Harris Corporation

William C Stankos

Clarence G Hillegonds

Luther P Mills

James Richard MacLean

Peter G File

Blind mating of a rack and panel type fiber optic connector is accomplished by a course guide pin mounted within a connector mating block which is associated with a printed circuit board. The guide pin mates with a guide pin bushing provided in a chassis wall, thereby assisting in an initial nonangular movement of the conductors relative to one another and assisting in the parallel translation, as necessary, of a fiber-containing socket relative to a fiber containing connector pin. The floating part of the connector, specifically the socket, rides on a Teflon washer face and allows only lateral movement of the socket, so that there is effectively no or only minimal angular movement during the initial mating of the socket and the pin. Once the two have become initially mated, there is an accurate urging of the fiber optic pins together for extremely low loss abutment within the interior of the pin or jack portion of the rack and panel fiber optic connector.

Blind mating rack and panel fiber optic connector

A single fiber connector for a pluggable card or module optical interconnection is formed of a connector socket that may be mounted to a printed circuit card or optical module and a connector pin that is attached to a housing or a suitable bulkhead by which the printed circuit card or optical module is to be supported. Each of the connector socket and the connector pin has an internally threaded axial bore for receiving and retaining a single optical fiber cable coupler from the end of which an optical fiber strand extends. Each pin and socket includes a further precision bore through which the fibers pass to abut end-to-end in the precision bore of the socket. The socket further has a tapered end male section that is inserted into a corresponding tapered end female section of the pin, with the fiber held by the pin being automatically guided into the precision bore of the male section of the socket as the printed circuit card or module is inserted into the connector on the bulkhead. To effect this automatic guidance of the fibers together, a bracket is mounted on the printed circuit card for holding the connector socket. The bracket is dimensionally positioned relative to the end of the card so that when the card is mounted on the bulkhead through associated hardware, such as electrical pin connector support units, the optical fiber connector and socket will be properly dimensionally located for alignment and fiber coupling.

Single fiber connector for pluggable card or module optical

In testing systems using fiber optic lengths, it is desirable to have means to simulate long lengths of such fiber optic lengths. To accomplish this, a device and a method are provided for holding first and second optic fibers which have a combined attenuation less than that which it is desired to simulate. An optical attenuator is then inserted between respective ends of said first and second optic fibers. The degree of attenuation of the optical attenuator is set to correspond to the attenuation of the length to be simulated minus the combined attenuation of the first and second optic fibers. In most testing situations, the attenuation of the first and second fibers is negligible in comparison with the much longer length of optic fiber being simulated, so that essentially the entire attenuation is provided by the optical attenuator. In addition to being used to simulate long length optic fibers for test conditions, the method and device can also be used to equalize the attenuation of optic fibers running in parallel with each other where the optic fibers have different degrees of attenuation.

In-line optic attenuators for optical fibers

A connector and coupling assembly to couple a single pair of optical fibers provides for securing the respective fibers in identical metallic connector pins and inserting these pins in an alignment sleeve having a precision axial aperture which maintains proper alignment of the pins and the fibers carried thereby. The respective connector pins are carried by coupling members which resiliently hold the pins so as to allow alignment thereof by the alignment sleeve while the coupling members provide for axial clamping of the pins together in axial alignment.

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Melbourne, FL, United States of America

William C Stankos