The energy chain in the lane – Part 4

Christian Strauch | 19. March 2020

autoglide 5 with a fibre optic cable instead of a bus cable!

As far as I know, fibre optic technology has not yet achieved broad acceptance in material handling and intralogistics, certainly not for dynamic applications such as energy chains. Conventional bus technology presents no problems for cables of 50 metres or less. But what if the travel is longer than 50 metres? Most users instinctively move to WiFi technology or solve the problem with optical data transmission.

You can do that, but you don’t have to.

You can use fibre optic cables instead. igus offers them in a variety of qualities, designed, of course, for tight bend radii and dynamic applications. But one obstacle remains: how will the optical cable be connected to the switch cabinet, miniload or cross carriage?

igus can help. In order to ensure that the customer need not worry about this interface, two fibre optic couplers are included with cables we deliver. Each coupler has inputs for commercially available RJ45 Ethernet connectors so that the bus cable coming from your control cabinet or device can be easily connected at both ends. The coupler is small enough to fit into the control cabinet without any problems.

In summary, nothing changes for you even if you choose fibre optic cables – except that you get absolutely reliable, very fast, future-proof data transmission.