Peripheral Fiber Optic Devices and Accessories
Patch Panels- are a convenient way to organize several transmission lines and connect them to their appropriate jacks at a central location, making them accessible for any testing, monitoring, restoring, or re-patching that may become necessary. In fiber optics, patch panels often receive patch cords from splice panels and run their lines to other equipment. Patch panels are what we use to make sense of, and work on, our large LANs and various transmission systems, so it follows that they are highly customizable to fit specific needs. Shop our fiber accessories to view some options for organizing your fiber optic patch panels.
Coupler- also known as a splitter, a coupler is a device used to join multiple fiber cables and act as a bridge for the signal, sometimes splitting a fiber optic signal into several parts. In configurations where one signal is split into several signals, each newly split signal has a percentage of the original signal’s power; couplers are described by the number of signals created in the split and the ratio at which each resultant signal retains power. For example a 1x2 splitter with a 50:50 ratio would split one signal into two, with each of the two signals retaining 50% of the original signal’s power.
Attenuators- are devices used to add loss to an optical connection; adding loss is useful when performing system checks and can be necessary when a system’s optical power is oversaturating the receiver/photodetector.
Pigtails- A typically short fiber cable manufactured with a connector on one end and another end left exposed. The exposed end is fusion spliced to one fiber on the end of a multi-fiber trunk and placed into a splice tray in a patch panel.
Fan Out Kits and Breakout Kits- these kits are used in instances where the user needs to separate and run individual fiber lines out of single cables that hold several fiber lines. The typical individual fiber line within another cable will be dangerously frail at about 250 microns thick, these kits allow you to bulk that line up to at least 900 microns thick, giving it the durability it needs to then be placed in a splice tray and connected to its ultimate route of use.
Splice Panels and Splice Trays- Splice panels offer the user options on how they would like to route various in-running fiber lines to different areas, a splice panel can be a rack within a larger unit or a separate wall-mounted unit. Often splice panels are used to transition between outside to inside rated cables for fiber runs, as per NEC requirements. Splice trays lie within splice panels and offer protective, securing, and organizational housing for your splices.
Termination Boxes- provide small-scale organization and distribution housing for fiber cables. Depending on your needs, you can find a termination box pre-equipped with ports matching your cables and connectors or build a custom termination box for your network, terminal by terminal.
Fiber Optic Cleaning- Connections points, and particularly ferrules, are widely known to be the most common point of attenuation, or signal loss, in fiber optic systems. As such, it is of the utmost importance to keep all of your connection points as clean as possible at all times. This means that every time you make or break a connection, clean both the endface on the terminal or connection point and the endface on the connector! If you are connecting brand new fiber cables, do not trust that they are clean from the factory as any amount of ferrule contamination may have occurred during delivery. Remember that we are working with core sizes down to 8 microns thick or 1/10 the thickness of a human hair. One dust particle can shut down your connection completely.
Different cleaning methods are available for your fiber optic equipment and technology. We recommend special made cleaning sticks or precision swabs for the job. These fiber specific cleaning swabs will leave no scratches on sensitive endfaces and require no alcohol, which can leave a problematic residue on connection surfaces. Canned air and compressed gas products also exist, but pale in comparison to the more reliable cleaning swabs and surfaces. Video inspection with a fiber inspector is also recommended if available; this is the only way to be totally sure if cleanliness is your signal loss problem.
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At Cables For Less we offer a variety of high quality Fiber Optic solutions at great prices!
Visit our Fiber Optics section and shop from our ever-growing selection of patch cables such as 62.5/125 or 50/125 Multimode, Singlemode with any combination of LC, SC, ST, FC, MPO and MTRJ connectors. Of course we also carry a complete line of OM1, OM2 as well as 10GB OM3 and OM4 up to 100 Meters Don’t see the fiber cable you need pre-made? Not a problem with our custom calculator, which allows you to build your fiber to exact specification! See our assortment of pre-made and customizable patch panels, collection of fiber couplers and termination boxes. Don’t forget our networking converters and MPO trunks, cassettes, and fan-out kits we even carry fiber optic cleaning supplies!