My PC BOARD website

Ranpak ("RPK", Concord, OH) - Electronics Engineer

I was fortunate to be the one and only "Electronics Engineer" at Ranpak after being hired (in 2008) as "Installation and Field Support Engineer"... (See "employee of quarter" notice from company newsletter below...) ... While there, I had many interesting and challenging experiences, including at customer sites, that helped me to grow as an Electronics Designer.  (These experiences give me confidence to work on many aspects of similar machines / appliances... My role of "Electronics Engineer" at Ranpak began in 2009, and I was also involved in engineering R&D to feed, "coin", and cut paper faster, smarter and economically...)

The pcb shown on this page ("FPSL control pc board") continues to be a work I am proud of.  It provided a simple user interface (operating mode, paper length control, status lights and "spare I/O") for the control of two DC brush motors providing the required functions of the machine.  (One for feed and one for paper cutting.)  The FPSL control pc board had voltage regulation of the +24 VDC supply (motor power) to +12 VDC (pwr transistors, etc) and +5 VDC (MCU and logic)...  In addition to the operator panel, the paper chute status ("blocked or unblocked"), and an optional "out of paper" sensor, were monitored by the MCU.  Also, the removal of the top cover required a safety relay to open, preventing operation of the cut motor.  Two serial ports were available. (A separate USB converter was used for the convenience of service personnel.)  The red shunt jumpers were used here since the board was backward compatible with prior versions of the machine and/or alternate motors. Additional items were added to the design for safety and/or EMI/EMC to meet European and Canadian requirements.

I designed this FPSL control pc board, initially on paper and pencil, back in 2009, and per my request, Ranpak obtained Altium.  The first version of the board (only two layers, and less features!) evolved into the FPSL control pc board shown (four layers).  Also, I designed a very safe, optically isolated USB interface (not shown) for programming and machine logistics.  (Machine logistics included parameter maintenance and machine statistics, such as length of paper dispensed, paper jams, date of manufacture, firmware version, and serial number.)   I designed the test fixture to fully functionally test these pc boards, including mechanically loaded DC motor loading.  I wrote all of the MicroChip C programming for these machines, including various custom versions per customer requests or marketing department ideas!   I wrote a custom "boot loader" (in MicroChip assembler) and the test firmware for the afore mentioned test fixture....

Thousands of these machines, incorporating my hardware and firmware design, have been built and continue in operation today around the world...  These machines have generated millions of dollars in revenue for Ranpak by feeding and cutting paper rapidly and safely...

This is the "SIDE BAR" ...

True, I started at Ranpak as a "Installation and Field Support Engineer"... ( I was traveling almost every week all over the USA in that first year!) 

I look back at that time appreciating the difficulties and issues of the Service Tech's.  Travel and timing of services visits, as well as satisfying some difficult customers.  I appreciated that most customers of the void fill paper Ranpak sold, were struggling with personnel and in highly competitive businesses where every minute and  penny counted...  With that appreciation I was determined to make the hardware and software for these machines quickly and easily maintainable by Service Tech's.  (Logically, I was also very much involved in training Service Tech's in these machines and their operation, and retrieval of machine logistics constantly sought by marketing.)

My "go to" engineering tool for schematic capture, circuit simulation, and pc board artwork was and is "Altium Designer".   ( I appreciate the new features of Version 18, such as "multi-board design" and "Draftsman"... I wish I had those features back at Ranpak.  However, I did have great support from other members of the engineering department in documentation and mechanical assemblies.)