A Liverpool electronics maker, founded in 1984, that designs and builds industrial Ethernet, serial and remote input and output devices for factories and equipment makers.
Brainboxes designs and makes electronic devices that connect machines and computers. Its products include industrial Ethernet switches, remote input and output units that read sensors and control equipment, Ethernet-to-serial adapters, USB-to-serial adapters, serial cards and an industrial edge controller. Serial connections are an older but still widespread way for machines to talk to each other, and many factories have equipment that depends on them. The company designs its own core technologies, including Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth and PCI Express products, and builds custom industrial automation and test systems.
The company was founded in 1984 by Eamonn Walsh, who started it in his family home. In a 2014 article marking 30 years in business, he said the goals set in 1984 still hold, citing "developing reliable, high performance products and solutions" as central to its success. Milestones include the first PCI modem for the networking market, a special effects control system for the 1989 West End production of Miss Saigon, and an early Bluetooth card. It also designed its own chips, called ASICs, which put a product's logic onto one chip to cut costs and improve reliability.
Brainboxes is based in Speke, Liverpool. Its address is 18 Hurricane Drive, Liverpool International Business Park, L24 8RL, and it is a company registered in England. It also has an office in Clearwater, Florida. The 2014 article describes offices in the UK, US and Japan. Its customers have included Cummins, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Panasonic, Reuters and Santander. A case study on its site covers warehouse robots, showing how the same technology reaches new areas. The company offers a lifetime guarantee on its products.
On quality and recognition, the company holds ISO 9001 for design, manufacturing and distribution, ISO 14001 for environmental management, and Investors in People status, as at 2014. It has won awards including European Manufacturer of the Year at the Elektra Awards, and Small Business of the Year and Champions of Best Practice from the Manufacturing Institute, plus the Liverpool Echo's Flying Start competition. The company's website has pages for its commitment pledge, timeline and awards, but we could not read their content, so we cannot describe the culture beyond these facts.
For a student, Brainboxes shows that a UK company can design and make electronics in a region like Merseyside and sell all over the world. The jobs involved include electronics and hardware designers, firmware and software engineers, test engineers, production staff who assemble and test boards, technical support specialists, and sales and marketing teams. If you like electronics, computing and problem-solving, a firm whose products sit inside other people's machines is a good way to see how widely those skills are used.
Website: www.brainboxes.com
PURPOSE helps school and university students explore 62 sectors and over 1,000 entry-level careers in the UK, then connects them directly with employers.
Explore PURPOSE