Case Studies

Air Purifier Board

Redesigned electronics to address an overheating problem and to replace a proprietary chip.

Description

Problem

The company manufactured a line of electronic air purifier models — from a small consumer-based device to industrial grade units. They were having two problems: (1) the small units were being returned due to overheating, and (2) the industrial units used a proprietary Integrated Circuit (IC) chip that required royalty payments. The chip was unavailable from any other source.

Solution

BCA designed a single circuit board assembly to support the entire product line, and developed the software to control the board.

Overheating Solution

The high-voltage circuit that controlled the air purifier activation plates was very basic, but very inefficient. BCA redesigned the high-voltage circut to make it efficient and thereby solve the overheating problem. Because they operate on high-voltage sine waves, BCA used a Cold Cathode Florescent Lamp (CCFL) circuit and adapted the CCFL driver chip to operate with the activation plates. We also designed a custom transformer to step up the voltage.

Proprietary Chip Solution

To solve the proprietary chip problem, BCA replaced the proprietary IC with a microcontroller that uses an analog input to monitor the sensor signal. BCA also rewrote the firmware to process the signal and control the activation plates.

Client Quantum Pure Aire

Year Completed 2006