TekRex Case Study: Fiber Optic Cassette

Small form factor limitations led to custom designed mandrels and 3D-printed enclosures.

Welcome to another installment in TekRex’s case studies video series. Here at TekRex, our focus on our clients’ success has led to some remarkable solutions, some of which we’ll dive into here.

This case study focuses on a fiber optics company that needed custom lengths of fiber spools for an optical splicing application. The issue was that they needed over 400 meters of this glass spooled into multiples and into a form factor previously unheard of. For reference, normally this amount of fiber fits into an enclosure the size of sheet of paper, whereas our client needed it about the size of half of a CD.

Watch the video below to see our Prototyping and Development services in action.

To fit that much fiber into such a tight form factor, TekRex had to start at the tooling phase. We custom designed mandrels that could not only coil the glass to the specified radius, but also nest the coils of glass inside one another to save space. We then designed and 3D printed the enclosure that could fit the nested glass using geometries impossible through traditional machined means.

After an abbreviated prototyping process due to 3D printing, the client had a fiber package in a form factor that was once unthinkable. Thanks to TekRex’s tooling expertise, the client can make more of these unique fiber packages on demand.