Fiber Optic Pigtail Technology Wiki

As fiber cable network is built by drawing the long lines of physical cables, it is highly impossible to lay a continuous cable end-to-end. Then there comes the fiber pigtail, one of the cable assemblies, has a connector on one end and a length of exposed fiber on another end to melt together with fiber optic cable. By melting together the glass fiber cable, it can reach a minimum insertion loss.

Pigtails are terminated on one end with a connector, and typically the other side is spliced to OSP (Outside Plant Cable). They may be simplex: (single fiber), or multi-fiber up to 144 fibers. Pigtails do have male and female connectors in which male connectors will be used for direct plugging of an optical transceiver while the female connectors are mounted on a wall mount or patch panel. Fiber optical pigtails are usually used to realize the connection between patch panels in a Central Office or Head End and OSP cable. Often times they may also provide a connection to another splice point outside of the Head End or central office. The purpose of this is because various jacket materials may only be used a limited distance inside the building.

You may confused the purpose between fiber optic connector, fiber optic patch cord and fiber optic pigtail. Here we will figure it out.

Fiber optic connector is used for connecting fiber. Using one or two fiber optic connectors in one cable has two items with different assistance in fiber optical solutions.

Fiber optic patch cords(or called fiber jumpers) used as a connection from a patch panel to a network element. Fiber optic patch cords, thick protective layer, generally used in the connection between the optical transceiver and the terminal box.

Fiber Optic Pigtail called pigtail line, only one end of the connector, while the other end is a cable core decapitation. Welding and connecting to other fiber optic cable core, often appear in the fiber optic terminal box, used to connect fiber optic cable, etc.

Fiber optic cable can be terminated in a cross connect patch panel using both pigtail or field-installable connector fiber termination techniques. The pigtail approach requires that a splice be made and a splice tray be used in the patch panel. The pigtail approach provides the best quality connection and is usually the quickest.

Fiber pigtails are with premium grade connectors and with typical 0.9mm outer diameter cables. Simplex fiber pigtail and duplex fiber pigtails are available, with different cable color, cable diameter and jacket types optional. The most common is known as the fusion splice on pigtail, this is done easy in field with a multi-fiber trunk to break out the multi-fibers cable into its component for connection to the end equipment. And the 12 fiber or 6 fiber multi color pigtail are easy to install and provide a premium quality fiber optic connection. Fiber optic pigtails can be with various types of fiber optic terminations such as SC, FC, ST, LC, MU, MT-RJ, MTP, MPO, etc.

Pigtails offer low insertion loss and low back-reflection. They are especially designed for high count fiber optic cable splicing. Pigtails are often bought in pairs to be connected to endpoints or other fiber runs with patch cables.

How Much Do You Know About OADM

The OADM, or optical add drop multiplexer, is a gateway into and out of a single mode fiber. In practice, most signals pass through the device, but some would be “dropped” by splitting them from the line. Signals originating at that point can be “added” into the line and directed to another destination. An OADM may be considered to be a specific type of optical cross-connect, widely used in wavelength division multiplexing systems for multiplexing and routing fiber optic signals. They selectively add and drop individual or sets of wavelength channels from a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) multi-channel stream. OADMs are used to cost effectively access part of the bandwidth in the optical domain being passed through the in-line amplifiers with the minimum amount of electronics.

OADMs have passive and active modes depending on the wavelength. In passive OADM, the add and drop wavelengths are fixed beforehand while in dynamic mode, OADM can be set to any wavelength after installation. Passive OADM uses Filter WDM, fiber gratings, and planar waveguides in networks with WDM systems. Dynamic OADM can select any wavelength by provisioning on demand without changing its physical configuration. It is also less expensive and more flexible than passive OADM. Dynamic OADM is separated into two generations.

A typical OADM consists of three stages: an optical demultiplexer, an optical multiplexer, and between them a method of reconfiguring the paths between the optical demultiplexer, the optical multiplexer and a set of ports for adding and dropping signals. The optical demultiplexer separates wavelengths in an input fiber onto ports. The reconfiguration can be achieved by a cross connect panel or by optical switches which direct the wavelengths to the optical multiplexer or to drop ports. The optical multiplexer multiplexes the wavelength channels that are to continue on from demultipexer ports with those from the add ports, onto a single output fiber.

Physically, there are several ways to realize an OADM. There are a variety of demultiplexer and multiplexer technologies including thin film filters, fiber Bragg gratings with optical circulators, free space grating devices and integrated planar arrayed waveguide gratings. The switching or reconfiguration functions range from the manual fiber patch panel to a variety of switching technologies including microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), liquid crystal and thermo-optic switches in planar waveguide circuits.

CWDM and DWDM OADM provide data access for intermediate network devices along a shared optical media network path. Regardless of the network topology, OADM access points allow design flexibility to communicate to locations along the fiber path. CWDM OADM provides the ability to add or drop a single wavelength or multi-wavelengths from a fully multiplexed optical signal. This permits intermediate locations between remote sites to access the common, point-to-point fiber message linking them. Wavelengths not dropped, pass-through the OADM and keep on in the direction of the remote site. Additional selected wavelengths can be added or dropped by successive OADMS as needed.

FiberStore provides a wide selection of specialized OADMs for WDM system. Custom WDM solutions are also available for applications beyond the current product designs including mixed combinations of CWDM and DWDM.