Fiber Simplex Breakout

Product Overview

This board is actually a pair of boards! We wanted to design a product that gave you the bare minimum amount of support circuitry for playing with these modules from Industrial Fiber Optics. This product is for people who might not be connecting their fiber modules directly to a UART, and instead want to interface with them simply as an LED and a photodetector. Using a pair of pliers, the two sides of the Fiber Simplex Breakout can be snapped apart along the perforated line to create a one-way fiber link. Both the receiver and transmitter have four pins: VCC, Ground, Signal, and Inverted Signal. See the Hookup Guide for information about each signal.

The Industrial Fiber Optics line of emitters and detectors are by far the most economical way we’ve found to create a simple fiber link between two devices. The IF-E97 emitter is literally just a superbright red LED in a fancy plastic module that makes it easy to insert a piece of optical fiber and lock it in place. On the other end, the IF-D96F is a 5v TTL phototransistor in an identical enclosure. Connect the two with a piece of fiber and you have, basically, the simplest possible fiber link. Speaking of fiber, while you can certainly use glass fiber (in the proper jacket) to connect these modules together, we recommend PMMA plastic fiber! It’s cheap, it’s not at all fragile, and you can cut it with scissors. In our experience, it requires no polishing at all, simply cut it with scissors and jam it into the connector.

We've tested these modules at baud rates up to 1Mbps and distances up to 50 meters with no transmission errors.