[I sent this once before, but the posting went to listserv, rather than
piclist.  My apologies if this goes out twice.  I've trimmed the quoted
text for try 2.]

I'm using IF-D91 photodiodes and IF-E91B LEDs made by "Industrial Fiber
Optics".  They mate with standard 1000 micrometer plastic fiber cable.
The LED's and photodiodes have built in lens and connector housings.  You
cut the fiber with a hot knife and stick it into the LED and tighten the
nut, no other hardware required, no polishing required.

These parts work fine at slow speed like 9600 baud, with just current
limiting and pull-up resistors.  That's all I need.  They'll go somewhat
faster, but not anywhere near 50Mhz.

I'm using duplex fiber, which is 2 fibers stuck together like zip cord.
I've run some out to my hottub (http://www.hamjudo.com/cgi-bin/hottub).
This will let me do fancier stuff without the risk of electrocution.
(I'll get around to updating the write up eventually.)

I got the fiber, photodiodes and LEDs from Circuit Specialists Inc.
(http://www.cir.com). Digikey also sells the stuff except for the duplex
fiber (http://www.digikey.com).  In quantity 10, Circuit Specialists
charged me $2.40/meter for the duplex fiber, $3.02 for each photodiode and
$2.37 each for the LEDs.  The hot knife was $19.95 (it is a soldering iron
handle which holds Xacto blades).

I'd like to send power down the fiber too.  Anyone know where to get solar
cells designed to work with fiber?  It seems easy to get a lot of light
energy into the fiber, but much more complex to get that back out at the 3
or so volts that a LC PIC needs.

--
paulh@hamjudo.com  http://www.hamjudo.com
The April 97 WebSight magazine describes me as "(presumably) normal".