Patent attributes
An alignment assembly (20) is provided for holding alignment sleeves that each aligns the ends of a pair of optic fiber ferrules (22, 26) projecting from two mating connectors (12, 14), which assures that the mating connectors will always be mated in their proper relative orientations to avoid unacceptable insertion losses and the connection of the wrong pairs of fibers. The alignment assembly includes a housing (34) formed by two identical housing halves, and includes two identical locating pins (40, 42) mounted on the housing at opposite sides of the housing axis, each pin having having a pin end (91–94) projecting from each face of the housing. One pin has a large diameter end (94) projecting from a front housing face (100) into a large diameter locating hole (52) in a connector and the other pin has a small diameter end (93) projecting from the same front housing face into a small locating hole (51), to assure proper orientation of the two mating connectors.
