Copper and fibre share the same housings

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 6, 2002

A new range of connectors offers the versatility to readily integrate coaxial and fibre-optic cabling in the same interconnection scheme or backplane.

A new range of products from Honda Connectors offers the versatility to readily integrate coaxial and fibre-optic cabling in the same interconnection scheme or backplane.

The FXMU series of coaxial plugs, jacks and adapters comes in the same footprint as Honda's high-density MU optical interconnection systems, so copper and fibre can share the same housings and backplanes.

A vertical two contact housing can accommodate coaxial and high-density optical fibre in the same device, allowing complex mixed connectors to be made.

Components of the interconnection system comprise a single-contact coaxial plug, high-density plug-in jack, single-contact coaxial connector and H-type vertical two-contact adapter.

Standard coaxial connectors consist of a MU-type plug combined with the single-contact adapter, while plug-in connectors are assembled by adding backplane and package housings to the MU-style coaxial plug and jack.

Utilising these components along with Honda's existing MU-type hardware allows creation of both relay-style connections (plug-adapter-plug) and high-density plug-in connectors (backplane-package).

The coaxial connector uses the same push-pull locking mechanism as existing optical connectors.

Such connections benefit from 50ohm characteristic impedance and 10mohm contact resistance, with a frequency range from DC to 5GHz and VSWR of 1.25 or lower.

The robust connectors can withstand 500V AC for up to 1min and provide insulation resistance of over 500Mohm at 500V DC.

Operating temperature range is from -20 to +65C.