Email: [email protected] Phone: 707-456-9802

Engineering Services

Engineering Services

Telephone & Online Consultation Services

A Unique Engineering Consulting Service

Have you ever wished you could just have an hour or so of a good engineer’s time in order to get a second opinion on a design? You don’t want a new employee or some temporary contractor. Just a few hours, that’s all. Have you ever wanted a second opinion or a little extra input on a printed circuit board design or system concept? Has there been times, when an outside, expert opinion about a complicated or difficult electronic design might help to move your project forward, faster? Could it be helpful if you had an expert attend your design review meeting or brainstorming meeting in order to give some fresh or new ideas? Advanced Designs offers such a service. Maybe, we can end some of the confusion.

A fresh set of eyes on a PCB design problem can often perceive some obvious issues or mistakes that can go unnoticed by the engineers who look at it every day. Our on-call, casual engineering design service was originally designed to meet the needs of small companies, which only had one or two engineers. They needed an expert to bounce some ideas off of. Over the last couple years, it became clear that there are many reasons that even large companies can benefit from consulting with a qualified electronic engineer that isn’t invested in the politics and habits of larger engineering departments.

Advanced Designs offer expert electronic engineering assistance and consultations on an hourly basis. You can send our engineer your schematic and other documentation for preliminary review, talk by phone, skype, or even share desktops, as needed, in order to go over ideas and details. Our consulting rate is $140/hr with a minimum of 2 hours. Onsite consultations are the same rate, including travel time. Invite our engineer to attend a brainstorming session or design review meeting. You’ll get an unbiased input and some out-of-the-box thinking.

Getting Started

707-456-9802[email protected]

Unique Engineering Consulting Service

It’s easy to schedule a consult and get started. We will give you an initial FREE fifteen minute consult, in order to meet and discuss your project with our engineer, in order to be sure they can give you the support you need. After the initial introduction, a “not to exceed” quotation is submitted for the estimated number of hours the consult is expected to take. Once the purchase order is received, the calls and/or PCB design review can be scheduled.

Engineer’s Qualifications and Profile

Tom Minnis, EE Cal Poly

Tom Minnis has worked in Silicon Valley since the early 1970s and has extensive experience in a variety of electronic disciplines, including analog and digital circuit design, mixed signal, RF/Microwave, medical instrumentation, Ham radio, Blue Tooth and other wireless designs. Tom has worked for small and large companies, startups, product development companies, and has designed products and systems from concept to shelf. He is in high demand, and it is difficult to find an engineer with such diverse experience. He has designed some of the most complicated, state of the art PC boards imaginable. While working as a senior design engineer at Agilent Technologies he designed some of the most complicated stuff imaginable for the Department of Defense. Tom is a hands-on engineer, designing, assembling, and testing his designs. There is nothing he can’t do and you will find him easy to talk to, and full of creative ideas to help you solve any problem you might have. He thinks out-of-the-box, and will have some creative solutions.

Education

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

BS Electronic Engineering

BS Electronic Engineering
1968 – 1971

Activities and Societies:

Ham Radio Club, FM Radio Broadcast station, Outings Club, IEEE

Ham Radio Magazine communications technology

Ham Radio Magazine communications technology

Set up an Appointment

Call or Email us at: 707-456-9802; [email protected]

Advancing Technology for Humanity

IEEE: Advancing Technology for Humanity

Recommendations

I’ve known Tom Minnis for more than 10 years and have worked for him, and he’s worked for me. He’s an expert circuit designer, fast, and accurate. His designs work the first time. He comes up with creative and cost-effective solutions, and is easy to work with. I’d recommend Tom to help anyone with their product development project.

Tom is a methodical and astute engineer. He’s demonstrated a system level understanding of complex systems and is a great team member.

Tom was one of the top engineers at E/O Networks. His projects were always technically up-to-date, flawless, and completed on time. A true team player, he was respected and consulted by other engineers and members of other departments.

Honors & Awards

Additional Honors & Awards

Published Papers

  • “Reflections on EMC Measurements,” RF DESIGN (October, 1988)
  • “Roof Mounted VHF Whips, Phacts and Phallacies” 73 Magazine (May 1973)

Patent

Patent #4, 114, 115 “Split band program compandor” September 12, 1978. This design completely eliminates the problem with crossover distortion caused by filters in the transmission path.

Amateur Extra Class License since 1966

History (brief)

Agilent Technologies

I started out doing R&D for the DOD and then moved into designing support electronics used in NMR measurements.

Product Requirement & Engineering Requirement specification writing, System Architecture & design, Board design FPGA design, Component selection, Purchasing, Board Bring-up & test, Test fixture design, Pick and manage consultants, Design review

Product Requirement & Engineering Requirement specification writing, System Architecture & design, Board design FPGA design, Component selection

System Architecture & design, Board design FPGA design, Component selection, Purchasing, Board Bring-up & test, Test fixture design, Pick and manage consultants, Design review, Chassis, Backplane, Power and Clock distribution, Blower control

Board Bring-up & test, Test fixture design