Mechanical Design Portfolio

Bob Sonnenberg

I am a Mechanical Design Engineer with 20 years of hands on experience and many years of fabrication. This profile will span from the start of my career to the present.

• At the age of 16 I acquired my apprenticeship as a machinist at Dayton Aircraft in Fort Lauderdale, FL, an aircraft antenna manufacture. I worked there 2 years honing my skills.

• I accepted a position with Visual Graphics in Tamarac, FL. They manufactured photographic plate printers. As a machinist, I learned how to setup, run, program and service CNC vertical machining centers and sheet metal CNC turret punch press. I was promoted to shop foreman within the first year with 25 people under my supervision. I worked for Visual Graphics for 3 years.

• I moved to West Palm Beach, FL to accept a position as general manager of Metal Dexterity, a precision sheet metal and machine shop, with 45 employees. We fabricated parts for many customers including IBM, Motorola, Perry Offshore, Lundy Tech and many others. As General Manger and lead engineer, I was hands-on with helping our customers redesign their parts to be more cost effective for the current fabrication methods. I worked there for 5 years.

• I moved back to Ft. Lauderdale, FL to be close to family and friends and accept a position as General Manger with Anro Metals, a precision sheet metal/machine shop, where I was employed for 5 years.

• I then accepted a position as General Manager for W-Panel Industries, a start-up company, and was tasked with installation of all equipment, policy and procedures, production and maintenance. I achieved production capabilities within three months from start with a staff of 15 people.

• I accepted a position as General Manager with Decimal Engineering, a new high tech precision sheet metal and machine shop in the area, that aloud me to purchase some of the best equipment in the industry including lasers, multi axis milling machines, robotic welding and automated press brakes. I worked for Decimal Engineering for 6 years.

• In 1996, it was time for a career and location change, I sold my house and traveled around the United States for 4 months. I traveled over 12,000 miles and visited 27 states. While on the road, I received a call from a customer from my last job at Decimal Engineering to design an outdoor electronic enclosure for the wireless industry in Melbourne, FL and I relocated to Sebastian, FL.

• In January of 1997, I accepted a three month contract with Airnet Communications in Melbourne ,FL. Airnet was a start-up company in the wireless industry ,a spin off company of Harris Corp. The task was to design an EMI/RFI shielded outdoor wireless base station enclosure with the smallest foot print, as real estate is an issue in that industry. All designed in Autocad Mechanical Desktop. I was given all the components that were to be installed and their power consumption.

• I completed the design for the enclosure, internal mounting, lifting eyes, and I/O

• I finished the detailed drawings for fabrication and that was the end of the contact. These are the only files I have.

• April of 1997, I accepted a contract with Knight’s Armament in Vero Beach, FL to help a gun designer complete the design of the Stoner-86 LMG (Light Machine Gun). His name was Eugene Stoner and his health was failing.

• The requirement from the Marines (Navy Seals) was a weapon the was similar to the Stoner-63 that was used the Vietnam war but fired between 500 and 550 RPM, with a lighter and quicker release barrel. The 63 had an adjustable gas port that would allow them fire up to 1280 RPM and they would go through ammo to quickly.

• What I started with was 2D line drawings and they were incomplete. I modeled the complete weapon in Autocad Mechanical Desktop and before we could complete the design Eugene Stoner passed away from his illness. (April 24, 1997) so I was on own to complete the weapon design.

• Around the March frame time the design and detail drawings were complete and we started fabricating parts in-house.

• After months of testing and redesign and firing as many as 20 thousand rounds through each of the three weapons requested on the first order for the military the contact was complete.

• Even if I had copies of the models and detailed drawings of this weapon (which I don’t) I couldn’t display them for security reasons.

• Sept. 1997, I accepted a 3 month contract with DRS Technologies in Melbourne, FL. The contact was for tooling design on optic guidance system assemblies and also to assisted in the implementation of the Mechanical Desktop Upgrade. Contract complete.

• In Jan .1998 , I was offered a full time position as Lead Mechanical Design Engineer with AirNet Communications in Melbourne, FL . They were taking the enclosure I designed under contract to the next step. Design changes were made and completed for thermal and EMI/RF testing

• Range extender was the next requested design, small Nema 4 pole mounted

enclosure with heat sinks to dissipate heat and indoor enclosure BTS3000.

• The range extender was side line due to overheating concerns, I designed an air breathing enclosure to take its place. It was called AirSite and it was very successful. We won the 1998 GSM World Award for Best Technical Innovation.

• In 2003 we switched to Autodesk Inventor 2003 as our primary cad software.

• With the industry constantly changing and the FCC requirements for cellular base stations with 911 location update and 8Hr battery backup requirements we had to rethink the outdoor base station and AirSite. The idea was to combine the two of them, AirNet’s AdaptaCell® Super Capacity™ BTS was then designed with hardened circuitry to run at higher temperature, heat exchanger to run longer on battery backup and also could be pole mounted.

• In 2005 with Hurricane Katrina the Military request we developed a rapid deployment base station called RapidCell. We also to switched to Solidworks as our Cad software at that time.

• When I started with AirNet communication, we had 35 employees and I was the only Mechanical engineer. In 1999, the company went public, stock opened on the NASDAQ at $14 per share and over the next 2 years it went to $75 per share. We then had 425 employees with 12 of those in the Mechanical department. By 2006, we had downsized to 60 employees, only two in Mechanical, the stock was at .32 cents and we were delisted. AirNet was in Chapter 7. The company was purchased by one of our customers, Tecore Inc. They were contractually obligated to keep the company for one year. There were 32 employees and I was the only one in Mechanical. November 2007 the company closed.

• For the next three years I took some time off, did some training on Solidworks, contract work with various company's mostly converting 2D to 3D and converting files from other cad systems to Solidworks.

• In November 2007, I accepted a contract with Profold, Inc. in Sebastian, FL. Profold manufactures tabbing, folding and paper feeding machines. They received an order to build a machine for Jostens, the largest U.S. year book manufacturing company, and had no design engineers on board. The requirement was to put tabs on year books coming off the line at 72 books per minute ranging in size from 7” X 7” X 3/8” thick to 14” X 14” X 1.5” thick tabbing on either side and changing on the fly.

• I completed the design with a running machine in 97 days, shipped 5 machines over the next 2 months to 5 different Josten facilities in the U.S . All five machine have since be consolidate in one facility in Tennessee and are still running to this day. One of the biggest challenges was this 50lb print head I had to design and move back and forth 16” to install the tab on either side of the books in 16 seconds. The machine had 9 servo motors to complete the system, contract complete.

• I was hired on direct after the contract was completed for support and continued

engineering. I upgraded the design of the current tabber to CE certifications.

• In November 2012, I accepted a position with a start-up company Cross Core Technologies in Vero Beach, FL. The companie’s goal was to go after the card personalization market (credit cards and gift cards). The current machines being used in the market are producing cards at 12,000 per hour and 6,000 reliable. The transport conveyors were 9” wide, much to big for a CR-80 credit card that have dimensions of 3.375" x 2.125" (85.6mm x 54mm) and the feeders were also made to run larger product. The idea was design a purpose built machine. The first goal was to design a purpose built feeder.

• Next goal was design vacuum transport

• Mag strip holder Printer and LED cue lamp

• Reject system Shingling conveyor

• I completed the design of the first machine within one year and its processing cards at 30,000 per hour reliably. The camera’s and labeler are purchased bolt on items that are widely used in the industry.

• Sold many variations of this machine

• The owner of Cross Core Technologies unexpectedly past away in December of 2015 and the company closed.

• I accepted a contract with Mechanical Design Corp. in Sebastian, FL to design, perform stress analysis and detail drawings of several pipe testing plugs.

48” plug

104” plug weighs over 5,000 lbs, tested to 135 PSI.

• In April of 2017, I accepted a position with Profold, Inc. as Director of Engineering.

• They had designed, built and shipped an inserting machine. The machine did not perform up to specifications so it was returned. My goal was to redesign the envelope feeder, transport and the inserters .

• Currently the designs are completed, built and tested to run up to specifications and ready to ship.

• Profold, Inc. ran out of funds and they shut down design and manufacturing . They are open to sell spare parts for the tabbers and folders that were purchsed since 1982. The building is also currently for sale.