Overview

With the hardware design officially sent to production, Week 11 focused on supply chain coordination and launching the next major engineering phases. While our custom PCBs are actively in transit from the manufacturer, the team focused on procuring the specific physical components to populate the boards, kicking off structural 3D packaging designs, and initiating early LoRa mesh network testing.

What We Did

• PCB Component Procurement: Executed orders for the specific surface-mount and through-hole components required to populate the incoming custom PCBs. This involved securing the exact manufacturer part numbers for our sensors, microcontrollers, and discrete passives now that the layout is locked.
• 3D Enclosure Brainstorming: Initiated the conceptual design phase for the physical VertexShell enclosure. The team brainstormed mechanical requirements, focusing on ruggedization, sensor exposure cutouts, and how the internal PCB will mount securely inside the package.
• LoRa Mesh Network Testing: Began early-stage network testing for our LoRa mesh configuration using available hardware development kits, laying the groundwork for multi-node communication routing.

Key Decisions

• Enclosure Material and Access Path: Decided to target a modular 3D-printed enclosure design using PETG plastic for the initial prototype.
  • Why: PETG offers better impact resistance and thermal stability than standard PLA, which is critical for industrial site safety testing, while remaining cost-effective for rapid mechanical revisions.

Challenges

• Component Delivery Timelines: Coordinating arrival dates for the PCB components required careful monitoring to ensure that long-lead-time silicon chips do not stall the physical assembly line once the boards themselves arrive.
• Mesh Packet Drop: Initial LoRa mesh testing over extended distances revealed minor packet loss during multi-node hops, indicating that we will need to tune our software routing algorithms and transmission power.

Next Steps

• Receive the physical PCBs from the manufacturer and inspect them for fabrication defects.
• Transition 3D enclosure concepts into initial CAD models and print the first rough-fit prototypes.
• Continue refining the LoRa mesh network parameters to stabilize data transmission across simulated node distances.