With a working controller PCA, we started on another wireless board to handle the Bluetooth Low Energy connection. Since these two boards were located on opposite sides of the housing, we had to come up with a cheap, reliable and easy-to-manufacture cable to connect the two boards. We decided to design a custom flex cable to make assembly easier and reduce cost. We were able to design this custom flex cable to perfectly hug the inside of the enclosure, thereby reducing the size and amount of material of the enclosure.
Alongside electronics development, we dialed in the industrial design which led to the design decision to split the electronics into 2 PCAs to fit the mechanical design intent. With new boards, we dialed in the mechanical actuations and sizing to enhance the electromechanical integration and fit.
With a working firmware base, certain items of the system had to be optimized. Certain aspects of the output waveform driver firmware were tested and further refined to produce the ideal output signal. We then moved on to develop a custom USB command line interface as well as Bluetooth Low Energy communication drivers in order to connect to a smartphone.
With all of the various pieces working well on their own, the team worked together for integration and system testing to arrive at a final prototype of a production-ready system.
