Protocable started because the cables and power in our own kit were the weak link. We make the ones we wished we'd had.
A career in Special Forces: mesh networks on unreliable power in the Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan, unsupported in extreme weather on the Mongolian steppe, hand-crank generators, fragile panels, heavy inverters, bad step converters, and the cable that failed first every time. Then time inside the defense industry, where the lesson turned out to be universal: passionate companies full of experts are experts in their field, and the cabling between their product and the kit is almost always an afterthought.
In December 2022 Protocable opened in Auburn, Washington to build the fixes. In 2023 the Austere Solar Solution shipped. The PRC-163 kit followed a Marine battalion's photo of a gap. In 2027 in-house solar panel production begins.
Protocable is run by its founder: a career in Special Forces, time inside the defense industry, then the shop. The Special Forces years were radios, sensors and the cables between them, from team rooms to unattended sensor sites on the border, and the pain that comes when the cable is the part nobody designed. The industry years showed the problem is universal: passionate companies full of experts are experts in their field, and cabling is almost always an afterthought. The founder still reads every gap request. The shop exists because the fix was never in the catalog.
The best cable is the one that keeps the EUD cable and the phone case the unit already has. Every design starts with what's in the kit, not what's in the catalog.
A prototype you can run beats a slide you can approve. One per gap, hand-built here, and Protocable keeps the design so the production part number is ours to make.
Design, prototype and production in the same shop, with the same US-made cable stock. Scaling from one to a unit-wide buy doesn't wait on a distributor.
Design bench, cut and strip, termination, overmold, test and shipping under one roof, thirty minutes from JBLM. Visits welcome by appointment; bring the kit.
Contact & directions →Tell us what it plugs into and what you're using today. No drawings required.
