Electrical feedthrough
A pair of electrical feedthroughs carries signals between two tabs, as a bulkhead connector carries them through a wall. A photodiode on the optical bench can feed a lock-in on an electronics tab, and a generator there can drive a modulator back on the bench.
Ports
Two: in and out.
The model
Two electrical feedthroughs that share a pair name, on different tabs, are one connector. What is wired into one’s in comes out of its partner’s out, unchanged: its DC level, its tones and its noise, with no loss, delay or bandwidth of its own. It works both ways at once, so one pair can carry a signal out to another tab and a second signal back.
On the bench, each feedthrough’s panel says where it leads, with a button to go to its partner. A feedthrough without a partner offers to make one, on any other tab or a new one. An unwired in is fine: its partner’s out then carries nothing.
Settings
It has one setting, its pair name, shared by exactly two electrical feedthroughs.
Assumptions
- The connection is ideal: no loss, delay, bandwidth limit or pick-up.
- Exactly two feedthroughs share a name. One with no partner carries nothing, and says so.
- A loop through a pair (an output fed back to its own input across the tabs) is not solved, as no loop in the electronics is.
Related
- Fibre feedthrough, which does the same for fibre.
- Link plane, which does the same for free space.
- Concepts: tabs and link planes.