Coax applications vary widely from large CATV cables, to ultra-small medical camera cables. Anywhere a cable needs to be matched with a transmission system, New England Wire can offer a solution to meet the need. Whether it is a typical 50 ohm coax or some other custom designed system, we design and test a cable to perfectly match the impedance and loss needs of any system. Test capabilities include frequency analysis up to 40 Ghz, attenuation measurements, impedance measurements, low noise testing and a range of other electrical tests.
Custom designs can accommodate any of our materials. For the center conductor we offer copper or copper alloy, copper clad steel, or steel center conductors, solid, stranded, bunched or rope-lay based on the AWG size. Dielectric materials are typically a polyolefin or fluoropolymer either foamed or solid. Polyolefin materials are a good choice for low cost, low temperature applications, while fluoropolymer materials offer a higher temperature rating and slightly better performance at increased cost. Foamed dielectric materials in either polyolefin or fluoropolymer offer superior electrical performance and decreased dielectric thickness over solid equivalents. Coaxial shielding can be comprised of either wire or foil tape. Wire shields can be either spiral or braid and made from copper or copper alloy for electrical conductivity or steel for an armored design. Combinations of these shields can be used in any order to achieve specific design parameters: flexibility, percent shield coverage, durability, ease of terminating, etc. Coax jackets materials are chosen to suite the desired application: PVC, TPU, TPE, polyolefin, fluoropolymer, or silicone.
Coaxes can be designed for impedance or capacitance. Typical values are 50 ohms, 75 ohms or 30 pf/ft. They can range in size from 32-24 AWG for miniature coaxes and larger up to 1/0 for high power applications. Some of the larger high power coaxes have a center conductor made from Litz wire strand to reduce AC losses, used for interconnecting high frequency, high powered devices.
Some coaxes use our NEWtral® coating to reduce triboelectic noise and are especially suited for applications where small signal measurements are critical.
We recognize the importance of transmission line performance for maximizing signal quality in high-frequency systems. Instead of matching the system to the cable, we design and manufacture custom coaxial cables to match the characteristic impedance, capacitance and attenuation requirements of the specific application. We also offer coaxial cables for more common applications that can be added to composite cable configurations.
Our broad range of capabilities enables us to manufacture precision coaxial cables from ultra micro-miniature 50 AWG to 8 AWG and larger in both custom and standard shielded, round or flat-wire braided, and spiral or foil-wrapped constructions. Additionally we offer a large selection of dielectric materials including polyolefin, fluoropolymers, polyethylene, polypropylene, ETFE, FEP,PFA and PTFE (low density and solid) as well as many custom dielectrics such as our proprietary NEWcel® material.