Triaxial cable, often referred to as triax for short, is a type of electrical cable similar to coaxial cable, but with the addition of an extra layer of insulation and a second conducting sheath. Triax provides greater bandwidth and rejection of interference than coax, but is more expensive. [1] [2]
The most common use of triaxial cable is in television industry as a connecting cable between a camera and its camera control unit (CCU). The outer sheath is commonly used as a protective earth conductor. The core provides both power and signal connections, with the return for the power being provided through the inner screen. Through frequency-division multiplexing, the camera can send audio and video signals along the triax while the CCU can send camera control information, such as exposure settings, intercom, return audio and video (usually that of the program), and tally (a signal alerting the operator that their camera is on the air). [1]
Venues that host television productions fairly often, such as sports arenas, will usually have triaxial cables run from the location of the TV truck to common camera locations throughout the building. This is convenient for visiting television crews, who can simply plug into existing cable runs instead of having to run their own cables and remove them after the broadcast.
With the increasing bandwidth requirements of developments such as 4K/UHDTV, HFR (high frame rate) and HDR (high dynamic range) the use of triax is declining in the TV industry. Most of the recently developed broadcast cameras from the leading manufacturers have hybrid single-mode fibre and copper power cores which supersede the older triax connectivity. The advantages of the hybrid copper/fibre over triax cable are noise immunity due to the optical isolation and extremely high bandwidth.
Another application for triaxial cables is for probes taking precision low-current measurements where the leakage current through the insulator between the core and shield would normally alter the measurements. The core (known as the force) and the inner shield (known as the guard) are kept at approximately the same electrical potential by a voltage buffer/follower, thus the leakage current between them is zero for all practical purposes, despite the imperfections of the insulation. Instead, the leakage current occurs between the inner and outer shields, which does not matter since that current will be supplied by the buffer circuit rather than the device under test and will not affect measurements. This technique can provide almost perfect elimination of leakage current but becomes less effective at very high frequencies as the buffer cannot follow the measured voltage accurately.
An electrical cable is an assembly of one or more wires running side by side or bundled, which is used as an electrical conductor, i.e., to carry electric current. One or more electrical cables and their corresponding connectors may be formed into a cable assembly, which is not necessarily suitable for connecting two devices but can be a partial product. Cable assemblies can also take the form of a cable tree or cable harness, used to connect many terminals together.
Coaxial cable, or coax, is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting shield, with the two separated by a dielectric ; many coaxial cables also have a protective outer sheath or jacket. The term coaxial refers to the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing a geometric axis.
The BNC connector is a miniature quick connect/disconnect radio frequency connector used for coaxial cable. It is designed to maintain the same characteristic impedance of the cable, with 50 ohm and 75 ohm types being made. It is usually applied for video and radio frequency connections up to about 2 GHz and up to 500 volts. The connector has a twist to lock design with two lugs in the female portion of the connector engaging a slot in the shell of the male portion. The type was introduced on military radio equipment in the 1940s and has since become widely applied in radio systems, and is a common type of video connector. Similar radio-frequency connectors differ in dimensions and attachment features, and may allow for higher voltages, higher frequencies, or three-wire connections.
Genlock is a common technique where the video output of one source is used to synchronize other picture sources together. The aim in video applications is to ensure the coincidence of signals in time at a combining or switching point. When video instruments are synchronized in this way, they are said to be generator-locked, or genlocked.
In electrical engineering, partial discharge (PD) is a localized dielectric breakdown (DB) of a small portion of a solid or fluid electrical insulation (EI) system under high voltage (HV) stress. While a corona discharge (CD) is usually revealed by a relatively steady glow or brush discharge (BD) in air, partial discharges within solid insulation system are not visible.
In an electrical system, a ground loop or earth loop occurs when two points of a circuit are intended to have the same ground reference potential but instead have a different potential between them. This is typically caused when enough current is flowing in the connection between the two ground points to produce a voltage drop and cause two points to be at different potentials. Current may be produced in a circular ground connection by electromagnetic induction.
A power cable is an electrical cable, an assembly of one or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power. Power cables may be installed as permanent wiring within buildings, buried in the ground, run overhead, or exposed. Power cables that are bundled inside thermoplastic sheathing and that are intended to be run inside a building are known as NM-B.
A shielded cable or screened cable is an electrical cable that has a common conductive layer around its conductors for electromagnetic shielding. This shield is usually covered by an outermost layer of the cable. Common types of cable shielding can most broadly be categorized as foil type, contraspiralling wire strands or both. A longitudinal wire may be necessary with dielectric spiral foils to short out each turn.
This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to electrical and electronics engineering. For a thematic list, please see List of electrical engineering topics. For a broad overview of engineering, see List of engineering topics. For biographies, see List of engineers.
In telecommunications and electrical engineering in general, an unbalanced line is a pair of conductors intended to carry electrical signals, which have unequal impedances along their lengths and to ground and other circuits. Examples of unbalanced lines are coaxial cable or the historic earth return system invented for the telegraph, but rarely used today. Unbalanced lines are to be contrasted with balanced lines, such as twin-lead or twisted pair which use two identical conductors to maintain impedance balance throughout the line. Balanced and unbalanced lines can be interfaced using a device called a balun.
Mineral-insulated copper-clad cable is a variety of electrical cable made from copper conductors inside a copper sheath, insulated by inorganic magnesium oxide powder. The name is often abbreviated to MICC or MI cable, and colloquially known as pyro. A similar product sheathed with metals other than copper is called mineral-insulated metal-sheathed (MIMS) cable.
A test probe is a physical device used to connect electronic test equipment to a device under test (DUT). Test probes range from very simple, robust devices to complex probes that are sophisticated, expensive, and fragile. Specific types include test prods, oscilloscope probes and current probes. A test probe is often supplied as a test lead, which includes the probe, cable and terminating connector.
Twinaxial cabling, or twinax, is a type of cable similar to coaxial cable, but with two inner conductors in a twisted pair instead of one. Due to cost efficiency it is becoming common in modern (2013) very-short-range high-speed differential signaling applications.
A variety of types of electrical transformer are made for different purposes. Despite their design differences, the various types employ the same basic principle as discovered in 1831 by Michael Faraday, and share several key functional parts.
ClearCurve is Corning's brand name for a new optical fiber that can be bent around short-radius curves without losing its signal. It is constructed with a conventional fiber on the inside, surrounded by a cladding containing a new nanostructured reflector. ClearCurve is hundreds of times more flexible than conventional optical cable, transmitting high-quality signals even when wrapped around small objects like a pen, where a conventional cable would lose the signal completely.
A high-voltage cable is a cable used for electric power transmission at high voltage. A cable includes a conductor and insulation. Cables are considered to be fully insulated. This means that they have a fully rated insulation system that will consist of insulation, semi-con layers, and a metallic shield. This is in contrast to an overhead line, which may include insulation but not fully rated for operating voltage. High-voltage cables of differing types have a variety of applications in instruments, ignition systems, and alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) power transmission. In all applications, the insulation of the cable must not deteriorate due to the high-voltage stress, ozone produced by electric discharges in air, or tracking. The cable system must prevent contact of the high-voltage conductor with other objects or persons, and must contain and control leakage current. Cable joints and terminals must be designed to control the high-voltage stress to prevent the breakdown of the insulation.
Fibre satellite distribution is a technology that enables satellite TV signals from an antenna to be distributed using an optical fibre cable infrastructure and then converted to electrical signals for use with conventional set-top box receivers.
Physical media refers to the physical materials that are used to store or transmit information in data communications. These physical media are generally physical objects made of materials such as copper or glass. They can be touched and felt, and have physical properties such as weight and color. For a number of years, copper and glass were the only media used in computer networking.
A driven shield is a method of electrical shielding used to protect low-current circuits against leakage current. A driven shield is often referred to as a driven guard, especially when applied to PCB traces.
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