Welcome to the Solid Fluid homepage

Solid Fluid is a company that encapsulates my desire to make useful things.

I am a software engineer, but I started my engineering career as a mechanical engineer. I completed a mechanical engineering aprenticeship with Rediffusion Flight Simulation, but went on to do an electronic engineering degree with a focus on embedded systems. On this site I mainly hope to demonstrate capability. It includes mechanical contrivances and also the electronics that can glue such things to software.

You will find application help files, detailed descriptions of some of the software modules I have written, and all manner of widgets mechanical, electrical and electronic. If you want to leave feedback, or ask questions, feel free to e-mail me. I'm fairly busy, so I may not be able to answer all your questions.

I describe in detail some of the library modules I have developed in support of my software, but these are not directly for sale on this website. I operate on a "closed source" basis but I am not adverse to sharing my software under agreement. Equally, collaborative effort on the work of others and even consultancy are all within the scope of work I'd be keen to consider. If you want my input on any project, before starting, during development, or in the maintenance phase, my contact details are on the "About" page, so don't hesitate to contact me.

I have considerable experience as an electronics design engineer. In the past I have worked extensively with both analogue and digital designs, but mainly with DSP and FPGA technologies for Radar systems. There is a page here dedicated to firmware, which outlines some of my interests. If I get time I hope to expand on some of this perhaps with design examples. I hope to walk through a small tutorial on the use of VHDL for a simple asynchronous serial port, with an emphasis on the differences between more common languages like C and concurrent languages like VHDL. These days something like an asynchronous serial port has questionable technical value, but it's easy enough to run through and may help someone, either starting out or looking to do some hardware/firmware hacking.

I am particularly interested in mechanical things. I hope to outline some of the simple devices I have designed in the past for the industrial automation sector. I have a particular interest in steam locomotives, and I am in the process of researching and drawing William Stroudley's superb LBSCR B1 "Gladstone" in 5" gauge.

I hope you find something useful here, but I hope it's interesting too.