Visual fault locator is now one of the most commonly used fiber optic testing devices to trace optical fibers, check fiber continuity and find faults such as breaks, bad splices and tight, sharp bends in fiber optic cable.
Visual Fault Locator, it could be regarded to be part of OTDR and the fiber fault locator is cheap. Fiber visual fault locator is a kind of device which is able to locate the breakpoint, bending or cracking of the fiber glass. It can also locate the fault of OTDR dead zone and make fiber identification from one end to the other end. Designed with a FC,SC,ST universal adapter, this fiber testing red light is used without any other type of additional adapters, it can locates fault up to 10km in fiber cable, with compact in size, light in weight, red laser output.
Visual Fiber Optic Fault Locator is used to check, locate and patch faults on singlemode and multimode optical fibers as well as other fiber optic components. The rugged and compact design of the visual fault locator is very suitable for daily use in all fiber optic applications such as in the field, in industrial environment as well as in the laboratory.
Many of the problems encountered in troubleshooting fiber optic networks are related to making proper connections. Since the light used in fiber optic systems is infrared (IR) light, which is beyond the range of the human eye, one cannot see it. In order to solve these problems, you need a visual fault locator. Visual fault locator(VFL) is a kind of device which is able to locate the breakpoint, bending or cracking of the fiber glass. It can also locate the fault of OTDR dead–zone and make fiber identification from one end to the other end.
Importance of Visual Fault Locator
The complex network integrated by optical fiber, connector and jumper makes you difficult to find the fault location. So the visual fault locator is an essential tool that quickly and easily locates problem areas in fiber cables. By pinpointing the exact location of fiber damage, technicians can diagnose, troubleshoot and fix the problem timely and efficiently. The VFL is also used for conducting continuous tests and performing fiber identification. With visual fault locator, you can easily isolate high losses and faults in optical fiber cables.
Working Principle
A powerful visible light from a red diode laser is injected into the fiber, so not only fibers can be traced, but also high loss points can be made visible. Most applications center on short cables to connect to the fiber optic trunk cables, such as those used in premises cabling or telco central offices. The VFL works best on short cables, up to a few kilometers, thus, it covers the range where optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDRs) are not useful because of the dead zone of the OTDR.
Fiber visual fault locators include the pen type, the handheld type and portable visual fiber fault locator:
Pen type:
Handheld type:
Portable visual fiber fault locator:
Comment
This basic tool is one that all installers, and maintenance personnel should have in their tool kit. It is the most economical test tool for quickly verifying continuity, checking the validity of patch cables before or after installation, test and find breaks in LANs, verifying short lengths of installed fiber, or looking for cracked fiber in splice cases, bad connectors, tight crimps in fiber cable, backbone breaks or anywhere light continuity needs checking.
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