Stratos Lightwave Launches Bulkhead Media Converter Family
Stratos Lightwave LLC has developed a new family of Bulkhead Media Converters (BMCs) for harsh environment applications. Housed completely within an industry standard bulkhead connector, these media converters accept a standard optical signal such as Fast Ethernet, and convert it to an industry standard signal such as IEEE802.3u (100BT). These devices handle both the optical-to-electrical and the full physical layer (PHY) conversion. Stratos Bulkhead Media Converters decrease the engineer's overall design burden by removing all "inside-the-box" fiber management. BMC units greatly simplify the incorporation of an optical interface into systems and equipment for military, aerospace, outdoor digital video, petrochemical, marine, or any harsh environment application that would benefit from a fiber optic interface.
Inside the box, any circuit board or subsystem equipped with CAT5/RJ45 modular jack cabling is plugged directly into the backshell of the BMC unit. On the outside, an Expanded Beam fiber optic cable is plugged into the front. The design engineer doesn't need to waste any time, effort, or resources developing the optical interface as these units are virtually plug-and-play. In addition, the integrated bulkhead design eliminates virtually all packaging issues, resulting in a compact, highly reliable optical interface suitable for the harshest environments. This ease of design-in opens the door to obtaining the benefits of fiber optics for systems and applications thought to be too rugged for fiber optics, or for engineers unfamiliar with designing the fiber interface themselves. Fiber optic benefits include greater bandwidth over longer distances, decreased susceptibility to EMI/RFI noise ingress, and an increased level of security due to the difficulty of "eavesdropping" on the optical signal.
The Stratos Bulkhead Media Converter family consists of a number of standard options, including Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet media conversion using the standard RJ-45 interface connection. Other variations include Ethernet MII or GMII ribbon cable interfaces, and 1x/2x Fiber channel transceivers with a ribbon cable interface on the electrical side.
All products feature Stratos' field-proven Expanded Beam optics for a reliable, easy-to-clean, easy-to-mate optical interface designed to resist water, mud, dust, oil, and high levels of shock and vibration. Maximum optical link distance is 2km (1.2 miles) for Fast Ethernet, and 550m (1800 feet) for Gigabit Ethernet. BMC units are available for either 62.5/125 or 50/125µm multi-mode fiber, and can be equipped with one to four optical channels, in various combinations of simplex and duplex configurations. Operation is via a single +3.3V power source.
The all-metal bulkhead housing provides a watertight barrier to IP67 and MIL standards. These units have an operating temperature range of -40oC to +85oC, and meet MIL-STD-810E for shock and vibration. Immersion rating is 2 hours at 1 meter (MIL-STD-810E).
Stratos has decades of harsh-environment fiber optic experience, and it is this level of expertise that makes possible such compact, rugged, high-performance units.
Source: Stratos Lightwave