Open Source Commercial Projects - As published in EFY

Embedded Product Development in 1995 - Problems and challenges

" It was a cold Thursday evening on Dec 1995. I was sitting in office of Max India and along with Ashish Masand was comparing numbers on a printed page with a text file on computer screen. There was no sense of those numbers, A typical line looked like this

A040 34 AE 4C 9E 2B 02 26 12 FE 86 34 CD 2D C9 06 1E

After some time I signed those papers, handed over a Demand Draft. Ashish thanked me and we moved out. Even when temperature was just 5 degree centigrade, I was sweating. Ashish asked me not to worry and said every thing will be all right and he promised that in less than 3 months, I will be getting material

And after four months of wait I got 5000 units of this material.

Well, this is how the embedded development used to happen in 1995. To design a product, you need a emulation board costing USD 2000, write code in assembly level language, try it out. Modify and continue till the results look okay. Then this program was burned in a UVEPROM ic which has a glass window on top of the ic

And then try out the unit operation. If it works fine, else this IC was put in a UV ERASER for 20 minutes and the whole operation started. After every things looks okay (which usually happens after testing for 20 to 30 days) then program was burned in similar ic without window and unit was handed over to customer for testing. He usually comes back with few bugs or some changes and process starts again.

Well, after he approves the design, the data of hex file was printed and sent to Motorola (or which ever company provided the micro controller). Motorola will resend few papers and ask for signatures. And then we compare the Motorola printed  sheet with what we printed to look for any typing mistakes and sign it.

This design will goto Motorola foundry and after a period ranging from 12 to 16 weeks, Motorola deliver 5000 or more ic printed with our special code.

These specially fabricated ICs were then used in manufacturing.

Any mistake in the document and end product will not work as expected as Motorola's guaranteed delivery of parts with information that we signed on their papers.

The fabrication of also requires a one time process charges of USD 3000/- and per piece price of USD 2 ie total of USD 13,000/-

Any small and silly mistake due to oversight costs USD 13,000/- and of course delay of four months

And this was reason for me sweating on that cold evening of December.

The reward too were high. Against a normal price of USD 6 for normal ic, we get product at USD 2.6 including the cost of one time charges. And all subsequent parts at USD 2.

Plus a feeling of pride as Motorola makes ICs with our mark on it. GVC-STC-226 stands for

me and my wife's name GVC (Geeta Vinay Chaddha)
product STC (Set Top Converter) and
Version number 2.26.

Designing Home Automation For Physically Disabled

It is on full swing now. We made a presentation to TDB Secretary last week and hope to get his approval and funding too.

My first-break through with Linux - Installing Airtel 3G USB Stick

I recently started working on Linux. First step was easy - just bought Dell Vostro with pre-installed Ubuntu 8.04 and in 30 minutes I was using it for all activities like mail, facebook, blogging and google docs.

The real challenge came 2 days back when I bought AirTel 3G USB Stick for accessing Internet on the move. There was no ready-to-run package on the usb stick or any website or any single post/blog saying how to do it.

It took me six hours on sunday and it worked. So here is the details of the problems and the steps taken by me.

1. When I connect USB stick, ubuntu detects it and add two icons in 'computer' as removable hard disk (a 2 GB SD Memory card allow it to be used as pen drive) and CD ROM (which has programs for Windows and Mac to make it plug and play device).

2. Google search told me that 'lsusb' will tell me the usb device created by it. here is what 'lsusb' produced

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 12d1:1446 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.



being a hardware guy I knew that this USB device has vendor id as 12d1 and product id as 1446.

3. Another google search said that  new generation of 3G sticks need a program called usb_modeswitch' to convert usb storgae device to modem.
used following link to download and install

http://blogs.fsfe.org/drdanz/?p=44

I also knew that we need provide target vendor id and product id. This was not in the installed usb_modeswitch. It had lot of different usb sticks but not the huawei E173 sold by AirTel, 

4. Search for E173 usb_modeswitch gave me following command line 

sudo usb_modeswitch -v 0x12d1 -p 0x1446 -V 0x12d1 -P 0x140c -m 0x01 -M "55534243123456780000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000"

trying this command and then modifying etc/usb_modeswitch.conf to include above parameters to make it simpl to type worked.

I tested it by typing wvdialconf 

5. Last step is to create a network connection. In ubuntu, this is done by

SYSTEMS | PREFERENCE | NETWORK CONNECTIONS | Mobile Broadband | Add 

and follow the instructions to create a network connection for AirTel (or any other service provider)

6. Even after you connect to AirTel network, I was not able to browse net as Automatic DNS servers for airtel were not working. Replaced them with OPEN DNS servers - Use 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

These can be changed using

SYSTEMS | PREFERENCE | NETWORK CONNECTIONS | Mobile Broadband | Select AirTel 3G | Edit 

 

My birthday gift - Opportunity to Learn and do some thing different

I completed 50 years  of life this month. I celebrated by doing following

1. Gifted my self a new dell laptop with pre-installed Linux. What is exciting is possibility of me learning and mastering Linux.

2. Visited Sunaay Foundation, promised them a day a month in working with students, made a small financial contribution.

Life is more exciting, creating more results and having more fun.

Planning for next 50 years is on now......... Stay tuned and keep reading my blog.

More about Sunnaya Foundation at http://www.facebook.com/groups/165494350357/

Our Logo and what it means

Poor Customer Support of Bajaj Electricals Limited

Based on the general perception I assumed Bajaj Electricals to be a good company with good systems. This image was shattered when I bought an expensive Water Storage Geyser from a Bajaj Dealer in Noida.

It failed within 10 days . However being an engineer and product designer, I simply attributed this to a normal random failure. However in last 12 days they have done following

1. Visited my home five times
2. Changed Thermostat Twice
3. Changed Thermal Cut out Once
4. Changed complete geyser once

To my horror I found following issues with their systems

• Bajaj Electricals is a trader, They are simply importing geysers from China and selling locally. This was an imported product made by some Chinese company. 
• Bajaj has a national toll free service number 1800-22-2252. This is printed boldly on a sheet where they list all locations and service centers address and local numbers. Noida is missing in that list.  Call to this number and they reply that this number is only for Mumbai. Do not know what 'National' word means in Bajaj.
• Any way national service center gave me Noida service number and they informed me that they will attend the complain after 48 hours.
• I was not convinced and logged on to their website http://www.bajajelectricals.com/ and looked for email or online chat. There was an icon for chat, Clicked on chat and it asked for sending a message. We have sent it and still waiting for reply.
• I could find a 'Query form" and sent message via that. Still waiting for reply.
• Noida service center gave me email id of Mr Anurag dl2_cci@bajajelectricals.com mail was sent to him on 23rd Dec, Still remain unanswered (he informed me on Dec 31st that his UPS is bad for last 10 days and so he has not been able to check emails)
• SMS sent to Mr Anurag (9818894466) remain unanswered. He says he does not have time to check SMSes. 
• The model that I bought is not even listed on their website (they do have other six models listed there)

Bajaj's website and their geysers are BETA versions. I am really upset on my choice.

Commercialising Products : Proto type to Market

Recession in India encouraged all institutes (Management and Engg) to focus on entrepreneurship.  National Entrepreneurs Network organised a 3.5 days Faculty Development Program at International Management Institute where 25 faculty members from various management institutes across India were trained by Prof Somayajulu and Prof P.C. Mehra.

The unique feature was that they also invited 5 'hot' entrepreneurs to participate in the program, where they shared their real life problems and challenges. While faculty offered them the text book solution. In short both learned in the process.

Each entrepreneur got 5 faculty members who worked with him/her for 3.5 days and prepared long term plan for him/her.

Of course I was one of them. Faculty members who worked with me included

1. Prof Anita T Lal, Delhi
2. Prof Vikas Rajput,  Delhi
3. Prof Prashant, Jaipur
4. Prof Geetha Suresh, Banglore
5. Prof Arun Das, Burdwan, West Bengal


It was nice experience for me where five senior faculty members (all of them with PhD) and me who has not even a graduate working together on my business.

Prof Anita Lal invited me to her college  Fore School of Management  where we interacted with 180 students of Final year MBA and shared our problems and achievements. Students in turn made suggestions and agreed to work with me.

In short for next one year, raw passion and energy of entrepreneur Vinay Chaddha will be combined with sophistication of Faculty and MBA students for magical results.


Stay tuned for the results.

Electric Chimney Demo Board using touch switches

Training to Engg students at BPIT, Rohini

On June 2,2010 we started a six week training for Electronic and Communication Engineering students of fifth semester of BPIT college in Rohini, Delhi. http://www.bpitindia.com/index.html

The unique feature os this training is efforts by Mr R.K.Tiwari (Training and Placement Officer) who wanted a training by a professional engineer who has hands on experience and not by a team of professional trainers who are in training business. It is rare to find people like Mr Tiwari.

On Day 2, we started with brief introduction of the training leader and the training team (that is me and my colleagues who actually work on development projects). After that we asked each of students to introduce themselves, tell the other students why they choose B Tech in ECE and what is their vision for future.

Well, it took over 2 hours and some very interesting comments came from students

One girl mentioned that she enjoyed the session learning about her class fellows dreams and desires. She was not aware that so many of them wants to be in civil service like her.

One girl shared that she enjoys teaching and supporting poor students and for a long time, she walks home from bus stop saving Rs 10/- on rickshaw ride and giving it to poor students of a press-wala near her home. 

One boy mentioned that his aim was to work hard and party harder. He is enjoying party harder but work hard is missing and result is three back papers.

Only 5% students have keen interest to pursue electronics. For rest of them it was Civil services, Lot of money, good job, job with lot of power. 

During last one hour of the class, we asked what project they wish to do in next six weeks. First project was suggested by me and another  32 projects suggested by students. I selected 16 of them which were feasible during six weeks and where resources were available.

Students voted for all sixteen and top six were selected for training. Sanya (one of the students) co-ordinated for this event.

For me this is a challenging task to create interest in electronics and ensure that this workshop is mixture of fun and excitement.

We closed the session at 12.00 noon with a promise to be on time at 9.00 AM on monday, June 7th,2010