TFOCA 101

TFOCA is an acronym for Tactical Fiber Optic Cable Assembly.

The nomenclature identifies the cable assembly as being suitable for military use in harsh environments. The acronym is also often used to refer to the connectors sometimes in conjunction with suffixes to refer to their particular style.
  • TFOCA cable assemblies consist of plugs terminated onto cable.
  • Panel mount receptacles come in two designs, jam nut and flange mount.
  • TFCOA connectors are generally terminated onto tactical cable.
  • Tactical cable may be rated to mil specifications or may be a civilian version. Either is readily available to suit your needs.

TFOCA connectors are usually hermaphroditic in nature

Meaning that the plugs carry no inherent gender and may be mated together. The connectors are built to military specifications covering crushability, resistance to contaminants that may enter a connector, and the pull strength of their connection to the cable. They have a history of field success and pages upon pages of QPL testing to back up their reputation.

TFOCA is most often found in military applications

That being said, the civilian world has found the technology useful in several different harsh environment applications. Mining and oil/gas exploration, broadcast, and manufacturing have all found TFOCA useful at some point and that list will grow in the future.
Mining and Oil and Gas Exploration
TFOCA is used in “down hole” applications to connect to sensitive electronic equipment.
Broadcast
TFOCA is utilized in live event broadcasting in a camera to the truck solution.
Manufacturing
TFOCA is used in large scale outdoor manufacturing in a machine to the office solution.

Is TFOCA right for your application?

TFOCA solutions are perfect for:
  • A rugged connectivity solution is necessary to transmit data
  • Deploy / retrieve situations where cables will be moved frequently
  • A quick deployment solution is necessary.
  • Areas that will be exposed to vehicular/foot traffic
  • Harsh environments

Legacy TFOCA Connectors

Original TFOCA connectors have biconic termini to carry the fiber optic signal from plug to plug and featured a two fiber design. The termini are made of a glass filled plastic with a center capillary for the 125um optical fiber. The first generation of TFOCA was mainly deployed with Multimode optical fiber with a core diameter of 50 microns and a cladding size of 125microns (50/125).

TFOCA II Connectors

Second generation TFOCA connectors feature a PC (physical contact) style ceramic – zirconia termini and may include up to 12 fibers. These newer designs are usable with multimode fibers of either 50/125 or 62.5/125 configurations, singlemode fibers (9/125) or a hybrid combination of 2 singlemode and 2 multimode fibers.