Fiber Optic Cable Alternative

[nhschneider]

The fiber optic cable that connects the control head to the transceiver on my Icom M-800 has broken. I know that Icom no longer supplies parts for this radio and a thorough search of the web hasn't produced any either (there appears to be others with the same problem).

One post on another forum mentioned replacing the f/o cable with regular wire. The author of the post left no details and my emails to him have been ignored. Unfortunately, Icom chose a proprietary connector so I'm unable to use any off-the-shelf f/o connectors.

Does anyone know of how to wire this up using copper wire? The radio is useless without a connecting cable.

Fair winds and calm seas.

[noelex 77]

Fiberoptic cable uses pulses of light to transfer information. To replace it with copper cable you will need a conversion box at each end to transform the pulses of light to electrical pulses then back again at the other end.
The fibre optic cable should not be very specific. It relies on total internal reflection so any optic cable ( basically just a flexible glass or plastic rod) that physically fits should work. Some high end HiFi systems use fiber optic cable between the CD player and decoder. The cables are also used in telecommunications, so you may be able to pick up something on eBay.
If you can cut the cable at the break and physically fit it into the receiver it may work. It's only transmitting pulses of light so if the receiver can see the pulses it should work.

[capn_billl]

Post a closeup picture of the ends of the broken fiberoptic cable. I have repaired devices that use fiber, by replacing with same type of cable, (fiberoptic comes in singlemode, and multimode fibers), also duplex or simplex. Once identified it is easy to find a length of same type, and guage of fiber cable. Then cut to size tape it in place to insure it works, then epoxy into fitting, the epoxy when dry replaces the broken fitting, if the fitting is a type of plastic that doesn't stick to the epoxy you can even carefully screw it out when hardened. Post the closeup I'll try to identify.

[btrayfors]

Here you go:

Cruising Sailor • View topic - icom ic m800 fibre octive cable

Scroll down to the long post by Russellsher, 4/21/2010

Good luck,

Bill
WA6CCA

[muised]

If the cable is broken in the middle it can probably be spliced back together.