Firecomms Limited

Patrick Doyle

Thomas Moriarty

A connector includes a main body, and a pair of sockets. Each socket includes a pair of opposed resilient walls in the overall configuration of a split tube. The connector also includes a transversely sliding clamp with two tapered slots, located so that one of the sockets passes through each slot. After fiber terminations are pushed into the sockets through the clamp slots, the clamp is slid in a plane across the socket axes so that the narrower ends of the slots engage the opposed split tube resilient walls of each socket. This squeezes each socket so that the opposed split tube resilient walls press against the associated fiber termination and retains it in place. The sockets may have guide slots for guiding clamp movement. The clamp moves in a translational movement, but in another example the clamp rotates in the lateral plane to squeeze the sockets.

Optical fibre connector

An optical connector includes four main components, namely a clamp; a housing into which the clamp slides; two optical elements, a transmitter and a receiver; and an EMI metal shield surrounding the elements. The clamp has two parallel through holes for receiving fiber terminations, each through-hole having a generally conical mouth for convenient guidance of a fiber termination. Inside of the through-holes there are side resilient clamp members, and there is a single central clamp member. The clamp is of moulded plastics construction, and the clamp members are resilient in the lateral plane. The central clamp member on the other hand has little flexibility and remains essentially static throughout the clamping operation. Each resilient clamping member has a tooth at its end for snap-fitting engagement with the housing at open and closed positions. Fiber terminations are inserted through the clamp mouths and the through-holes and into the sockets of the housing. The clamp is then simply pushed inwardly so that teeth in the socket walls bite into the fiber claddings.

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Cork, Ireland

Patrick Doyle