Testimonials- Don’t just take our word for it
"I am in the heavy highway construction industry and began research for an improved method for remote communication and switching between various components of machinery. We needed high speed sensing and communication as well as ruggedness to be able to handle extreme temperatures, vibration, and fluctuating voltages as these are all very common issues in dealing with heavy construction equipment.
We decided to integrate both CAN and rs485 communication protocols within the Rugged Circuits Arduino environment and once the basic circuitry and programming were complete, we then had to make sure the systems would be able to hold up to the elements in the field. In order to rule out any mechanical flaws within the systems, we proceeded to expose these Rugged Circuits boards to very long hours of high (and low) temperatures ranging from -10 to +180 deg Fahrenheit and excessive jarring and vibrations. We placed the running boards inside of flat black painted enclosures and ran them for 12+ hours a day in direct sunlight while and mounted the enclosures on the outer casing of 800 hp diesel engines where vibration and electromagnetic fields from large hydraulic actuators were at punishing levels for any electronic component. We even went as far as removing the flyback protection from various high current actuating solenoids and grounding these valves to drain directly through the MEGA's ground circuitry (actually attempting to cook one of the MEGA's to see where it would fail in the event of a serious grounding fault issue). Even with voltage and EMI spikes reaching triple digits, the MEGA's held their ground and didnt fail.
Many of the components inside of these test enclosures simply couldn't withstand the torture and had to be redesigned or replaced with capable components, however we had a 100% success rate with your Rugged Circuits boards and have not had a single failed board both in the test enclosures or in the actual working systems out in the field. We now have 7 systems to date running over 30 Rugged Circuits MEGA boards.
So, after a year + of evaluation adding your MEGA microcontroller into my design for equipment remote communication and controls, I have decided to permanently add these to the final design and look forward to many years of business with Rugged Circuits."
Vince P.
Construction Supervisor / IT- R&D · Aero-Mark Inc
Last year, we deployed an outdoor project in the Utah Desert, using the Rugged Mega. The Mega has been working flawlessly in an application requiring frequency stability, at temperatures between single digit below freezing and 130 F.
Thank you, Jake, for the support you and your company provided.
Marcelo Sanchez
Software Engineer
JT4 LLC
Field trials are going exactly how we hoped they would. We’ve identified and rectified a few failure points, none of which were on your boards. We couldn’t be happier with the Ruggeduino! One of the units has been in a hot, humid boiler room for two months straight with zero issues from the board. If things continue this well, we’ll be right on track for our projected go-to-market date. I’m VERY happy I found your company, and I look forward to continuing to watch your boards stand up to the punishment in boiler rooms. The boiler room is toasty constant 90+ degrees F with temp spikes when they blow down the boiler.
Thanks for everything, Jake. We couldn’t be happier with you and Rugged Circuits. To be able to go straight from prototyping to actual application with your hardy boards is huge.
Update 9-13-22
"I finally got a chance to go collect some data from our boiler room where the Rugged MEGA was installed. The logger had recorded a max temperature of 140 degrees F at about 25% relative humidity… The problem is that 140 degrees F is the temperature that my logger died, so I have no idea how much hotter it actually got. The logger only collected data for a couple minutes, and then it died. The cause of the problem is that I didn’t use a Ruggeduino for the logger. The box is tight, so I thought I’d use one of my smaller prototyping boards with an SD card reader built in, a Teensy 4.1 in this case. No external SD card reader required and a nice slim form factor. It literally didn’t last five minutes in the boiler room that we’ve had a Rugged Mega running in since August of 2021.
I’ll make a different logger using one of the Ruggeduino Uno boards that we have from the older version before we swapped to the Mega. One of these days, I’ll get you a good data set. But for now, all you get is an anecdote about how I tried to use a regular prototyping board to do a Ruggeduino’s job."
Marshall Boughman
Research and Development Associate
Allied Boiler and Supply
So, when I first contacted you back in '2016' with this crazy idea to mingle an industry standard Allen Bradley PLC with your Arduino Mega, I caught a ton of fluff from people telling me " You're setting yourself up for disaster using an Arduino for a controller to run a million dollar piece of equipment... ''
Fast forward 5 years, the track record for my 16 systems running in the field in 2020 was 100% Uptime! And the sweetest part of this is that I had to use my systems to replace 3 of the legacy embedded chip systems that were unable to be updated to meet new state specifications.
Thanks for building a great product Jake and Rugged Circuits!
It's time to update my systems for this coming year...So simple to accomplish, pull the boards out, do the update, snap them back in... Done!
Vinny Puruczky
FlowSync LLC
Owner/Designer
When our 1980's vintage, custom designed, bi-level stepper motor telescope drive controller finally failed - it was time to build a new one with modern components and design.
We had a few major design considerations:
A platform that could be more easily maintained and repaired by people in the future.
The microcontroller that uses a quartz crystal for the MCU clock for precision stepper timing.
Endure the elements, given the controller needs to survive in the outdoors in a wide range of temperature extremes.
A rugged overall design to hopefully live many decades as the last controller did.
The natural choice was to use the popular arduino platform for the microcontroller. The standard arduino is great but it's not really designed to be put in such punishing conditions for long periods of time. Fortunately, I was able to find a ruggedized version of the MEGA, the Rugged MEGA-ET - made by Rugged Circuits.
This fit the bill perfectly as it was designed with components to run in cold temperatures, uses a crystal oscillator (unlike a ceramic one used one many/all other arduino MEGA boards) and as an added bonus, the pins have protection against shorts - which given the external connectivity to hand/computer control ports - could happen. The Rugged MEGA-ET price point was perfect too. We get a huge increase in value for not a huge increase in price.
The Rugged MEGA-ET was a perfect choice to build our next generation telescope drive control system. I expect the controller to run for many years in the future.
Brian Engel
Cincinnati Astronomical Society
http://www.cinastro.org
The Rugged Circuits team has gone above and beyond the call of duty to deliver us quality boards as fast as possible. I couldn't ask for a better supplier and I'm grateful they put so much thought into the circuit design. Here in Canada the extend temperature Ruggeduino ETs are a solid solution for our industrial customers.
Chase Gibbon
V.P. Operations
Legend Design Solutions Ltd.
www.legendltd.com
Seneca Dairy Systems is a leader in providing goods and services for the agricultural industry. Including very high tech tools.
As a result, we engage in a tremendous amount of R&D for new product development as well as rapid turn custom mechanical and control designs. This naturally leads to the need to do rapid prototyping of all kinds of automation and control projects. These products are put to the test in some of the harshest environments for automation controls to operate in. Electrical noise, electrical supply fluctuations, large changes in temperature over short periods, and other environmental issues are just a few of the challenges we face.
This is where the Rugged products have come to the forefront. We create all microprocessor code in house. We have the ability to load the Rugged Microprocessor products with our own code using the common tools from Amtel and others. Also, if we wished we could use the very common and well supported Arduino IDE for development.
These products have the added bonus of industrial strength IO. This has saved us a tremendous amount of time and development dollars. We have been pleased with build quality of these components as well.
Thanks for a great product!
Ron Park
Sr Controls and Automation Engineer
Seneca Dairy Systems
Boise Aviation Services
Boise Aviation Services needed to interface a Rugged MEGA with several 28-volt aircraft systems. One of the largest concerns that we had was damaging the controller due to voltage transients that are common in aircraft environments.
We explained our concerns to Rugged Circuits and they designed and had fabricated a custom board for us that included numerous 28-volt inputs and 28-volt outputs. The board also level-shifted and filtered analog inputs and protected all signals from voltage transients.
We have used the Rugged Circuit's board on numerous aircraft that have accumulated hundreds of flight hours. To date, the Rugged Circuits’ board, which was interfaced with the Rugged MEGA, has operated flawlessly. There has not been a single failure. Rugged Circuit’s board worked correctly from day one. No redesign was required.
The combination of Rugged Circuit’s design and fabrication skills together with their intimate familiarity with the Rugged MEGA, enabled Boise Aviation Services to successfully complete our project on time and under budget.
I whole heartedly recommend Rugged Circuits for such projects.
Hoyt Fleming
President
Boise Aviation Services
We are constantly asked to push the limits for smaller and smaller electronic installations. The Ruggeduino MINIs allow us to meet those expectations while still having the power of the Ruggeduino UNO. It's been a great addition to our toolset.
Tom Knabe
President
Knabe Labs
For any mission-critical build, the few dollars more for a Ruggeduino vs a generic Arduino is a no-brainer. It's not only cheap insurance, it's a better, sturdier part and it's built in the US.
James Mack
Engineer/Consultant
Mediascape Interactive Media
Rugged Circuits is our go-to company for Arduino components. The durability of their designs are critical to our industrial and trade show applications, where an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
Howard Luby
President
Mediascape Interactive Media
Industrial Corporation-(Sensitive)
Finding Rugged Circuits was a huge development leap, saving months of time and tens of thousands of dollars.
The ST version let prototypes get out and tested, in an incredibly fast and cost-effective way. Extensive testing showed that these boards can be used for production runs, and they'll be used in an excessively aggressive application. I have deployed custom electronics into the worst environments on the planet, and I am confident that the Rugged products will do their job for years.
Further, the customer service (especially Jake) has been excellent from the start. From recommending parts, dealing with Canadian shipping, and working out production numbers for their inventory, they've been remarkably on-track and easy to work with.
Magnus McElroy
Electrical Engineer
(Industrial Corporation-Sensitive)