Trinity Connectors

2021-2023

Part of the team that designed the industrial 3 channel fibre optic transceiver for Siemens to be used in various applications across their product portfolio.

Main Roles

Lead Mechanical Designer

Responsible for all aspects of the mechanical design of the product and project peripherals.

What I did

Connector Design.
FOT Leadframe Design.
Packaging Design.
Assembly Fixtures & Procedures.

Connector Design

Housing and alignment clip design, tooling & protoyping.

I took over as lead designer for the project upon the departure of the previous senior mechanical engineer.I designed several key features on connector housing including the plug latch and anchor pin attachment point. Each feature was run through rigorous mechanical simulations and physical testing to ensure they met the clients specifications. I then worked with the external plastics manufacturer to ensure that the design of the two part housing was moldable. Once the first articles of the moulded parts were available, a comprehensive measurement report was generated. Each dimension & tolerance were scrutinised, errors were spotted and fixed and the production mould was finalised. .

FOT Leadframe Design

Leadframe design, component placement & tooling.

I designed the leadframes for both the Rx and Tx FOTs for the connector. These leadframes were designed to be manufactured using photochemical etching. I also worked alongside the electronic engineer team to develop the internal layout and circuitry of the transceivers. Cutting and forming tools also had to be designed and ordered for the project. These tools were then implemented into the company's manufacturing plant in China.

Packaging Design

Component and FOT tubes, cardboard packaging & shipping prodcedures.

I designed the packing for both the individual components and the two varieties of the assembled connectors. Each needed their own plastic packaging tube, designed to protect the fragile leads during transit and handling. All cardboard packaging for parts also had to be designed along with the definition of the packaging & shipping procedures and the all labelling specifications.

Assembly Fixtures & Procedures.

Assembly fixture and manufacturing process reviews.

I designed all the tooling used in the assembly process for the connectors. The main part of this was the anchor pin assembly fixture, a two stage hand press that could exert enough force to push the anchors into place while ensure that no damage would come to the housing during the process. I was also in charge of reviewing the potting process used by our factory. I was able to identify some parts of the operation that need improvement and made some small changes to the housing design to help the epoxy flow more efficiently around the FOTs.