Category: Fiber Transceivers

Optical transceivers, Active Optic Cables, data center switches, and cable management in data centers.

SC Fiber Optic Cable Connector Overview

The SC (Subscriber Connector) style has numerous types of standards recognizing simplex and duplex connectors and adapters. Standards recognizing the SC are FDDI, Fibre Channel, broadband ISDN, ATM and Gigabit Ethernet.
As you can tell the SC fiber optic connector has a square style front face and is easily confused with it’s smaller relative the LC connector. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of the SC connector.
Available as a simplex connector that can be converted to a duplex connector using a clip.
Recommended by a large number of standards.
Offers pull-proof feature.
Great packing density, design reduces the chance of the fiber face damage during connection.
Keyed, low loss, pull and wiggle proof.
Terminated using quick cure epoxy, cleave and crimp and hot melt.
Typically what you’ll find at a subscribers location is the bulk horizontal or backbone cable side ends it’s run in the facilities telecommunications closet. Your SC connectors will then be managed in a fiber optic enclosure. Let’s check out one of my favorites by Corning.
Then the information technology manager, will manage his end using fiber optic patch jumpers that plug into an adapter panel that sits in the fiber optic enclosure.
The SC interface is very commonly used when using media converters to convert copper to fiber, then fiber to copper. The big disadvantage of the SC interface is it does not feature an SFF (Small Form Factor) design.
The SFF design commonly uses the LC interface, so if you have an application where the backbone cable needs to be plugged directly into a switch the LC connector will be required. It’s still recommended that you use a fiber enclosure, you could just get a fiber jumper with SC on one end and the LC on the other.

Pulling Fiber Optic Cable – Tips and How To Advice

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

Pulling fiber optic cable takes a lot of preparation. Without the right tools and knowledge, you can have a big mess on your hands.We’ll go over some of the common steps to get you ready to make the pull.
1) Measure twice cut once:
First and foremost, get the correct measurement. An easy way to do this would be to fish some pull string through your conduit. Make sure to follow the exact path the fiber will take, end to end. Once your string is all the way through, attach a heavier rope to the end, pull it all the way back and measure your string. Leave the rope in place, you will be using this to pull your fiber through later. (Tip: Always add at least 15ft to the final number. It may cost a little more, but can save you a lot of time and headache if you come up a few feet short. It is also a lot easier to work with the cable if you have some slack, vs a cable that barely reaches).
2) Plan your Run:
Buildings- Although it is not necessary to run the fiber through innerduct, many people prefer this to keep it clean and professional looking. If you prefer not to use innerduct, try to keep your pulls as straight as possible. Pulling diagonal is OK, but it will make for a neater appearance if your fiber is running parallel. Get it done right the first time. If someone is unhappy with the appearance, it will take much longer to correct, or re-pull the fiber. (Tip: Never pull around corners, even if you have a helper. You should always pull out the excess fiber to the corner, laying it down in a figure 8 pattern as your doing it. Then flip the whole bundle over and continue to pull on the other side).
Conduits- It is important to plan ahead, especially if your planning on pulling the fiber through underground conduit. Just like measuring the fiber, it’s very important to get this done right the first time. A general rule of thumb is to use a 1.5″ to 2″ conduit for the fiber pull. If your running long distances, or using a thick armored fiber, you may want to increase the size to 4″. It may also be a good idea to plan ahead and install a second conduit if you plan on future expansion. (Tip: Minimize the number of bends in your run. The fewer bends there are, the easier the pull will go. If you can’t get around it, install junction boxes. Also make sure to protect the fiber by putting plastic bushings on the end of the conduit).
3) Which Jacket is Right?
Outdoor – Outdoor fiber is used for all outdoor applications (except direct burial). It is flooded with a water resistant gel, which means it can be run in buried conduit. But that also means there is a 50ft limit to being run indoors due to Fire and Safety codes. For direct burial applications, we suggest you use an armored fiber. If you need to suspend the fiber for arial applications, you can buy the fiber with a messenger attached, or buy it separately and and attach it yourself.
Indoor – For indoor applications, you need to use a Plenum rated fiber. Plenum fiber complies with all Fire and Safety codes.
Indoor/Outdoor – For applications you need to run the fiber indoors and outdoors, you should use an indoor/outdoor rated fiber. This fiber can be run in underground conduit, and doesn’t have the 50ft limitation for indoor use. A great all around fiber.
4) Pulling the Fiber:
Communication is Key
Pulling fiber almost always requires at least 2 people, so communication is very important. Most fiber runs are a few hundred feet or more, so yelling back and forth isn’t an option. What to do? Walkie Talkies can be a great way to keep in touch with the guy at the other end of the cable. Get some with wrist straps or a belt clip so you don’t have to constantly pick it up off the ground.
Lube it Up
Make sure you properly lube the fiber during the entire run. You will want to start off with a generous coat on the pulling eye and mesh. It would be a good idea to stop from time to time and apply more lube to the fiber as you pull. Always use lubricant that is designed for cable pulling, not just anything off the shelf. If you use the wrong type of lube, it may damage the jacket of your fiber, or other cables around it. It can also clog up the conduit once it dries. Cable pulling lube is designed to resist freezing and clogging.
Use the Right Rope
We recommend using a 1/4″ to 1/2″ thick pull rope, not pull string. You want to minimize the amount of stretching during your pull and string isn’t very good at doing that. Stretching can make pulling your fiber very unstable.
Pulling Eye Removal
Never use a knife or blade to remove the pulling eye. This can damage the jacket of the fiber, or worse, the fiber itself. Always use a pair of electrician scissors.
Stay up to Code
Honesty is the best policy. The NEC requires that cables used in premises, both commercial and residential, be “listed for the purpose” by a Nationally Recognized Test Laboratory (NRTL, pronounced “nurtle”).Always obey all fire and building codes. Never try to cheat the system just to save a buck, especially when peoples lives are at risk. If plenum rated fiber is required, use plenum rated fiber. It’s the right thing to do.
5) Pre-Terminated Fiber Optic Cable
The greatest thing to happen since sliced bread. Pre-terminated fiber optic cable assemblies save you time and headache. No need for expensive tools. No need for testing. Our pre-terminated fiber comes to you on a wooden spool, with the connectors already assembled on the fiber. We have the connectors staggered by 1/2″ to make it easier to pull through conduit or innerduct. The pulling eye is very strong and wont break on you. Test results are included. It doesn’t get any easier than this.

How To Decide What Goes Into A Fiber Prep Kit

Kit configuration starts with our marketing department, our staff of engineers and our sales team. Usually it’s the sales team up first explaining the need for a kit for a specific customer or they had an inspiration or a germ of an idea from a tech in the field saying he wished he had a selection of tools in an all-in-one kit. Ideas can originate just about anywhere. All suggestions are evaluated, and one of the first questions posed is there a market for this kit and will anyone care (translation, will anyone buy it)?
Kevin Costner starred in the movie, Field of Dreams. And a voice over kept saying, “if you build it they will come.” We ask, if you build it will the customers come. In the case of fiber prep tools and the need for a kit our marketing department conducted extensive research and found such a need, and with the breadth of line, fiber-mart Tools was positioned to fill it.
Because fiber is ubiquitous and more and more is being installed every day, the need for the proper tools for installation and maintenance continues to grow; therefore, the need for fiber prep tools continues to grow. So, the question then becomes, what goes into a fiber prep kit?
fiber-mart Tools has a number of Fiber Prep Kits in the line including the TK-120 Fiber Prep Kit and the TK-150 Fiber Prep Kit with Connector Cleaner, Fiber Cleaver & Visual Fault Locator. The TK-150 features all of the same tools as the TK-120 plus the VFL-150 Visual Fault Locator, FCC-250 Fiber Connector Cleaner and the FC-220 Fiber Cleaver. These kits have been on the market for a little over a year and can already be found in use around the world. But who decided what to put in the kits and how was that decision made?
Looking at the tools contained in the TK-120 and the function of each explains how and why they were chosen. To start there are three cable stripping tools, the CST-1900 Round Cable Stripper, CSR-1575 Cable Strip & Ring Tool, and the FOD-2000 Fiber Optic Drop Cable Slitter. These tools allow you to open cable jackets and buffer tubes to gain access to the fiber.
Along the same line is the MS-6 Mid Span Slitter. This patent pending tool allows the tech to gain access to a fiber mid span for either a repair or connectorizing a fiber.
Every kit needs a fiber stripper and fiber-mart Tools manufactures the JIC-375 Fiber Optic Stripper Three Hole…THE tool for stripping fiber optic cable. And if you are exposing the inner workings of the cable you are bound to encounter Kevlar – a very tough material. A standard scissor would last a week before breaking so you need the JIC-186 Ergonomic Fiber Optic Kevlar Cutter…a tough resilient scissor specifically designed to deal with materials as tough as Kevlar.
Rounding out the kit you need a flashlight like the FL-2000, a screwdriver like the SD-61 Multi Bit Screwdriver for opening panel boxes, FW-5 fiber wipes for cleaning the fiber and a couple of pliers. We included the JIC-2288 Diagonal Cutter Pliers for use as the name implies – for cutting cables, and the JIC-842 Telecom Long Nose Pliers for grabbing or pulling cables. Now add the rugged H-90 21 Pocket Tool Case and you have the perfect kit…and that is the genesis of the fiber Prep kit.

Difference bewteen Transceiver and Transmitter

A transmitter can either be a separate piece of electronic equipment or an integrated circuit (IC) within another electronic device. A transmitter generates a radio frequency current applied to the antenna, which in turn radiates radio waves for communication, radar and navigational purposes. The information that is provided to the transmitter is in the form of an electronic signal. This includes audio from a microphone, video from a TV camera, or a digital signal for wireless networking devices. The electronics for a transmitter are simple. They convert an incoming pulse (voltage) into a precise current pulse to drive the source. Different transmitter has different functions. Take the optical transmitter as an example, it consists of the following components: optical source, electrical pulse generator and optical modulator. And the role of it is to convert the electrical signal into optical form, and launch the resulting optical signal into the optical fiber.
A transceiver is a device made up of both a receiver and transmitter (the name “transceiver” is actually short for transmitter-receiver) and these two gadgets are in a single module. When no circuitry is common between transmit and receive functions, the device is a transmitter-receiver.
Transceivers can be found in radio technology, telephony as well as Ethernet in which transceivers are called Medium Attachment Units (MAUs) in IEEE 802.3 documents and were widely used in 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 Ethernet networks. Fiber-optic gigabit, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 40 Gigabit Ethernet, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet utilize transceivers known as GBIC, SFP, SFP+, QSFP, XFP, XAUI, CXP, and CFP, among which Cisco SFP is the most popular one. In addition, 1000BASE-T SFP, 10GBASE-T SFP+ and 1000BASE-T copper SFP we mentioned before are all transceivers.
Transceiver vs Transmitter
From the above information, we can know that the transmitter can only be used to transmit signals, while the transceiver can both transmit and receive signals. However, many view transceivers as a compromise in terms of performance, functionality, portability and flexibility and if they had any practical value it would be in mobile and portable applications. Transceivers sacrificed some features and performance to gain the smaller size/weight and cost.
As for the portability, a transceiver just needs the space of one module, but functions as two different modules. It is easy to be taken on the go. Separate transmitter is not as convenient in some circumstances as it is probably heavier, and takes up more room. But they are advantageous because each could benefit from its own design, without compromising in areas such as I-F frequency choice, conversion frequencies, and audio stages and they are easier to build and work on.
As far as the price is concerned, in most cases, a separate transmitter consumes more power. And the price of a single transceiver is much lower than that of a transmitter plus a receiver.Using a common frequency generation/tuning scheme, power supply and other components, it costs less to manufacture a transceiver than a separate transmitter and receiver.As to how to choose from them, the answer depends on your application.
Conclusion
You may find many transmitters in you life, like the TV remote control. Although transceiver is not commonly noticed around you, it is actually commonly applied to many places. We can say that it is invisible but versatile. I sincerely hope that this article will help you understand the difference: transceiver vs transmitter, only then, can you use them in the right way.

Fiber Splice Tray and Fiber Enclosure

In the cabinet, we may find many devices and gadgets, such as fiber patch panel, fiber splice tray, fiber enclosure, adapter panel and zip ties which are all little but critical components for cable management. Fiber patch panel, the one we have cued for a lot of times, will give way to fiber splice tray and fiber enclosure, the two subjects that we will introduce today.
Fiber Splice Tray Unveil
As we all know, it is usually unavoidable to match splice fiber optic cables with fiber pigtails in data center, which not only demands lower space requirement but also allows a better network performance compared with other fiber optic termination methods.
Fiber splice tray, very popular in data center and server room, is a plate to store the fiber cables and splices and prevent them from becoming damaged or being misplaced. Splice trays are necessary for holding and protecting individual fusion splices or mechanical splices. One of the important factors of fiber splice tray is the fiber count that it can hold. Most fiber splice tray can hold up to 24 fiber splices. 12-fiber splice trays are the most commonly used fiber splice tray in fiber optic network.
A Closer Look At Fiber Enclosure
It is a box that contains the devices to connect various fiber optic cables. Fiber enclosures can be classified into two configurations, namely rack mount fiber enclosure and wall mount fiber enclosure. And the rack mount fiber enclosure can be further categorized by its height and the design. We have 1U, 2U and 4U choices. The rack mount enclosures come in two flavors. One is the slide-out variety , and the other incorporates a removable lid which requires the user to remove the whole enclosure from the rack to gain internal access.
How The Two Coordinate?
Owning solely a fiber splice tray is far more enough. It should be equipped with a device to provide a safe and easy-to-manage environment for fiber splices. Apart from fiber optic splice closure, fiber distribution box and fiber optic enclosure, we can adopt the fiber enclosure displayed today. Fiber splice tray can be installed in fiber enclosure.
Here takes the example of fiber splice tray used in FHD fiber enclosure of FS.COM as shown in the following picture. It is a 96-fiber enclosure which has four 24-fiber adapter on the front panel. This 1U fiber enclosure can hold up four 24-fiber splice tray to provide the space for 96 fiber optic splices.
Conclusion
As optical fibers are sensitive to pulling, bending and crushing forces, fiber splice tray and fiber enclosure serve as double protections which are used to provide a safe routing and easy-to-manage environment for the fragile optical fiber splices. Attention! Bare fibers without protection tubes should never be exposed outside of a splice tray. It’s our pleasure to provide you with the best solutions.

Photonic Integrated And High-speed Optical Interconnection Technology

Currently, in the field of active optical devices, high-speed optical communication (40G/100G), broadband access FTTH, 3G and LTE wireless communication, high-speed optical interconnection, chips applied in intelligent Fiber Optic Network, device and module technologies are competing to become the hot spots of development. And the photonic integrated, high-speed optical signal modulation technique, high-speed optical device packaging technology, as the representative of the optical device platform technology are also increasingly being valued by the majority of OC manufacturers.
The Technology Development And Breakthrough Of Active Optical Devices
To meet the growing demand for bandwidth, while continuing to reduce the capital, operation and maintenance expenses, will continue to be the two main driving force to promote the development of optical communication technology. In order to meet the evolving needs of the system, the development of active optical communication device involves many technologies, however, in recent years there are several technologies deserve special attention, including 40G/100G high speed transmission device and module technology, the next generation fiber access technology, ROF (Radio Over Fiber) components and module technology, optical integration technology, high-speed interconnect optoelectronic components and modules, etc.
Optical Integration Technology Is Worth Looking Forward
Optical integrated devices due to its low cost, small, easy to large-scale assembly, high work rate, stable performance and other advantages, as early as the 1970s, it caused the world’s attention and research. In the ensuing three decades, with the rapid development of optical waveguide production technology and a variety of fine processing technology, optical integrated devices are heavily into the business, particularly some optical passive components based on Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC), such as Planar Lightwave Circuit Splitter, arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) and so on, have become hot products in optical communication on the market. In the field of optical active devices, the active integration products are still far from large-scale commercial, but with the successful development of some advanced technologies such as Dispersion Bridge Grating, active devices based on PLC recently made great progress.
The develop direction of optical integration technology can be divided into two categories: monolithic and hybrid integration. Monolithic integration refers to the semiconductor or optical crystal substrate, over the same production process, integrating all the components together, such as: PIC and OEIC technology; the hybrid integration refers to through different production processes, making part of the components, then assembled in the semiconductor or optical crystal substrate.
Previously, the actual production process of Si-based hybrid integration has been quite complex, but recently, a number of research institutions had improved the traditional hybrid integration technology based on flip, and made great progress. Among them, the most remarkable achievements include two items: The first is the University of California at Santa Barbara, in cooperation with Intel company researched hybrid integrated device based on Wafer level; second is the Ghent University based chip and the wafer hybrid integrated devices.
In recent years, the development of optical integration technology, making it quickly became a very worth looking forward platform technology in optic communication, is expected to be widely applied.
High-speed Optical Interconnection Technology Beyond Imagination
High speed optical interconnection technology is realized by parallel Fiber Transceiver and Ribbon Cable or fiber optic cable. Parallel optical module is based on VCSEL array and PIN array,wavelength of 850nm, suitable for 50/125 μm and 62.5/125 μm multimode fiber. Its electrical interface uses standard MegArray connectors in package, optical interface uses standard MTP/MPO ribbon cable. At present more common parallel optical transceiver module has 4 channels and 12 channels. In the current market, the more common high-speed parallel optical modules include: 4 × 3.125Gb/s (12.5Gb/s) parallel optical module, applications such as high-end computer systems, blade servers short distance interconnection; 12 × 2.725Gb/s (32.7Gb/s) parallel optical module, used in high-end switching equipment as well as backplane connection. Parallel optical module applications are gradually becoming more mature.
At present, the rise of applications such as super computer, cloud computing, short-distance high-speed data communication, directly promoting the rapid development of high-pspeed optical interconnection technology, its size of the market and technology development will beyond people’s imagination.