Case Studies
IR Safety Beams
In the 1980’s, scores of children were injured or killed by residential garage doors. To reduce these heartbreaking accidents Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) worked together to develop new safety regulations for the industry.
The new regulations, christened UL 325, were approved in 1993, and Martec Access Products was one of the first companies to have a compatible safety system on the market.
“We knew the regulations were going to be released, and wanted to be ready with a product right away,” says Martec president Menashe Ben-David. “In a new market like this being the first in can be a decisive factor in market share for years to come.”
Martec engineers had a number of challenging issues with this development. In addition to having a firm deadline they had two more difficulties to overcome. “The UL 325 regulations were in a state of flux right up until their release,” recalls Ben-David. “In addition, unlike garage door opener manufacturers, we were designing our product to work with almost every garage door opener out on the market or installed in home.”
The UL regulations called for rigorous testing including sunlight testing, response sensitivity, and reflection rejection, and were required to have complete fail-safe operation. Martec’s beams were approved on the first round of testing.
All of the design and time-line challenges were met, and the not-too-excitingly-named TK-8200 beams, with their distinctive yellow cases, were launched on schedule, meeting all design criteria. Millions of the “Little Yellow Beams” have been sold since, and it remains the leading independent beam product in the garage door opener industry today.
Isopad Physical Therapy Aid
“You’re only fooling yourself!”
It’s what mothers the world over say to their kids when they try to get away with skipping something that may be unpleasant, but to their benefit.
Physical and occupational therapists have a similar problem with patients who are supposed to be doing rehab exercises on their own. Often they don’t do what they’re supposed to, and then mislead the therapist later.
The Isopad was developed to help with that situation. It incorporates a patented pressure-sensing film that changes capacitance as the load on it changes. This allows the therapist to design a wide variety of isometric exercises, with the patient placing the pad in position to monitor the exercise. In addition the therapist can define the desired intensity and number of reps of each exercise, using either the graphic LCD display or a PC application.
The patient goes home with the device, and follows the prompts on the Isopad screen to conduct their exercises. Upon their return to the office the data is transferred to a PC via a USB port on the isopad. In addition to seeing whether the exercises were performed, the therapist can see graphs showing the intensity of the exercising over time, to see if the patient is strengthening.
Martec was hired for complete product development, from initial shape concepts through production, including aesthetics, housing design, user interface studies, electronics, and software.
“The most challenging part was the devising a simple user interface,” recalls project lead Geoff Engelstein. “The therapist needed to be able to select from a standard library of routines and be able to change them on the fly. We made a number of mock-ups that the customer could run on their PC to walk through sample LCD screens.”
Concurrently with the user interface development, work progressed on the housing and electronics design. Foam models of the housing were built to test the ergonomics, as the patient can hold the device to view the display throughout the exercise routine. The mechanical engineering team also worked closely with the electronics team to determine space management inside the Isopad.
By having all of these elements under one roof, the development proceeded smoothly with the full team working together to achieve the successful launch.
When asked to sum up the program, Engelstein notes “This was Concurrent Engineering at its best.”