Mission
Statement and Description of ServicesThomas P Riederer, PE
Santa Barbara California
Mission
Statement and Description of Services
Cool
Projects: Consumer Medical
Industrial/MIL R&D
Tunnel Road Engineering is committed to providing top-quality Mechanical Engineering and other related services to our clients in a most timely and cost-effective manner.
Specializing in Mechanical Engineering, Product Design, Research and Development,
Manufacturing Development/Commercialization, Robotics and Controls, Optics
- Mechanical Design using 3D CAD
- Mechanical Engineering Analysis using state-of-the-art CAE Tools for Stress, Thermal, Flow, Dynamics Analysis.
- Manufacturing Process Planning and Implementation (find the methods & sources; business vs technology tradeoffs)
- Research and Development (We're great at finding cost-effective solutions!)
- Building of Prototypes using Rapid Prototyping technologies, our network of local Machine Shops or our In-House Proto Lab.
- Testing of Prototypes (in more ways than you can think of!)
- Metrology
- Documentation including Drawings, Exploded Views, Technical Reports, Stress
Maps 
- Expert Witness Services – Certified by the State of California as an Expert Technical Witness
- Patent Services such as Patent Drafting, Market Analysis, Costing Projections, Feasibility Studies, ROI.
We’ve been involved in projects in numerous industries such as Medical Devices, Consumer Electronics, Computer Data Storage, Electronic Packaging, Industrial Process Equipment, Telecommunications and others.
Tunnel Road Engineering
Thomas P Riederer PE
1215 Tunnel Rd
Santa Barbara CA 93105
USA
805-569-3038
This Camcorder 3D Adapter was designed in 3D CAD, then analyzed for stress at critical locations, Rapid Prototyped, tested thoroughly and then sent to a molder for mass production of the plastic parts. Optics are laser-aligned and robustly packaged – I used mine on 20,000’ mountains at 20° below zero! Product/Process/Tooling designed and implemented by TREng. Wanna see a 3D Movie? Tree D Films - 3D Video of the Great Outdoors
This Card-dealing machine (shown with cover raised) starts with a random deck, recognizes the bottom card and sends it to the right player, all faster than you can just deal! It’ll deal me a Royal Flush and everyone else garbage. Application: Duplicate Bridge Tournaments
TREng designed this consumer Sports Training device (CAD image, Product picture), worked with offshore manufacturers and got the Client a design he could SELL and SHIP.
Here's a cute project - Whistle-While-You-Work with this Singing Broom. Press the Green button to play, Red to stop. Another quick-turn project utilizing our 3D CAD plus our In-House proto shop to complete this project in under a week!
This Hand Control illustrates the Rapid Prototyping capabilities employed by TREng. Designed in 3D CAD, the solid model computer files are emailed to a Stereolithography job-shop where master patterns are made. The hard plastic shell is prototyped in a rigid castable compound, the one-piece sealed keyboard in a flexible compound. After a few dozen protos are made and the design is validated, the model files are emailed directly to the molder and finished molds, capabe of millions of parts are made. Not only is this fast and very cost-effective but many error-prone steps are eliminated so costly mistakes are avoided!
Camera packaging project in which the system was required to operate at -20F and over 20,000 feet altitude. I personally tested the system (and myself!) at the summit of Mt McKinley (20, 320') in Alaska!
This removable Hard Disk Drive product was designed, built, tested and tooled for high-volume. It’s a consumer product allowing a removable hard drive to play in multiple host PCs.
Implantable Medical Devices - Designed, built and directed full biocompatibility testing of innovative structural devices used during surgery and for long-term implantation inside the body. RESULT: Product being mass-produced.
Robotics: This is the first Surgical Robot cleared by the FDA, now shipping to hospitals worldwide. TREng was instrumental in Design-For-Manufacturing, FDA submittal, and set up a FDA/GMP production line for this start-up company. Research scientists built the first one – TREng built the next 500
Optical Tracking User Interface - Designed and built laser-based optical tracking system for hands-free input of user’s desired motion commands. RESULT: Tested and proven as excellent user interface for control of surgical robot or other products.
This Rifle Tester (close-up view) for a domestic top-of-the-line sporting arms manufacturer runs entirely on pneumatics. To date it’s worn out numerous rifles, a couple air cylinders and has cycled MILLIONS of times! This has resulted in vastly improved product for the client!
Electric battery manufacturing process Robot - TREng designed and built a Robot to mass-produce an innovative new type of battery. I did the Mechanical design, Electrical design and Software to control the robot and numerous process sensors. The robot had to cut and move a component that resembled wet toilet paper! RESULT: Robot works, as planned, in their process.
Electric motor manufacturing process and tooling – A local entrepreneur invented an innovative new electric motor design and needed a mass-production process and the tooling to support it. RESULT: Motors currently in mass production.
Engraving System - TREng lead the design team on this computer-controlled low-cost engraving machine for signs and plaques. TREng was responsible for product definition, specs and product design of the X-Y-Z positioning system. RESULT: Product in production.
Missile Test System - TREng designed a high-resolution add-on for an established missile test system. The client needed it designed, and built, in less than a month! He got it!
Hybrid Circuit Package - TREng did thermal design and analysis for a hybrid circuit package for use on the Space Station.
Voicemail Computers – TREng lead the design team responsible for conceptualizing and packaging the first commercial Voicemail System used in Telco Central Offices. TREng did the mechanical packaging, power supply subsystem design and a very full range of environmental tests – to MIL Std levels – including Seismic Simulation and Structural Design. Following earthquakes in San Francisco and Northridge (LA) these systems kept right on ticking even though the adjoining Telco switches failed! Press “1” for Sales, “2” for service and “TREng” for SUCCESS!
With many years experience in the Hard Disk Drive, test equipment and related businesses TREng is highly skilled in high-precision electromechanical and Scientific Instrument engineering.
Sub-micron Positioner - TREng invented and patented a general-purpose device for highly accurate (millionths of an inch) movement of objects. Accuracy of movement was verified to micro-inch level with laser interferometry. RESULT: Positioner currently being used in several products. Our US Pat No. 5,359,474 is an example of our micro-positioning talent.
A high-speed camera (5000 frames/sec) shows a Hard Disk Drive head “landing” on the disk , forming the “air bearing”. White light interferometry was used to “colorize” the flying height, in this case about 11 millionths of an inch. TREng did it!
Rotary Electromagnetic Actuator - TREng deisgned this mechanism for use in a high-performance removable-cartridge storage device. We can do magnetic circuit design, analysis and testing.
Low-cost Head/Disk Tester moves the head very precisely across the disk, writing and reading information as it goes. TREng specializes in high-precision!
Disk Drive R&D Projects - Chief ME for numerous R&D projects relating to heads and disks, head dynamic loading tribology (>1M cycles with STM microscopic wear checking), head flying heights under varying environmental conditions, design of innovative actuators, etc. RESULT: Results of projects incorporated into numerous drives, (5 1/4", 3 1/2", 2 1/2", 1.8", 1.3") many in current production.
Disk Drive Servo Track Writers (STW) - TREng defined, designed, developed mechanism for moving the head arm across disk in micro-inch-accuracy steps to write embedded servo tracks. TREng invented a novel high-accuracy low-cost 4-bar linkage mechanism tested/verified to desired accuracy with laser interferometer. RESULT: STWs used for initial production of numerous disk drives (5 1/4" to 1.3"), some still in operation, used for drives manufactured by Ricoh, Maxtor, Seiko-Epson, Citizen, etc.
Let us add your product success story!
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS:
Technical hands-on design leadership on dozens of high-tech products.
Proven track record as an early contributor to start-up companies.
Keen ability to apply and cross-pollinate technologies among diverse industries.
Over 15 years experience in high-tech product design, manufacturing, end use, testing, system integration.
Broad knowledge of numerous manufacturing processes, materials, technical vs business tradeoffs.
Power user in SolidWorks 3D CAD/CAM/CAE, Finite-element and structural dynamics analysis, precision engineering.
Patent holder in the field of sub-micron positioning.
Registered Professional Engineer, California (M25211) and Wisconsin (23181-006).
EDUCATION:
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin
Graduate Level Course Work:
EE and ME, Stanford University
Magnetics, University of Southern California
Laser Systems, University of Wisconsin
Here are some of the associates we work with. URL's coming soon...
+ Hi Tide Instruments - Elliot Burke
+ Michael Weissman, PhD - Image Processing
+ Local Machine Shops
Last revised: Feb 20, 2003
© 2003 Tunnel Road Engineering
