Fiber combiner.

摘要

A device for aligning superconductor filaments (20) to form a filament layer includes a backboard (12) and a number of motor-driven supply spools (16) which are rotatably mounted on the backboard (12), and each holds one end of an individual superconductor filament (20). The opposite ends of the filaments (20) are attached to a single take-up spool (26). A combiner board (14) is mounted on the backboard (12) between the supply spools (16) and the take-up spool (26). The combiner board (14) receives each of the superconductor filaments (20) as they are transferred from the respective supply spools (16) to the take-up spool (26) to guide the filaments (20) into a layer of aligned superconductor filaments. Additionally, each supply spool (16) has a tension controller (28) individually associated with the respective supply spool (16) which engages the superconductor filament (20) that is associated with the respective supply spool (16) and establishes a speed of rotation for the associated supply spool motor (27) which matches the speed of the take-up spool (26).