Connaxio

Summary

Context — Connaxio was my first business: a small electronics and software consulting and PCB shop that I founded and ran solo from 2021 to 2024.

Problem — Small teams, labs, and farms needed help shipping custom electronics, firmware, and automation without the overhead of a large supplier. The hard part: the same person had to be comfortable going from schematic to deployed system, because handoffs between specialists are exactly where small projects die.

My role — I did every part of the work myself, from schematic capture and PCB layout to in-house pick-and-place assembly, firmware, client engagement, and day-to-day operations.

Outcome — I took on paying engagements across automation, networking, and custom PCBs for a handful of repeat clients, published several open circuit designs on top of that, and built a working low-volume manufacturing capability entirely in-house.

Stack — KiCad, LitePlacer with OpenPnP, reflow soldering, computer vision, 3D printing.

The long story

Connaxio was a company I ran from 2021 to 2024 as my first entrepreneurial project, where I worked as a consultant for a few clients and published a few electronic circuits... after many revisions, where I went from cramming as many pins as possible in a small space to actually making a usable circuit.

Worth noting is that unlike most sane PCB designers, I made the boards myself using a LitePlacer Pick and Place machine, running the OpenPnP software. During that time, I thoroughly explored the limits of thermal flow, motor control, computer vision and 3D printing, as well as the importance of good lighting and ventilation.

Connaxio's projects have their own GitHub page where you can learn all about them: connaxio.github.io.