WireTrain met with business development manager, Sam Furminger of FC Lane, to better understand the offerings of FC Lane to the motorsport market.
For many in the motorsport industry, FC Lane are known as the UK distributor for Souriou connectors and Hellerman Tyton products. In 2019 Souriou was acquired by the US company Eaton, and it is now a brand within the larger Eaton group; with FC Lane being a distributor of the Souriou brand and many of Eaton’s other products.
FC Lane is part of the UK-owned Lodge group, with FC Lane being the sales and distribution arm, whilst its sister company, Weild Electronics, is a manufacturer of high-end connectors and supporting products. This combination allows them to offer support that goes beyond your typical distributor, with the Souriou range for example, they actually perform on-site assembly of the connectors and can provide various customisations, a good example is the half flange range of bulkhead mount connectors resulting in reduced weight and allowing it to fit in tighter spaces.
FC Lanes has a long held policy of holding good stock levels, which was strongly advocated by Fred Lane who started the company. This is great for the motorsport market where we often need low volumes in very short lead times.
The tiny shell size 01 connectors, with 3 and 5 pin variants, are being seen on ever more projects, with the internal gasket and gentle bayonet ramp angle, leading to a positive but low force connection action.
I am always keen to find those great products that just don’t get enough exposure. Two great examples from FC Lane are their range of nut plates and dust caps (both manufactured by Wield), which are very keenly priced. Be it the single-sided nut plate for single flange connectors or the tiny dust caps for 01 shell size connectors, in free plug and inline variants.
FC lane holds an extensive range of Hellerman Tyton moulded boots, with the most common range used in motorsport being the 100 series in a -G spec material, this being their equivalent of the Raychem -25 elastomer material. They also have some very handy online tools for finding the equivalent boot part for a given Raychem part number.
TE / Raychem to HellermannTyton Moulded Shapes / Heat Shrink Boots | FC Lane Electronics
Most of us use a two-part harness epoxy like S1125 or RT125, with the HT offering being VT9500, but for field repairs, pre-glued boots can be very handy and these boot types have the -W24 code.
My thanks go to Sam Furminger at FC Lane for taking the time to walk me through the products and deep diving on motorsport specific ranges.