Case Study:
Fiber Optic Test System Enclosure Case Study
Buckeye Shapeform partnered with project managers at Timbercon to design and fabricate custom enclosures for their fiber optic test systems.
Customer Profile
Timbercon, Inc. designs and assembles fiber optic and hybrid solutions for the Military & Aerospace, Data Communications, Medical, and Industrial markets.
The Challenges
Fiber optic test systems, such as those supplied by Timbercon, have been developed in order to ensure that the miles and miles of fiber optic cables used by organizations work quickly and efficiently. As a supplier of fiber optic test systems to both large and small organizations, Timbercon needed an enclosure to house spools of up to 200 kilometers of fiber optic test cable as part of their fiber optic test systems.
Without an enclosure, the test systems are effectively useless, and without the test systems, there is no way to ensure that fiber optic cables function as designed.
Because of our experience designing and fabricating enclosures for virtually any application, Timbercon enlisted the help of our team at Buckeye Shapeform.
The Solutions
Timbercon initially contacted us in 2005 with a basic concept for the test system’s enclosure needs. The test system, called the Timbercon Network Simulation Module (TNSM), is intended to integrate with any type of fiber optic system, and comes in various sizes depending on the size of the system being tested. In addition to system testing, however, the TNSM is also used in other ways, including network simulation, calibration, training, and delay line applications.
With such a variety of applications and fiber-optic network sizes, Timbercon asked us to create at least a dozen variations and sizes of the enclosure.
Working together, project managers at Timbercon and Buckeye designed an enclosure to industry standards that was customizable to fit end users’ specific needs. Depending on the size of the fiber optic system being tested, the enclosure’s height and depth was quickly modified in order to provide capacity to hold various numbers of cable spools. As new requests have come in over the years, Buckeye’s design and engineering team built additional sizes and variations of the front and side panels to help meet end users’ needs.
“We have a reputation in the industry for being both large enough to handle high-volume orders, and for being small enough to handle less volume for multiple custom orders. We are set up to produce any type of enclosure, regardless of the order’s size. Timbercon’s first order was the start of a productive, long-term relationship.”
—Dustin McMillan, Buckeye Shapeform Project Manager
The Results
Because of fiber optic technology, information moves at lightning speed. To help organizations maintain rapid data delivery, they often call upon Timbercon to help ensure that their fiber optic systems are not impeded by any obstructions. Timbercon continues to rely on the seamless, rapid enclosure customization process found at Buckeye Shapeform to help them carry out their mission.