Dirks Instruments LLC

Consulting and Product Design Services


Consulting Services
Designing and building custom test equipment and instrumentation used in product development and production of products is our primary business. The majority of these devices are used in the medical or aviation industries. I can also provide product development engineering including design and prototype development. In most cases I can provide a complete system from product requirements through electrical and mechanical design, component sourcing and manufacture, assembly, software, testing and final documentation. I work with a variety of supporting vendors and services to provide a finished device. Production of low volume devices is also provided.

Expertise
I have a wide range of skills including mechanical design, basic electrical design, system design, instrumentation and software development. Gas flow measurement and control, pressure measurement, motion control and force and position measurement are all areas of expertise. I have a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Kansas and over 25 years experience designing and building electromechanical test equipment. Software experience includes Visual Basic, C and LabVIEW plus several proprietary languages for motion control and data acquisition systems. I also work with devices using microcontrollers for data acquisition and control.

Examples of Projects
Much of my work has been in the area of respiratory therapy and oxygen therapy devices. I have also designed and built functional test equipment for testing electromechanical devices, circuit boards and mechanical devices. Below is a partial list of projects. See the samples page for more details on some of these projects.

· Breathing Simulator that is used to simulate a spontaneously breathing patient and model a wide range of lung mechanics

· Flow / Volume Simulator that generates very precise complex air flow patterns that are used to test respiratory measurement devices

· Respiratory flow and pressure instrumentation

· Oxygen Conserver Tester that is used to functionally test pulse type oxygen conserver devices for oxygen therapy

· Spray Trigger Tester to test the force required to actuate the hand operated trigger pump systems on cleaning products (i.e. Windex)

· Pulse type oxygen therapy devices that sense the beginning of inhale and deliver a short pulse of oxygen

· A device used to present a food pellet in one of several different size wells to a monkey for research in dexterity

· A device to generate a given abrupt force on a person to simulate being knocked off balance

· Test equipment for aviation navigation systems

· Development equipment and prototype systems for the emergency passenger oxygen system on the Boeing 787.

· A medical device that is used to monitor patients that are receiving long term oxygen therapy. The device measures the oxygen pulses delivered along with the patients oximetry and breathing pattern and transmits this information wirelessly to a PC for the clinician to monitor during the test.

· An industrial computer device that is used to monitor dough mixers in commercial bakeries.