Bruce Gilham Jr.

All work · Industrial & manufacturing

Trulok / Trio Manufacturing

C# WinForms reading a Solartron Orbit probe over USB, a gauge-block lookup in SQL Server Express, iButton operator identification, and a fixture drawn to true proportions from the client's engineering drawings as the operator types.

Years
2011–2014
Sector
Aerospace fastener measurement
Role
Sole developer
Outcome
Still running

What was wrong

An operator measuring aerospace fasteners had to read a digital probe, then look up the gauge block whose head angle matched and whose diameter range bracketed the measurement in a table, and compute the preset by hand.

What I built

Reads the probe over USB, searches the gauge-block catalogue, computes the preset. Rebuilt the interface around the client's own engineering drawings so the fixture redraws at true proportions as the operator types, instead of making them read a table.

What happened

Deployed and running at Alcoa and Allfast, and still in use years after I handed it over.

Stack

WinForms C# .NET Framework 4 SQL Server Express Solartron Orbit USB probe 1-Wire / iButton
Maintaining something like this? What I do about VB6 & WinForms

Inherited a system like this one?

Tell me what it does, what it is written in, and what breaks when it goes down. I will say plainly whether I can help.

Tell me what it runs on