Fiber Optics: Fiber Optic Tooling

GLE-Precision has assisted with original equipment manufacturers (OEM’s) to develop and manufacture critical fiber optic tooling for the next generation of fiber optics.  At the forefront of the latest technology, GLE-Precision was involved with manufacturing the carbide and steel fiber optic dies used in the 5G network.  Many fiber drawing facilities are located outside of the U.S., but the demand trickles down to the suppliers of draw dies like GLE Precision. If the cables or coating are not completely uniform, it will drastically reduce the range of 5G. Through our expertise, GLE provides ultra-high precision dies for coating fiber optic cables.

Carbide and Steel Fiber Optic Tooling

GLE manufactures carbide and steel dies used throughout the fiber optic industry.  These dies aid in the development for the creating and forming of fiber optic cable and applications, including the next generation of fiber optic tooling.  Optical fibers are made from the purest optical glass.   A person may think of a glass window as transparent, but as the glass in the widow gets thicker,  more impurities in the glass develop and the more difficult it will be to see through.  One company’s take on the quality of glass was: If you were on top of an ocean that is miles of solid core optical fiber glass, you could see the bottom clearly. The  Making optical fiber consists of three steps:  making a preform glass cylinder, drawing the fibers from the preform and testing the fibers.

Drawing Optical Fiber

Optical fiber is extremely precise, measuring approximately 1/8 of a millimeter, or .005″.  These hair-thin fibers are produced by fiber drawing.  Gasses are injected into a high purity graphite furnace, in which the perform fiber is located.  High temperature soften the tip of the perform, which allows a “glob” of material to free fall, creating a strand.  This strand is ran through coating dies manufactured by GLE-Precision by operators.  This process is called drawing.  The preform is heating during the drawing process to achieve the premium drawing tension.  The small holes manufactured by GLE-Precision allow for the small diameters of fiber to be drawn through the dies.

The fiber optic cables transmit data through fast pulses of light.  The strands are less than 1/10  the thickness of a human hair and quickly transmit data, almost at the speed of light.