The optoelectronics market is being illuminated with solutions provided by OMC. The company is a pioneer in the optoelectronics market, with a range of polymer fibre optic components and assemblies that extends the breadth of market needs. This technology offers cost-effective, secure and interference-free data transmission and is an interesting company to work with.
Applications that benefit from this technology include factories, machinery and other industrial applications extending distances ranging from a metre to 50 metres.
Polymer fibre has not yet received full market adoption, hindered by limited availability of high quality, versatile connectors and a general lack of expertise in assembling the connectors onto polymer fibre. So to bridge this gap in the market the company is responding by offering its own extensive component range, a thorough understanding of polymer fibre and a long-established excellence in producing complete data link assemblies.
The emphasis with polymer fibre has all too often been to lower the cost of a system rather than exploit the technology’s major benefits of versatility, ruggedness and reliability. To address this, connector ranges from the company include, in addition to well-designed, low-cost plastic moulded devices, a wide range of industry standard connector types such as SMA and ST, produced in rugged all-metal housings capable of providing reliable and consistent performance in industrial and even harsh or hazardous environments.
Optical transmitter and receiver modules are cleverly designed to achieve optimal performance for any particular system, and the company can manufacture their entire transmitter and receiver range to customer-specific requirements, attaining launch powers and sensitivities within tightly-specified windows.
Taking a stance on the optoelctronics market, William Heath, OMC’s commercial director said: “For the best part of 25 years polymer fibre has been under-utilised in many industries, due, for example, to erroneous suggestions that the fibre could be reliably terminated using such means as a simple scalpel cut. This led to many system failures and deterioration in the reputation of the technology from which, in our experience, it has never recovered in some market segments.
As a result polymer fibre systems are often only considered for very low data rates and distances of a few metres. However, if handled correctly polymer fibre is perhaps the most versatile and reliable of all technologies and we have had systems in the field for over 20 years that illustrate this point. There is no reason why a well-designed polymer system cannot achieve high transmission speeds and distances up to 100m while providing a service life of several decades.”
OMC is well equipped in both experienced and knowledge to produce both polymer and glass fibre systems. In addition to the individual components, the company specialises in complete data links which include a transmitter, receiver and cable assembly that have been performance matched during manufacture to work together.
This service allows design engineers to avoid ‘mixing and matching’ off-the-shelf components, which often gives unreliable results. The company can also advise on the correct choice of technology to suit each customer’s application.
OMC
