Expanded Beam Fiber Optic Cables

Expanded Beam fiber optic connectivity has been around for decades.  Over the past few years the water shed of connectivity solutions from the military sector have filtered down in to industrial and especially into broadcast deployments.

Expanded beam simply means that the fiber optic connector end face has been manipulated in some way to over size the launch and receive point of the optical transmission to increase fault tolerance.  Most commonly, this is done through the use of a spherical glass lenses embedded in the connector causing a non contact surface as opposed to the tradition ferrule to ferrule contact we see with traditional fiber optic connectors.

Expanded beam connectors come in many different flavors of connectors and termini.  Some examples are versabeam from Molex, ProBeam from Tyco, HMA from Stratos, Winchester E1 and the like.

These connectors are typically IP68 rated when in the mated condition.  This means they seal out not only dirt and other contaminants, but they are also completely submersible when mated.  Stratos shows us how their HMA holds up to the abuse of extreme field use.

When these connector system are combined with the rugged tactical grade cables currently on the market, cable assemblies become suitable for almost any application.  OCC (Optical Cable Corp) is our primary supplier of tactical cable.  This video shows us why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbZp1bKKw6s

Expanded beam connectors are perfect for high and low temperatures, desserts, marine use, staging and lighting, broadcast and other mobile deployments, and where high volumes of mating cycles occur.

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