Engineering Notes
Field failures, design decisions, and the reasoning behind them.
Notes from MicroCore's engineering work, what breaks in real deployments, why it breaks, and how that shapes the next design. Written for engineers evaluating hardware for marine, agricultural, and industrial environments.
Why Bluetooth Dual-Mode Matters More Than Bluetooth Version
A BLE-only wireless upgrade breaks every workshop tool built around a serial port, the moment Android stops treating Classic Bluetooth as a first-class citizen. Dual-mode isn't a nice-to-have, it's the only way to serve both device populations at once.
CAN-FD Migration: Where Backward Compatibility Actually Breaks
CAN-FD is marketed as a drop-in upgrade to classic CAN. It isn't, once a network has mixed nodes, and the failure mode is silent until a legacy ECU starts dropping frames it can't parse.
MCU or MPU? The Decision That Locks In Before the Schematic Does
Picking a microcontroller versus a microprocessor looks like a spec-sheet exercise. It isn't. It's a decision about toolchain, power budget, and certification scope that's expensive to reverse once layout starts.
What We're Building, IP67 MPPT Solar Charger for Marine and Dock Installations
There is no IP67-sealed, Bluetooth-equipped, display-equipped MPPT solar charge controller under $450 NZD on the NZ market. We're building one. Here's where we are and why.
Fanless by Design: The Thermal Model for a Sealed 250W MPPT Enclosure
You cannot backfit IP67 onto a controller designed for convective cooling. Here's the thermal budget for a sealed fanless 250W MPPT, and the margin call that drives the enclosure geometry.
Salt Air Corrodes Electronics, and IP43 Has No Defence Against It
At 18 months in a marina environment, salt air reaches the PCB of every IP43-rated controller. It's not a defect. It's the rating doing exactly what it says.