2001-2005 Tyco Safety Products

Having caught the cycle bug I toured down to the South of France over a period of 3 months. When I got back it was time to find gainful employment and Tyco offered me just that. Joining a small group know as 'Special Hazards' we set about designing the next generation of industrial fire detectors for use in applications such as oil rigs and chemical factories. I can truly say its a very clever beast.

Being in at the beginning of the project I had a direct hand in steering the course of product development. Working in a small team developed my expertise in housing design, PCB mounting, connectors, circuit design and component positioning. Designing the platform you write the software for is a rare privilege in the world of complex embedded systems and as the design progressed, my role switched to software architect. I designed, documented, coded and tested most of the controller functions.

Video camera, IR imaging camera and sensors, video text overlay, quartz test lamps, bidirectional IR data link, internal data logging, RS485 made this a dream product to write software for and develop PC applications to support. On completion I switched to helping specify the test process and implemented software changes required.

The Product

The finish product inside its explosion proof case

Internals showing PCBs and simple interconnection scheme. Right showing sensors.

Internal camera overlaying location of the detected flame

Fire tests

You can only spend so much time in a lab. At some point you've just got to set fire to things.

This involves rigging the detectors to data loggers and setting fire to trays filled with different fuel. Petrol is the favourite.

The two pics on the right show a gas fire. Its about the size of a double-decker bus

Collecting fire test data was integral to improving the design

Pan fires with different types and quantities of fuels at different distances. We needed to do a LOT of tests!

The People

Me at work

Bernard (boss), Me and Lindsey.
Rewarding work..!

Deepika and Dave

The Place

Sunbury Cross, Near Hampton Court, West London. I lived in Central London (Vauxhall) then moved out west to Osterley and Heston (both near Hounslow).