Additional Optical Port Options for OSD products

OSD values feedback from all customers and prides itself on the ability to customise products to meet individual project needs.  As a result, OSD has released two additional optical port options for the OSD138 and OSD2041.

After 20 years of outstanding service, the OSD138 Serial Data to Fiber converter is now available with Duplex LC optical connectors in addition to the ST and SC versions.

The popular OSD2041 Fast Ethernet Media Converter can now be configured with an SFP port in place of fixed optical connectors.  This allows greater flexibility for deployment in environments where the number of available optical fibers and link distances may be varied.

OSD2114-1Nx2 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch

To be released in September, the OSD2114-1Nx2 is an unmanaged 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch available in a wall mount casing or as a card for use in an OSD rack mount chassis. There are 4 x 10/100/1000Base-T RJ45 ports and one SFP port that can be configured for 100BaseX or 1000BaseX use

National Roads & Traffic Expo

Optical Systems Design is excited to participate in the National Roads & Traffic Expo at the Melbourne Convention Centre on 30 & 31 October 2024.

Come and visit booth H60 to see our latest range of Australian designed and manufactured Layer 2 Managed Industrial Ethernet Switches. Our team will also be showcasing a variety of our networking and optical fiber communication products. We look forward to seeing you there!

An update from Optical Systems Design

OSD would like to thank all it’s customers for their ongoing support over a difficult few years. OSD product stock levels have been lower than expected and required throughout 2023. However, OSD now has the majority of it’s Ethernet product range available from stock or within 2 weeks of ordering. Further increases to available stock will continue throughout early 2024 as OSD is committed to supporting both it’s Australian and overseas customers.

For further information or to check if the product you need is available contact OSD by email at sales@osd.com.au or speak with OSD on +61 2 99138540.

Vale John Wise

It is with great sadness to announce that the founder of OSD, John Wise, passed away in August 2023 aged 76. John was a pioneer in the field of fiber optic communications and worked around the world before founding Optical Systems Design in Sydney. Initially a training and consulting company, John decided to use his extensive electronics knowledge to commence design and manufacture of systems for the transmission of data and video over optical fiber. OSD grew rapidly and was a key supplier of equipment for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

John designed the majority of products himself and led the engineering team to further grow OSD’s product range. As technology changed and IP became prevalent, John continued to expand his knowledge and design OSD products right up to his retirement in 2021. It is a testament to his depth of knowledge and commitment to OSD and it’s customers that products John designed over 20 years ago sit side by side with his designs from 2 years ago in our current product range.

John is sorely missed by both current and former employees of OSD who he had a huge influence on. We also send our thoughts and sympathy to John’s wife, Adrienne, and their son and daughter.

IFSEC India 2023

OSD recently exhibited at IFSEC India at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi with our Indian distributor G Comtech Sysytem. It was great to participate in a very busy exhibition and thank you to everyone who visited the stand.

OSD will be on the road again in 2024 and we look forward to reconnecting with all our customers.

Closure dates for Christmas & New Year

OSD will close for the Christmas and New Year period from Friday 22 December 2023 and reopen on Monday 8 January 2024

Best wishes to all our customers over the festive season and for 2024

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for OSD2184P

Last month we highlighted OSD’s commitment to providing a custom solution to a customer who needed to extend their LAN over a optical fiber connection over 150km long.  Recently OSD has added additional functionality to the OSD2184P family based on a customer request.

This customer uses the OSD2184P to connect and power a range of IP cameras at various locations and transmit the data over their optical fiber network back to a central control centre.  However, the network management team required all connected devices in their network to support Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).  DHCP is a client/server protocol that automatically provides an Internet Protocol (IP) host with its IP address and other related configuration information such as the subnet mask and default gateway.  This greatly reduces network administration time and costs associated with manual configuration and reduces the risk of a manual configuration error or IP address conflict.

OSD’s in house software team got to work and quickly added DHCP to the OSD2184P at no additional cost to the customer.  This additional feature is now available for all customers and is activated through the inbuilt Web-GUI.  For more information or to receive the software update call or email OSD.

PoH now available on OSD2J12 PoE Injectors

Last month OSD released the OSD2J12 range of 30W, 60W and 95W gigabit PoE Injectors compliant to the IEEE802.3af/at/bt standard.  This range has now been extended with the release of a 60W and 95W model for Powered Devices using the PoH (Power over HDBase-T) standard.

Each OSD2J12 provides a constant output voltage of 55VDC when powered by a wide input voltage range from 12 to 56VDC allowing these Injectors to be used almost anywhere including where solar and battery power is used.

Contact OSD Sales for more information or pricing on the OSD2J12 range of PoE Injectors.

Electronic Components Shortages

As widely reported over the last few months, there is a worldwide shortage of semiconductors due to a variety of reasons including the Coronavirus pandemic, automotive industry slow down followed by a sharp rise in demand and a severe winter storm in Texas.  Increased demand for home technology products such as laptops, phones and new gaming consoles has further compounded the supply problem.  Leading manufacturers such as Microchip, Silicon Labs and Marvell have greatly increased their lead times upwards of 30 weeks with some product lines on allocation or on lead times of 52+ weeks.  Furthermore there have been some significant price increases on certain product lines

OSD is working closely with it’s valued suppliers to ensure a continued supply whilst keeping costs and stock levels under control.  We will do all we can to maintain a short lead time but there may be some delays as we head deeper into 2021.  Any advance forecast or early confirmation of orders for future projects would greatly assist in the management of the OSD supply chain.

How far do you want to go?

OSD has a wide and expanding range of Ethernet media converters and switches operating from 10Mbps to 10Gbps. As part of this range we also offer Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) optical modules that support link distances anything from a few metres to over more than 140km with reasonable quality singlemode fibers and allowing for a sensible link margin.

Usually, this selection of SFPs is more than adequate. But what do we do if a customer needs to operate over more than 200km? Or their fibers are old and have higher losses than is standard nowadays? Or both?

Such a situation arose recently with an organisation needing to connect several operation centers that are over 150km apart. After much discussion with the customer we came up with the solution of modifying the OSD2512, one of our standard 14-port rack mounting Gigabit Ethernet switches, to include an optical receiver employing an Avalanche Photodiode (APD) that increases receiver sensitivity by at least 10dB and an optical amplifier that increases the transmit power from the usual maximum of +3 to +6dBm to +20dBm.

Net result: a link loss budget of 55dB at an operating wavelength of 1550nm which with modern fibers exhibiting a loss of 0.18dB/km could conceivably result in a link distance of more than 300km. However, using a more realistic attenuation of 0.25dB/km and allowing for a 5dB link margin results in a 200km range thus nicely meeting the customer’s requirements.

The new product is called the OSD2512EA and is used in scenarios like the following:

Do you also have a problem with extreme link distances and/or not enough fibers? If so, give OSD a call and, if we don’t have an existing product that does the job, we will do our best to provide you with a practical and maintainable solution.

OSD2J12 PoE Injectors

OSD has recently released a range of gigabit PoE Injectors compliant to the IEEE802.3af/at/bt standard. There are currently 3 versions available supporting 30W, 60W and 95W at a constant output voltage of 55VDC. For increased versatility the input voltage can range from 12 to 56VDC allowing these Injectors to be used almost anywhere including where solar and battery power is used.

Scheduled for release in late April, our newest PoE Injector will provide up to 95W to Powered Devices using the PoH standard such as required by the Bosch Mic Starlight range.

Contact OSD Sales for more information or pricing on the OSD2J12 range of PoE Injectors

It’s not all about IP……

The OSD9003 & OSD9004 provide RF transmission from 10 to 2500MHz over optical fiber which enables its use in a variety of RF over fiber applications such as paging systems and UHF mobile radio networks as well as its application to satellite links and cellular RF trunking.

OSD8230

To be released in April 2021, the OSD8230 sends uncompressed real time full 4k definition video via a 12G VSFP with a transmission distance of up to 50 km of single mode optical fiber.  Contact the OSD Sales team for further information.

OSD1240