The Lab at Marcotte Enterprises
Our laboratory is a fully equipped electronics laboratory; having 2 high performance LeCroy oscilloscopes, a prototyping bench and optical analysis equipment and an engineering workstation. The building housing the lab was designed and built by Bob.
In 2006, Bob Marcotte founded Marcotte Enterprises to provide electronics design and consultation services primarily for the plasma TV industry. Bob's primary expertise is the design of power and high voltage switching electronics. Within the plasma TV realm, he has provided expert services in a couple of litigation cases and provided electronics design services to a startup company in India. Over the years, Bob has developed a new display technology called a DIAC Display for which he has received two US Patents. This technology offers a solid state equivalent to the plasma display technology utilizing organic LED technology.
Development Project Highlights
An inventor requested a Bluetooth wireless gaming controller handset. The goal of this project was to develop separate right and left hand controllers; each wirelessly reporting to the computer. This project explored the use Li-ion batteries and charger circuits, microcontroller circuits, Bluetooth connectivity etc.
A company in the railroad Industry, requested a display retrofit assembly to replace a traditional backlit LCD display with a modern LED backlight display. The project was an electro-mechanical design to upgrade an LCD display subsystem. An adapter circuit was developed containing a power power supply and level shifting circuits. The display module assembly required mechanical changes as well as cabling to complete the retrofit. Bob designed the new circuits and the mechanical and cabling arrangements, layout of the circuit board, prototype assembly and system test.
A longtime colleague was developing his own display technology and asked Bob to develop a set of computer controlled driver circuits so that the new technology could be tested and characterized. The circuit developed contained several high powered drivers, computer controllable power supplies and interface circuits.
Graphic Art Project Highlights
Bob may not be the most "artistic" fellow, but his ability to utilize the tools of the graphic art industry is unquestionable. Engineering precision is the key to quality graphic arts. He is adept at generating mechanical drawings, electrical schematics, printed circuit layout and printed graphics.
Bob has developed this website, and others, using the Drupal PHP website platform. He as also developed the branding, website and print materials for a local dog trainer who runs Center For Heeling. He also provides HTML and CSS support for a local graphic designer who develops WordPress websites.
One of Bob's sons ran a couple of home shows and asked Bob to prepare ads for the shows plus vendor guide booklets. For each business attending the show, Bob created ads for the vendor guides using each businesses branding and available art snippets.
Patent and Invention Project Highlights
Bob continues to assist inventors as they develop their ideas into patents. As an engineer and inventor, Bob contributes insights and suggestions while preparing patent figures and writing provisional patent applications.