ConcealFab contacted Clearfield’s sales team during the design phase to see if they had an off-the-shelf fiber-optic cassette meeting the extremely small form factor necessary to fit into the limited space left over after radios, fans and power equipment were installed within the enclosure.

However, none of their existing products fit the strict spatial restrictions. Further discussion revealed the basic functional elements that made up their current fiber-optic cassette line would, in fact, work.

“This was encouraging because the possibility of a custom Clearfield fiber-optic cassette mechanical solution was discussed and sketched out in a single afternoon meeting,” said William “Doc” Pounds, Executive VP - Technical Fellow at ConcealFab. “Clearfield promised to have a prototype in my hands within six weeks.”

Pounds provided a drawing showing where the input MPO connector needed to be located to accept the fiber from the street. The locations of the six UPC/LC dual fiber output connectors were also arranged for optimal ease of installation, field servicing and testing.

“I even asked to have specifically located mounting holes so we would not have to modify our existing back panel design,” said Pounds. “Besides the fiber-optic cassettes, the end customer specified that we use Clearfield cable assembles since they were an approved vendor for this national cell-service carrier.”

Clearfield then worked to solve the design challenge.

“While we were familiar with the density requirement of the adapters and MPO, the package size was quite compact in terms of internal fiber management,” said Johnny Hill, Chief Operating Officer at Clearfield. “We needed to ensure a proper route storage path to maintain fiber integrity through the thermal exchanges that the device would experience in an unconditioned environment.”

As promised, six weeks later a customized, fully functional fiber-optic cassette arrived from Clearfield and was installed. Both single and dual fiber-optic cable assemblies were attached and the prototype was immediately sent to the carrier’s research and development team for field evaluation.