Wayne Farmer
Senior Engineer at Watlow
- Location
- Winona, Minnesota (La Crosse, Wisconsin Area)
- Industry
- Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
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Wayne Farmer's Overview
- Current
-
- Senior Engineer at Watlow Controls
- Past
-
- Firmware Engineer at Ciber, Inc.
- Embedded Engineer at American Traffic Solutions
- Embedded Programmer at Productive Data Solutions, Inc.
- Embedded Software Engineer at Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
- Securities Trader at Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
- Embedded Software Engineer at Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
- Software Engineer at Cummins Power Generation
- Software/Applications Engineer at Zenith Fuel Systems / Zenith Power Products
- Software Engineer at Cisco
- Senior Project Engineer at John Chatillon & Sons / Ametek
- Document Conversion Editor at Gateway Conversion Technologies
- Administrative Assistant at Saint Augustine's College
- Word Processing at Carolina Power & Light
- Administrative Assistant at Saint Augustine's College
- Principal Software Engineer at Industrial Computer Systems, Inc.
- Senior Associate Programmer at IBM
- Technical Project Leader at Program Resources, Inc.
- Engineering Project Manager at Day Telecommunications
- Software Engineer at R. A. Gray, Inc.
- Senior Systems Analyst at NCR Corporation
- Systems Programmer at Compu-Biotronix
- Director, Information Sciences Division at Electronic Product Associates, Inc.
- Data Processing Technician (E-5) at US Navy
- Education
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- Virginia Highlands Community College
- Wake Technical Community College
- West Coast University
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University of California, San Diego
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Will C. Crawford High School
- Recommendations
-
3 people have recommended Wayne
- Connections
-
232 connections
- Websites
Wayne Farmer's Skills & Expertise
- Embedded Systems
- Embedded Software
- Embedded C
- C
- Assembly Language
- Reverse Engineering
- Microcontrollers
- Freescale
- Renesas
- Debugging
- RTOS
- Microprocessors
- Software Engineering
- Firmware
- Electronics
- Device Drivers
- Software Development
- Programming
- Software Design
- Simulation
- System Design
- Integration
- Requirements Analysis
- Hardware
- Real Time
- Technical Writing
- Software Documentation
- J1939
- Lean Software Development
- Vector CANalyzer
- Vector CANoe
- Unit Testing
- Performance Tuning
- System Testing
- Freescale ColdFire
- Renesas R8C
- Poet
- Micrium µC/OS
- Emissions Control
- Fault Analysis
- Fault Resolution
- CVS
- Communication Protocols
- Databases
- System Architecture
- Testing
- X86
- Debuggers
- Subversion
Wayne Farmer's Summary
Embedded software engineer, working closely with electronic hardware and contributing to a team effort in all phases of electronic system or subsystem development, from requirements specification through maintenance.
My goal is to use my experience and problem-solving insight to consistently deliver a quality product.
Professional Experience:
25 years of experience in embedded systems product design, development, and test. Consistently reliable and robust real-time embedded software and firmware for instrumentation, communications and control applications.
Microprocessors, microcontrollers, and assembly language programming:
• 8-bit processors:
> 4 years using Motorola 6800, 68HC05, and 68HC11
> 8 years using Zilog Z80 and Z180
• 16-bit processors:
> 5 years using Intel 80C196 and 80296SA
> 1 year using Renesas M16C/60
> 1 year using Renesas R8C/23
• 32-bit processors:
> 3 years using Freescale ColdFire MCF5213, MCF5235, and MCF5282
High level language (HLL) programming:
• 5 years using C
• Experience with C++, Visual Basic, Pascal, and PL/M
Software development:
• Reverse engineering of undocumented systems and software
• Digital filters and PID control using fixed-point arithmetic
• TCP/IP, CAN, synchronous serial, and asynchronous serial communication protocols
• Input/output using drivers and prioritized interrupt service routines (ISR)
• Real-time operating systems (RTOS):
> Foreground/background; proprietary cooperative multitasking kernel; QNX; μC/OS
Software documentation:
• Module-level and function-level comments for both HLL and assembly language
• Line-by-line comments for assembly language
• If no revision control system is available, record change history using comments in module headers
Specialties
• Reverse-engineer legacy software
• PID control of real-time systems
• RTOS: Foreground/background; proprietary cooperative multitasking kernel; QNX; μC/OS
• HLL programming: C, C++
• Assembly language programming
• Analog and digital schematics
• Real-time debug with oscilloscope, analyzer, or HLL debugger
• Analyze and model with Microsoft Excel
• Document with Microsoft Word and Visio
Wayne Farmer's Experience
Senior Engineer
Watlow Controls
Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry
August 2012 – Present (11 months) Winona, Minnesota
Now an employee, I'm continuing to design, develop, and maintain embedded software for Watlow's broad line of sensors and heating controllers.
Temperature Sensing and Communications: Maintained, documented, and greatly enhanced the C firmware for the company’s legacy sensor product. The firmware continuously sampled, processed, and transmitted temperature readings from up to three thermocouples. Transmissions were made through a proprietary J1939 CAN protocol stack that additionally performed all of the J1939 commands and responses needed to reliably and cooperatively function in any J1939 network environment. The target system was a Renesas R8C/23 microcontroller with an Analog Devices AD7795 ADC.
Firmware features that I designed and implemented included:
• Supporting multiple overlapping streams of Transport Protocol traffic per J1939-21
• A failsafe strategy for writing configuration data to flash memory and preserving its integrity despite power failures or flash memory failures
• Accessing that flash memory securely through the Memory Access protocol described in J1939-73
• Detecting faults and reporting their SPN, FMI, and Occurrence Counts per J1939-73
• Performing network address negotiations per J1939-81 with Arbitrary Address Capability (AAC) enabled or disabled
• Supporting the Name Management protocol described in J1939-81
• Supporting highly configurable custom transmission formats to transmit temperature readings, fault information, and message counts
Tools used:
• Developed firmware using the Renesas High-Performance Embedded Workshop (HEW) with C compiler and symbolic debugger
• Configured and ran unit tests and J1939-82 Compliance Tests using the Vector CANoe J1939 CAN simulation and test tool
• Archived software builds using the Visual SourceSafe version control system
• Developed comprehensive system design and release documentation using Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio
Firmware Engineer
Ciber, Inc.
Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; CBR; Information Technology and Services industry
July 2011 – August 2012 (1 year 2 months) Winona, Minnesota
Working on a long-term contract for Ciber's client, Watlow Electric Manufacturing Company in Winona, MN.
I'm developing sensing and control products for the trucking industry.
Embedded Engineer
American Traffic Solutions
Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Public Safety industry
September 2010 – June 2011 (10 months) Tempe, Arizona
Traffic Enforcement: Maintained, documented, and enhanced legacy firmware in C and C++ to detect, classify, and report illegal vehicle movements at traffic intersections in real time. Software tools included GCC, GDB, the μC/OS RTOS, the Subversion version control system, and the NetBurner Eclipse IDE. The build target was a Freescale ColdFire MCF5282 microcontroller on a NetBurner MOD5282 module. Much of the development used the Scrum process.
Embedded Programmer
Productive Data Solutions, Inc.
May 2010 – September 2010 (5 months) Scottsdale, Arizona
Traffic Enforcement: Under contract to American Traffic Solutions in Scottsdale, Arizona, developed firmware in C and C++ to detect, classify, and report illegal vehicle movements at traffic intersections in real time. Software tools included GCC, GDB, the μC/OS RTOS, the Subversion version control system, and the NetBurner Eclipse IDE. The build target was a Freescale ColdFire MCF5282 microcontroller on a NetBurner MOD5282 module.
Embedded Software Engineer
Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Computer Software industry
June 2009 – May 2010 (1 year) Blaine, Minnesota
Marketing, contracting, and improving my embedded software engineering skills:
• Evaluated Freescale's new Eclipse-based CodeWarrior Development Studio for embedded systems development. I designed, coded, and debugged experimental C++ programs using a Freescale ColdFire MCF51QE / MC9S08QE evaluation board.
• Determined the feasibility of reverse engineering and retargeting a legacy embedded system. I determined that project's structure, sequence, and deliverables, then estimated its man-hours and overall duration.
Volunteer services for my church:
• On short notice, quickly developed a simple relational database in Microsoft Excel 2003 for an upcoming auction. I designed the database as a workbook containing three datasheets for auction items, bidders, and bids. I entered the bidders and bids as the auction progressed, and then printed bidder invoices and donor invoices.
Securities Trader
Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Computer Software industry
May 2008 – June 2009 (1 year 2 months) Blaine, Minnesota
Studied and practiced day trading strategies for making profits in the US equities market. Analyzed price trends using candlestick charts, trend lines, and technical indicators. Performed 2700 trades.
Embedded Software Engineer
Endymion Systems (Sole Proprietorship)
Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Computer Software industry
August 2008 – October 2008 (3 months) Blaine, Minnesota
Updated the bootstrap software for the Motorola 68HC11-based engine control units manufactured by Zenith Fuel Systems. I changed the assembly code to be compatible with newer flash memory chips, since the chips in the original design had reached end-of-life and were no longer available.
Software Engineer
Cummins Power Generation
Public Company; 10,001+ employees; CMI; Automotive industry
January 2006 – October 2007 (1 year 10 months) Fridley, Minnesota
Developed firmware in C for new gasoline- and diesel-powered electrical generators.
Large Diesel Generators: Led the embedded software development for a family of 10 militarized AC generators, from 5 kW to 60 kW at 60 Hz or 400 Hz. A prototype based on the Motorola 68332 had already been constructed; our team was to construct the production model using the Freescale ColdFire MCF5235. I reviewed the prototype's hardware and software design, and the production model's hardware design. Project work was paused while awaiting a government contract award, and I was assigned to the following project in the meantime.
Small Gasoline Generator: Developed the inverter section of the embedded software for a small commercial AC generator. A variable-speed engine drove an alternator which produced variable-frequency AC. The AC was rectified to DC, and my software then used pulse width modulation to produce a 60 Hz AC output. The challenge was to achieve acceptable THD under all load conditions. Hardware engineers provided me with process control designs and a platform based on the Freescale ColdFire MCF5213. I determined how to best implement the control designs, specified the best crystal frequency for the microcontroller's clock, and designed and coded the firmware in C. For test, I configured a Lauterbach TRACE32-ICD in-circuit debugger to help the team tune the control algorithms. The debugger displayed real-time graphs of various stages in the development of the output voltage waveform, and enabled interactive adjustment of the control parameters.
Software/Applications Engineer
Zenith Fuel Systems / Zenith Power Products
May 2002 – July 2005 (3 years 3 months) Bristol, Virginia
Developed and maintained software and firmware for the company’s product line of custom engine control units meeting the 2004 EPA emissions requirements for gasoline and LPG spark-ignited internal combustion engines.
Sensors: Missing-tooth decoding. Digital filtering of MAP and oxygen sensors. RPM and MPH calculation from tach signals or flywheel teeth. Engine shutdown or alert on out-of-range conditions.
Actuators: Precise fuel injector timing and pulse-width control. PWM vacuum trim valve control. Spark advance and dwell control. PWM throttle control to achieve constant RPM or to limit vehicle ground speed under a wide range of loads.
Communications: RS-232 and SAE J1939 (CAN).
Control: Air/fuel ratio control in response to sensor inputs and table values. PID control of throttle.
Development: Reverse-engineered existing uncommented code in C and 68HC11 assembly. Documented, repaired and enhanced its function. Added new modules to improve performance or to meet customer requirements. Created a Visual Basic application to speed ECU programming.
Test: Tested firmware using PC monitor or oscilloscope on bench, engine test stand, or customer facility. Validated new ECU hardware under extremes of heat and voltage.
Patent: Co-inventor on a patent application for vehicle ground speed control.
Software Engineer
Cisco
Public Company; 10,001+ employees; CSCO; Computer Networking industry
May 2000 – November 2000 (7 months) Research Triangle Park, NC & San Jose, CA
Maintained C code for the Gigabit Ethernet family of line cards for the Cisco GSR 12000 family of routers.
Analyzed and resolved software problems. Thoroughly documented the problems and their solutions.
Configured several IP networks within my own test bed of three Cisco GSR 12008 routers. Used those networks for learning, problem determination, debugging, and test.
Senior Project Engineer
John Chatillon & Sons / Ametek
Public Company; 201-500 employees; AME; Aviation & Aerospace industry
September 1994 – September 1999 (5 years 1 month) Greensboro, NC & Largo, FL
Responsible for design, development, release and maintenance of all embedded software for the Chatillon product line of force measurement instruments and material test stands.
Diagnosed, documented and solved more than 100 hardware and software problems across the entire Chatillon product line.
Reverse-engineered existing uncommented code. Documented it to meet FDA GMP requirements for Class II medical devices. Repaired and enhanced its function.
Researched and recommended leading-edge hardware and software technology to prototype and produce new products.
Designed new products. Created detailed specifications containing system block diagrams, keypad and display actions, menu trees, data flow diagrams, and communication protocols.
Coordinated the work of assistant programmers. Provided tools to them and merged their C or PL/M code with mine to create new software versions.
Exploited the processor architecture in one product to increase its performance four-fold.
Administrative Assistant
Saint Augustine's College
Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Higher Education industry
March 1994 – June 1994 (4 months)
Secretary on contract for three departments: Music, Humanities, and Business. Recorded student data and prepared reports using WordPerfect 5.1 and dBase IV. Produced, recorded, and tracked messages and correspondence for student records, student recruiting, and federally-funded arts projects using WordPerfect 5.1 and InfoSelect.
Administrative Assistant
Saint Augustine's College
Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Higher Education industry
August 1993 – September 1993 (2 months)
Secretary on contract for the chairperson of the Dvision of Business. Recorded student data and prepared reports using WordPerfect 5.1 and dBase IV. Produced, recorded, and tracked messages and correspondence for student records and student recruiting.
Principal Software Engineer
Industrial Computer Systems, Inc.
December 1992 – May 1993 (6 months)
As the software half of a two-man startup firm, selected optimal hardware and software technologies and then created embedded systems to meet client requirements.
Developed a Motorola 68HC05-based sensor to read electric utility meters.
Senior Associate Programmer
IBM
Public Company; 10,001+ employees; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry
August 1989 – October 1992 (3 years 3 months)
Developed and tested mainframe communications software. Provided customer support and maintenance for OS/2 Communications Manager software.
Technical Project Leader
Program Resources, Inc.
May 1986 – August 1989 (3 years 4 months)
Recommended and developed computer system solutions for government and private industry contracts.
Developed an interactive graphical PC- and PLC-based climate control system for a local manufacturing plant, using Pascal and ladder logic.
Engineering Project Manager
Day Telecommunications
April 1984 – March 1986 (2 years)
Developed and tested systems and subsystems for the company's line of radio paging controllers.
Reverse-engineered existing uncommented Z80 assembly code. Documented, repaired, and enhanced its function by using UNIX and CP/M development systems.
Developed a multitasking executive in C, and used it as the foundation for a new Z80 subsystem capable of supporting up to four RS-232 terminals simultaneously.
Quickly developed multitasking real-time software in C under QNX for a PC-based page forwarding terminal.
Software Engineer
R. A. Gray, Inc.
January 1979 – March 1984 (5 years 3 months)
As the sole programmer in a small startup firm, developed all embedded software for the company's product line of multimedia real-time control systems for theme parks, museums and planetariums.
Developed a successful prototype using Z80 assembly language to meet code size and speed constraints.
Enhanced the prototype by adding customer-requested features, including a file editor, disk operating system, and synchronization to time tracks encoded on audiotape. The resulting systems contained nearly 20,000 lines of heavily commented code and were still in worldwide use ten years later
Senior Systems Analyst
NCR Corporation
Public Company; 10,001+ employees; NCR; Information Technology and Services industry
January 1977 – January 1979 (2 years 1 month)
Developed and maintained microcode for the NCR Criterion mainframe systems to control instruction execution and virtual memory access.
I prepared and presented a lecture series for visiting clients that detailed the virtual memory architecture of the NCR Criterion series of mainframes. My manager received a letter from the clients commending my teaching performance.
Systems Programmer
Compu-Biotronix
May 1978 – October 1978 (6 months) San Diego, California
As the sole programmer in a small startup firm, developed all embedded software for prototypes of new signal averaging instruments.
* Worked with the project leader to design a pipelined multiprocessor architecture to sample and process EEG signals at rates of up to 10 kHz. The system used banked memory to pass data between inexpensive 8-bit microprocessors
* Developed and tested the signal averaging software for that system. The software included extensive system diagnostics to detect any wiring errors in the hand-built prototype hardware.
Director, Information Sciences Division
Electronic Product Associates, Inc.
December 1974 – January 1977 (2 years 2 months) San Diego, California
Developed embedded applications in Motorola 6800 assembly language for a single-board computer manufactured by this small startup company.
Developed an application in Intel 8008 assembly language for tracking the daily production of ceramic substrates for integrated circuits. The program ran on a Datapoint 2200, the first computer to implement what would eventually become the Intel x86 instruction set architecture.
Data Processing Technician (E-5)
US Navy
Government Agency; 10,001+ employees; Military industry
June 1973 – January 1977 (3 years 8 months) San Diego, California
Support of Naval Tactical Data Systems used on U.S. Navy ships.
Developed system programming utilities for the AN/UYK-7 based SHARE/7 time-sharing system,and an XDS 940 time-sharing system.
Co-authored system operations manuals, and trained operations staff.
Vietnam Era Veteran.
Wayne Farmer's Languages
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Spanish, German
Wayne Farmer's Education
Virginia Highlands Community College
DC and AC circuit theory
2004 – 2005
Abingdon, Virginia
Wake Technical Community College
Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
1994 – 1994
Raleigh, North Carolina
West Coast University
M.S., Computer Science
1982 – 1984
San Diego, California
University of California, San Diego
B.A., Applied Physics and Information Science
1968 – 1972
San Diego, California
Will C. Crawford High School
English, Spanish, German, Physics, Chemistry, Calculus, Electronics
1965 – 1968
Scored 100% on SAT Math Level II exam.
San Diego, California
Activities and Societies: National Merit Scholar.
Wayne Farmer's Additional Information
- Websites:
- Groups and Associations:
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SAE, Mensa
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- Honors and Awards:
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Monarch Crown Award for Outstanding Performance, April 1994.
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