient position on the chassis and connects into the bike’s original wiring. The three units are linked by cables,
Figure 1: Bike HUD is designed to help the rider absorb information quickly and easily
saving the complexity of wireless communication and allowing the monocle to operate without a battery.
Figure 2: The Bike HUB. the systems central computer
/ ELECTRONICS
GETTING THE PROJECT ON THE ROAD To develop Bike HUD, Dave Vout, Managing Director of Bike Systems first contacted Birmingham-based embedded- systems house Bytesnap Design. He briefed founders Dunstan Power and Graeme Wintle on his idea, and together they began to assemble the development team comprising software engineers, the engineering team at Bluefrog Design in Leicester, and EC Electronics. EC Electronics was engaged to perfect the design for manufacture and take full responsibility for production, from component sourcing to building the finished units including custom cables. The DFM skills of EC Electronics, covering areas such as board layout and component engineering, contributed to reducing the prototype Bike-HUB PCB dimensions to fit within a 102mm by 88mm by 16mm enclosure weighing just 220g, thereby allowing easier aftermarket
installation on a wide variety of bikes. By taking advantage of well-developed in-house processes for low-pressure overmoulding, EC’s engineers were able to offer a rugged final packaging for the modules that would provide a high level of protection for the electronics against hazards such as ingress of water or dirt. “As we discussed the possible packaging options, it became clear that low-pressure overmoulding is well suited to the cost, performance and volume requirements of Bike HUD,” comments Bytesnap’s Dunstan Power. Low-pressure overmoulding is a cost- effective encapsulation process that was first deployed commercially in the automotive industry, to produce rugged, lightweight assemblies on a fast- turnaround basis. It is suitable for a wide range of applications, such as plugs, connector housings, cable assemblies and sensors, and allows features such as grommets to be integrated with the assembly in the exact position required. Tooling, usually a two-part custom
aluminium assembly, can also be produced at lower cost than tooling for injection moulding. The PCB to be overmoulded is placed in the tooling and encapsulated using a liquid polyamide thermoplastic. When the thermoplastic cools, the finished assembly is removed from the tooling. “Having this process available in-house allows us to manufacture low production volumes at competitive prices and to a very high standard of finish,” comments Bill Green, low pressure overmoulding specialist at EC Electronics. “We proved we can deliver a specialised,
low-volume product to market quickly and at a competitive price. Our partners have been genuinely committed to our success, going beyond what I expected from a commercial standpoint, and I aim to repay that loyalty in the future. As we work on the next version of Bike HUD to add extra features such as GPS navigation, EC Electronics is our preferred manufacturing partner. Together I am sure we will achieve further tremendous successes,” added Dave Vout.
EC Electronics
www.ecelectronics.co.uk 01256 461894
Enter 215 ELECTRONICS | OCTOBER 2014 31
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