Instrument Electronics & PCBs
Custom KiCad boards and the Python that drives them — precision driver and control electronics under the instruments.
The instruments don’t float — under them sit custom electronics I design in KiCad: precision driver and control boards for optical sources and instrument peripherals, plus the interface electronics that tie stages, detectors, and DAQs together. I own the full loop: schematic capture, layout, ERC/DRC discipline, bring-up, and the Python control software that commands the boards in production.
Firmware and control code follow the same hardware-safety rules as everything else I ship: every write to a device is range-checked against what the hardware can actually tolerate, failure paths drive outputs to a safe state, and calibration values live in explicit, versioned configuration rather than magic numbers.
This work also feeds a personal habit — I maintain KiCad libraries for common optomechanical and lab components so future boards start from known-good footprints.
KiCad, embedded firmware, Python, SolidWorks for fixtures. Source is private.