About B4L
buildforlife Co., Ltd. — operating as buildfor.life (B4L) — is an R&D company registered in Chiang Mai, Thailand (company registration no. 0505569014981), currently in the process of obtaining BOI promotion under Activity 10.2 (R&D).
Our Mission
We design and manufacture long-lifetime, repairable, open-source electronic products. Our core mission is to counteract planned obsolescence — every product we create is built to last 10+ years, be fully repairable, and have its complete design published openly.
What We Do
Our applied research focuses on developing and validating electronic product designs and manufacturing processes suitable for tropical conditions and unstable grid environments. We focus on reliability, thermal stability, environmental resistance, and scalable production quality.
Current focus areas:
- Power electronics — GaN FET converter topologies, solar MPPT systems
- LED technology — high-CRI, thermally optimized smart lighting
- 48VDC ecosystem — modular open-source hardware platform
- Environmental monitoring — PM2.5 sensors, flood detection, LoRa mesh networks
Our Facility
Our R&D and production facility is located at 101/21 Wiang Phing Road, Chang Khlan, Mueang Chiang Mai. The building houses a dedicated electronics laboratory (climate-controlled, ESD-safe), machine room, server infrastructure, and office space. We've invested millions of THB in professional-grade laboratory and production equipment including programmable power supplies, power analyzers, pick-and-place machines, reflow ovens, 3D printers, laser systems, and precision measurement instruments.
Open-Source Philosophy
We use free and open-source software (FOSS) for all our design work — KiCad for PCB design, FreeCAD for mechanical design, open-source toolchains for firmware. No proprietary tool is required to open, modify, or manufacture any B4L product. All designs are published under the CERN Open Hardware Licence (CERN-OHL-S-2.0) for hardware and GPL-3.0 for firmware.
Open-source is the most complete form of technology transfer possible. Every design we create becomes a permanent, freely accessible engineering resource for Thai engineers, universities, and companies.