Nexus and Harbec turn to TLC for high-performance engineering materials

Serving the needs of The Mobile Millennium, Nexus iSR, LLC engineers and manufactures secure mobile network and communication products. Its flagship solution suite revolves around the Nexus Hawk™ mobile IP router. It can both “stretch” a company computer and telephone network into vehicles and make remote devices such as airborne or terrestrial surveillance cameras and other equipment securely accessible to authorized staff from their home offices.

While early adopters to the Anytime, Anywhere working-world have relied on simple cellular data cards for their laptops, business, industry, and public safety users demand security, encryption, and higher service levels.

Clearly superior to a cellular data card alone, the Nexus Hawk mobile router can be used to amplify even the weakest cellular data signals in remote areas, providing usable network connections even when cell phones have little or no service. Additionally, the Nexus Hawk is not dedicated to only one data circuit from a single carrier. It can automatically select a best circuit from up to four choices.

Encryption means that the telephone, data, or video that is sent across the Nexus Hawk mobile router is useless to anyone except the intended recipient.

Surprisingly, “security” also refers to “physical security.” Laptop data cards can be borrowed for personal use during non-business hours, stolen, or easily damaged during normal operation because they naturally extend outward from the laptop’s case. The Nexus Hawk provides physical ruggedness by mechanically securing standard data cards to its frame, assuring the cards remain in place and out of harm’s way.

“Our customers demanded a rugged but light-weight case,” said Evhen Tupis, Director of Nexus iSR’s Engineering Team. He added, “Because it is often used in close proximity to mobile radio equipment, it was essential that no harmful interference occurred. The challenge was in attaining FCC Class B and Industry Canada certifications in a light-weight but rugged case.”

This "light-weight" requirement discouraged Nexus iSR from more traditional metal enclosures and led them instead to Harbec Plastics. Nexus iSR had tried the plastic approach once already with limited success, and they were somewhat skeptical as to if a plastic case could be made rigid enough. However, Harbec's Product Development Team soon demonstrated that with a new design approach the unit could be made both sufficiently strong and light as well as scalable to multiple card configurations with one set of tooling. This combination of performance and cost-effectiveness pushed the plastic option past the metal competitors with just one limitation: shielding. The traditional methods for shielding a plastic housing are to metalize or paint the inside with a conductive layer. This approach can prove to be both cost-prohibitive and environmentally harmful.

Harbec Plastics went to Techmer Lehvoss Compounds (TLC) for the solution. With the design considerations from Nexus iSR, TLC came up with a solution that best fit the application. TLC’s Electrafil® product provides an internal web of stainless steel fibers that is capable of attenuating EM waves bi-directionally. “The Nexus Hawk becomes both ‘RF quiet’ to other devices and becomes more resistant to EM interference from other devices, too,” said Tupis. Combining TLC’s Electrafil material with Harbec’s housing design allowed Nexus iSR to regain the project’s cost benefits without sacrificing functionality.

TLC is a major producer of high-performance engineering compounds for the plastics industry. The company specializes in custom-engineered thermoplastic compounds including Luvotech™, Luvocom®, Plaslube®, and Electrafil® products where innovative design, superior service, and the highest quality are essential.

NEXUS iSR
207 Tremont Street.
Rochester, New York 14608
Evhan Tupis (Vice President)
(585) 436-0400

Harbec Plastics, Inc.
369 Route 104
Ontario, NY 14519
Jack Schultz (General Manager)
585-265-0010

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

TOM DRYE, DIRECTOR, SALES & MARKETING TECHMER LEHVOSS COMPOUNDS, LLC #1 Quality Circle Clinton, TN 37716 (865) 425-2121 (865) 457-9125 FAX tdrye@techmerpm.com www.tlcompounds.com

Herbert Margrill     Margrill and Associates     154 Chambers Street     New York, NY 10007     (212) 608-6270     (212) 608-7756 Fax     margrill@aol.com