Fiber Optic Repeater
- mechanical design
- thermal design
- component engineering
- documentation
Product Spotlight
Ortel Corporation, Inc., a world-wide supplier of high performance lasers and photodetectors, needed expertise it did not have in-house: system level electronic packaging.
Piton provided mechanical engineering from concept through documentation for this modular, customer configured system. The two main mechanical systems were the chassis and the fiberoptic xmtr/rcvr "plug-in" module. For the chassis, a customized version of an Elma enclosure was chosen. This allowed use of off-the-shelf extrusions, and cardguides, but with modified sheetmetal covers.
A thermal analysis, assuming the worst case configuration of a full capacity Ku-Band transmitter system, dictated a dual fan cooling system. Air intake vents were located on the bottom cover and side panels.
For ease of assembly and replacement, redundant dual power supplies were designed as plug-ins that could slide in from the front of the product. These modules engaged chassis-mounted Type H DIN 41612 connectors which were wired into a backplane circuit board. Vicor power modules were analyzed and free convection finned heatsinks were specified for the two DC-DC versions.
A universal plug-in design was created that would meet the requirements of IF-Band, L-Band, C-Band, and Ku-Band transmitters and receivers. Based on a single piece of sheetmetal, this design allowed slide-in module connection to a DC/signal backplane, RF connection to blind-mate SMA connectors, and fiberoptic FC/APC adapter interface to the rear panel. Each module integrated an EMI/RFI housing, (appropriate for it's frequency) with an analog circuit board and a cooling system.