RIFOCS Corp. celebrates manufacture of 20,000th handheld fiber optic instrument
The milestone instrument, a fiberTOOLS 330A variable attenuator, which is used to control the amount of light transmitted through an optical fiber, was painted gold to mark the occasion. Notable for their large, legible dial indicators, the 330 Series variable attenuators are part of the fiberTOOLS family of handheld fiber optic test equipment, which forms the nucleus of RIFOCS Corporation's $14 million Instruments Division.
All of the instruments in the fiberTOOLS line of optical power meters, LED and laser sources, visual fault finders and variable attenuators are the products of a single mind, that of RIFOCS founder Robert Rickenbach. Like many inventors of revolutionary products, Rickenbach's story is one of hard times, focus, drive and sheer determination to prove the skeptics wrong.
When Rickenbach started work on his first RIFOCS handheld instrument, the 555B optical power meter, California was in the midst of a grinding recession, fiber optics was touted primarily as a medium for long-distance telephone conversations and the thought of buying merchandise using a thing called the "Internet" seemed as far-out as the transporter room on "Star Trek."
"It was January 1991, and I remember sitting at my engineering table working on the circuitry for the 555B when the news came over the radio that the Gulf War had started," Rickenbach said.
At the time, RIFOCS Corp. was a year old, and struggling as a manufacturer of fiber optic cables incorporating high quality connectors from DIAMOND S.A., of Switzerland.
Rickenbach had left his position as director of engineering at the fiber optic equipment manufacturer Photodyne, Inc. the previous year to found RIFOCS in a small Westlake Village industrial park.
"We had a few sales, but it wasn't paying all the bills," Rickenbach said. "I had reached a point where I had to come up with something to sell—I knew how to build power meters, so I set to work improving on existing designs."
Ten years ago, most of the optical power meters being sold were large and clunky boxes notorious for draining their batteries long before the field technician was through with his or her task of measuring the intensity of light being transmitted through optical fibers.
"When I built this first RIFOCS power meter, I looked at what other people had not done before—what were the real needs of the person out in the field," Rickenbach said. "The thrust of designing the 555B was to come up with a small optical power meter that would run as long as possible on a commonly used, inexpensive set of batteries."
Rickenbach's finished product was unlike any other on the market. The 555B was little larger than a deck of cards with the protective rubber boot removed, ran for more than 150 hours continuously using a pair of AA-size batteries, and had a unique Snap-On Connector (SOC) interface designed by Rickenbach and consultant Ron Boyer, allowing it to be adapted to a baffling variety of fiber optic connector types encountered in the field.
While small, Rickenbach's 555B optical power meter was also built to withstand abuse.
"I used to demonstrate the sturdiness of the meter by throwing it against a wall or the floor, and customers would cringe," Rickenbach said.
However, the 555B was more than simply existing technology shrunk to fit into a smaller box. In fiber optic applications, optical power is quantified using logarithmic decibel (dB) units and decibels referenced to a milliwatt of power (dBm). Both measurements require complex mathematical calculations, thus, the need for a power-hungry microprocessor in early optical power meter designs.
To ensure maximum battery life, Rickenbach used a small, inexpensive microprocessor known for being frugal with power, but also limited in its ability to do complex math.
"I went to a consultant who told me this chip couldn't handle the math involved, and this shattered my design idea," Rickenbach said. Undaunted, he went back to his old math textbooks.
"In going through the literature, I found an article on logarithmic algorithms. I used spreadsheets to simulate the whole thing and ended up doing the programming myself," Rickenbach said. "Its amazing how little code I actually used, and this was possible because we were working within a defined numerical range. I call that optimizing."
In time, after scaling-up for manufacture and countless demonstrations to prospective customers, Rickenbach's 555B has become one of the most widely accepted, and copied, handheld optical power meters in the industry. It also spurred the creation of other RIFOCS handheld instruments that now comprise the fiberTOOLS product line, such as the 330 Series variable attenuators and numerous LED and laser sources.
"The light sources and variable attenuator use the DIAMOND Universal Connector Interface (UCI), which was a revolutionary thing in the industry at the time," Rickenbach said. "Before RIFOCS introduced the interchangeable SOC and UCI adapters to the market, fiber optic instruments were built specifically for a certain connector type, such as FC or ST."
Building on his success, Rickenbach and his newly hired engineer, Ed Feten, went on to design a line of benchtop optical power meters and return loss test sets with more features and sophistication than the handheld instruments.
In 1993, Rickenbach introduced the first modular fiber optic test system in the industry. Now widely imitated, Rickenbach's 600 Series modular system is based on separate instruments that plug-into a common backplane, allowing users to tailor a customized fiber optic test station that best meets their needs.
Rickenbach is currently directing the development of sophisticated test platforms for copper and fiber optic-based communications systems slated for release later this year under the RIFOCS and Datacom-Textron brand names.
"I've never been content to just get the job done," Rickenbach said. "It's always worth putting in the extra effort to make products that offer the most performance, flexibility and value to the customer."
RIFOCS Corp. is a leading supplier of fiber optic test equipment, components and cable assemblies for the commercial telecommunications, data communications, military and aerospace markets. RIFOCS Corp. is also a subsidiary of the Greenlee-Textron division of Textron, Inc., a $13 billion, global, multi-industry company with market-leading businesses in Aircraft, Automotive, Industrial Products, Fastening Systems and Finance. Textron has a workforce of more than 70,000 employees and major manufacturing facilities in 30 countries. Textron is among Fortune magazine's "Global Most Admired Companies" and Industry Week magazine's "Best Managed Companies." Additional corporate information is available at www.textron.com.