"The applications are as far as the mind can imagine, and then
beyond .... creativity begins at the end of your comfort zone."
Bob Heins, SCSC Board of
Advisors Architectural Advisor
“Imagine the day when a fifty story mid-rise will change its
glass “skin” façade as the day progresses, taking into
account the landlord’s operational requirements, tenant
customization, the temperature outdoors, and the amount of
sunlight hitting each window – Welcome to the world of
windows controlled by SCSC”
"SCSC is a proud RFI licensee for SPD electronics. Our
mission is to be THE electronics' partners for our fellow
Licensees."
John Petraglia, CEO
“We have assembled a management team and engineering staff
with vast systems experience to create a full product line
that will allow SPD-Smart windows and other products to be
controlled in the smallest residential installation to the
largest commercial environments, and in automotive,
aerospace, rail and marine vehicles as well. Whether it is a
private residence, a small office building, or a skyscraper
with thousands of windows, SCSC will offer standardized
electronic control systems to maintain energy efficiency and
occupant comfort through automated or manual tinting
control."
TM and Changing the way you view windowsTM
are trademarks of SPD Control Systems Corporation. SPD-SmartTM,
VaryFastTM, Powered by SPDTM, The
View of the Future - Everywhere You LookTM and Visit
SmartGlass.com - to change your view of the world™ are
trademarks of Research Frontiers Incorporated.
Contents
Cleantech
Venture Forum Conference
SCSC was
invited to present our company at the Cleantech Venture Forum
Conference in San Francisco on March 21 and 22. We were one of 18
companies selected out of about 200. The purpose of our
presentation was to raise capital to continue the timely expansion of
our business providing control electronics and systems for driving SPD
Smart Glass. More >>>
SCSC Visits Japanese
RFI Licensees
SCSC visited major RFI
Licensees in Tokyo during the week of March 6th. Our original focus
has been in the
architectural use of SPD in skyscrapers. But we have moved
forward in Japan on our involvement in the creation of
modules for the automotive industry. More >>>
Demo Unit
- Shipping First Orders
We demonstrated our first SPD Film Demonstration
unit controller at the
Cleantech Venture Network Conference in San Francisco. In 3 to
4 weeks we will
be shipping the first set of the Demo units to RFI Licensees that
ordered the first units. More >>>
Technical Department:
Optimizing SPD Optical/Electrical Properties
The SCSC controller is programmed to drive the film at
optimal electrical and optical properties.
The level and
frequency of voltage provided by our controllers is optimized to deliver
the best clarity, responsiveness and freedom from flicker for each
unique type of SPD film throughout the entire tint range.
More >>>
IM Communication - Keep in Touch
We are
taking every opportunity to stay in touch with you. We set
Email Newsletters, Press Releases, and visiting RFI Licensees.
Another great way of communicating is Instant Messaging (IM). We
use MSN Messenger. You can download a free Messenger to
communicate with us at any time. More >>>
SCSC was invited to present our company at the Cleantech Venture
Forum , a conference in San Francisco on March 21 and 22. We
were one of 18 companies selected out of a few hundred. The
purpose of our presentation was to raise additional capital to
continue the rapid expansion of our business of providing
control electronics and systems for driving SPD Smart Glass
across multiple application areas.
There were 500 attendees with the largest majority comprised of
Venture Capital companies. We had a great reaction from the
West Coast Venture Capital world that are investing heavily in
the Clean Energy space. Many recognized that SPD is a killer
application. We talked to 40-50 potential investors and we are
in discussions with several of them.
SPD Control Systems stood out over the 17 other presenting
companies as can be seen from the two press reports published on
March 22:
CNET News and
Mobile Magazine. We are the leading headline in both
articles. They may have many of the facts incorrect in their
reports, but the important issue is they recognized the
importance of what we are working to achieve.
We presented SCSC to hundreds of West Coast VC’s, like Kleiner
Perkins, Piper Jaffray, Sequoia
Capital and other major West Coast names. We described SPD
glass and how it will be used in saving energy by blocking or
passing solar energy and the role we will play in creating the
electronic controllers, modules and large scale systems
employing it. This venue has raised an average of $3M for each
company that has presented in the past.
The funding we seek will enable us to more rapidly create the
comprehensive, feature filled products we have in mind and to
put us in a position to help push SPD products out into the
marketplace as opposed to just being a back room supplier to
licensees. We are aligning ourselves to be pro-active and not
re-active.
We also showed our first SPD Demonstration Unit, the Revelation
product, with samples of SPD film. Everyone visiting our table
at the conference was impressed.
The Cleantech Venture Forum is operated by the Cleantech Venture
Network LLC, a membership group that brings investors and
Cleantech entrepreneurs together to do deals. Cleantech Venture
Networks also provides the industry with research reports,
advisory services, and various online services. The
organization's mission is to accelerate the next and necessary
wave of venture innovation and investment worldwide through
their network of over 900 affiliate investors.
The organization has tracked more than $8.3 billion invested in
clean tech ventures since 1999, of which over $400 million has
been raised by Cleantech Venture Forum presenting companies.
Cleantech Venture Network has offices in Canada, Europe and the
US. Further information can be found at
SCSC visited major RFI Licensees in Tokyo during the week of March
6th. Our original focus has been in the architectural use
of SPD in large commercial buildings, but with our trip we
have moved forward with our involvement in the creation of
modules for the automotive industry.
Through the cooperation with fellow licensees, we will be speaking
with many additional car manufacturers. In order to compete
with existing automobile electronics companies, we have
aligned ourselves with a company of 220 engineers that have
exclusively been developing automobile electronic systems
for the last 12 years. Between our own engineering
backgrounds, our knowledge and understanding of the control
of SPD Film/Glass and this team of experienced automotive /
aerospace engineers, we feel we are in a strong position to
close contracts to deliver complete SPD solutions for the
automotive and aerospace industries.
Our visit was another step in bringing our message to RFI Licensees:
Let's work as a team, with SCSC providing standardized,
sophisticated, competitively priced digital controllers.
We did meet many of the companies on their US visits so this
was our second meeting. We greatly appreciated the time
that was spent with us and the hospitality offered.
Our next trip is to Europe to visit more RFI Licensees.
We demonstrated our first SPD Film Demonstration Unit, the
Revelation product, at the Cleantech Venture Forum in San
Francisco. In 3 to 4 weeks we will be shipping the first
set of these controllers to RFI Licensees that ordered the
first units.
We will be manufacturing additional units after new orders are
placed. Please place your orders in the next 6 weeks to be
included in the next production run. The delivery time for
new orders is 6 weeks after the first units are shipped.
The demo unit has been created so that you can put operational SPD
material in the hands of the architects and other designers
who are capable of integrating this material into their new
designs. The demo setup consists of two pieces of
SPD-Glass/Film (not included) and a control unit that
operates manually, via photocell, via remote control IR
devices, or automatically - running through a series of
lighting programs to display switching speeds and lighting
control levels.
A summary
of the specifications are,
·Housed in a
small box
·Driven by
battery
·Power ON LED
·Battery Low LED
- the device will NOT drive the SPD glass if power is below
a fixed amount to insure the highest performance of the
demo.
·Button to set
the mode:
Manual mode
- a DARK/CLEAR button allows for a linear change to the
opaqueness/transparency of the SPD glass.
Demo mode
– up to 2 pieces of SPD glass cycle through a predefined set
of demos with a slow ramp up, fast ramp up, blinking on and
off, and a mix of other combinations. The beating of the
settings on different pieces of material is an impressive
display of the switching capabilities.
Photocell mode
- to demonstrate how the glass can change depending upon
light hitting a photocell
Remote mode
- where you can use an IR remote controller directly to
change the trqansparency of the glass.
Custom mode
- this is reserved for a special demo or feature as
requested by a customer.
The Revelation demonstration controller has a custom mode reserved
in it for us to load specialized software requested by our
customers. Although the standard product is perfect to give
to an architectural firm so they can see SPD-film in
operation and play around with it, the custom mode can be
set up to support glass manufacturers in insuring that every
piece of glass that leaves the factory has been unit tested.
The custom mode can be programmed for other variations that
the particular manufacturer wishes to test as part of their
QA process.
Volume discounting of Revelation products is shown at the online
price sheet for this product.
Technical
Department:SCSC Controller Design and Optimizing Optical / Electrical Properties
The SCSC controllers intended for architectural, automotive,
aerospace, marine. atrium, skylight, and other special
applications are based on the same all digital design. This
digital design includes a microprocessor, firmware (embedded
software), specialized and/or custom components and power
inverter. Different types of power conversion are employed
to adapt the input power source to the signal levels need to
drive the SPD film. Onboard communication controllers may
be included dependent upon the application; e.g. CAN or LIN
bus for automotive / aerospace, wireless interface and LAN
for architectural. The advantage of our controller is in
its software driven flexibility and adaptability to
different applications.
The SCSC controller is programmed to drive the film at in an optimal
electrical manner as to produce the best optical properties
at the lower power drain. The software is set to deliver
the best clarity, responsiveness and freedom from flicker
for each unique type of SPD film throughout the entire tint
range. This is accomplished by modeling the Electro-Optical
properties of each different type of film and storing this
model within the memory of the controller.
Any electrical property may be adjusted at any point in this model
as to adjust for the manner in which SPD-film reacts. If
there is a visual effect at some transparency level that can
be removed by modification to other electrical parameters,
the software intensive digital design allows for the
tweaking of the properties to correct for anomalies in the
film.
When new film is manufactured it is assigned a controller ID code
and its Electro-Optical model is updated within the
controller. In some versions of our controller products
these models may be downloaded wirelessly. If it is found
that SPD-film properties vary across production runs from a
manufacturer, these Film specific tables will insure that
SPD material remains optimally operated.
Digital control of the film provides optimum characteristics that
are far superior to what is possible via analog circuitry.
Digital control can provide uniform film characteristics
throughout the entire range of tinting.
Note that with the tweaking of the properties as described, film
that may have been deemed inconsistent in quality may be
corrected using our controllers. Our digital controller may
actually assist in the increase in production yield of film.
We are taking every
opportunity to stay in touch with you. We are using
Email Newsletters, Press Releases, and visiting RFI
Licensees. Another great way of communicating is
Instant Messaging (IM). We use MSN Messenger.
You can download a free Messenger to communicate with us at
any time. Download your free Messenger from
