Connected Controller Unit

Professional heating and drying devices on construction sites require a large amount of energy. Since their long-term operation is not under constant supervision, there are often situations when due to a misuse or malfunction, large losses of electricity are created. In addition to electricity losses, time is also lost, which often leads to delays in construction projects.

El-Björn (the client company) is in the business of manufacturing and selling heating and drying fan systems that are used to speed up concrete and facade drying during construction and have a power output up to 100kW.

Because the heating machines were controlled manually they had to be under constant supervision. If left unsupervised, mistakes would happen which would often result in large heat losses (for example, in cases when the heated space is not properly insulated).

We were given the job of digital transformation by designing a connected controller unit (CCU) that would control the machine operation from the cloud and monitor surrounding climate conditions.

We had a job to design an industrial controller unit with LCD screen, user interface and LoRa connectivity. The controller had to be robust, dust and water-resistant and designed for harsh conditions on the construction site.

We delivered the CCU that brought several advantages to the heating machines, such as overvoltage resistance, monitoring of air filters, monitoring of atmospheric conditions in the room that is drying out, and the ability to control more devices at once.

During design special attention was given to the 868 MHz LoRa antenna which was hidden behind the front panel so it cannot be damaged on the construction site.

In only six months from starting the project, we managed to deliver final prototypes ready for mass production. Also, we designed production test jigs to support mass production and the entire system went through CE compliance process (EMC and radio certification).

Shortly after the development was finished, El-Björn had several thousand units in the field and under cloud control.