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Pass
the polish, please
Innovative
Fiber Technologies of Norfolk is set to transform the
high-tech industry - not with yet another new gadget
that's smaller and faster than ever, but with a polishing
cloth for fiber-optic cable connectors.
Even
the latest advances in technology haven't negated the
need for polishing cloths. Fiber optics are glued into
connectors with an epoxy that hardens and becomes coarse,
requiring a special cloth coarse enough to sand down
the connectors without damaging the fibers.
Up
until now, the process has been done by hand or by machine
with Mylar film. The traditional Mylar sheet works,
but it is easily wrinkled and can only be used once,
says Dave Edwards, vice president of WR Systems, Innovative
Fiber's parent company in Fairfax. Innovative Fiber's
cloth product can be used 15 to 20 times before being
discarded. Plus, the quality of the polish is better.
"In most applications, it only takes one polish,"
Edwards says.
"Our
products allow you to use a single cloth to take you
from start to finish," explains Bill Woodward,
senior engineer with WR Systems and the main developer
of the new cloth. Woodward started teaching fiber optics
at a local college in 1992, overseeing students who
made connectors. "I would see what people would
do right, and see what people would do wrong, "
he says. "The way they were polishing fibers before
we came along worked just fine," he says, with
one caveat: "A lot of times when you're polishing,
you'll actually break the glass and have to throw it
away."
Woodward
wanted to develop a method in which his students could
make good connectors as quickly as possible, and in
less than a year he had his new cloth. "With this
product, students build considerably more connectors.
Performance measurements are considerably better than
what we'd get with Mylar film," Woodward says.
So
far, the company hasn't launched a huge advertising
campaign, but it has sent out samples to various manufacturers
and the Navy for review. "There's been a great
response from most of the users," Edwards says.
"This is the only product that exists of its kind."
-
Leila Marija Ugincius
Return to Virginia Business - July
2002
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