How To Distinguish Between Good or Bad The Quality of Fiber Optic Cable

1. Ointment. Ointment is mainly fine paste paste with cable, fiber paste normally should be full of the casing, cable paste should be under pressure every crevice of cable core. Now, fiber paste sufficient half-full or less the practice of cable extract some just wipe a layer of the cable core, while others are in the middle of the fiber optic cable two charge is not sufficient. This will make the fiber are not good protection, the impact of the transmission performance of optical fiber attenuation, poor water resistance less than the national standard, once the cable accidental seepage will cause the whole links seepage scrapped. Under normal circumstances, even accidental seepage simply repair a section of water seepage can, you do not need to start over. (National standard water-blocking performance: three meters of fiber optic cable, one meter of water column pressure round the clock impermeable.) If use poor ointment will also appear to be happening, and may because the ointment thixotropic, cause the fiber to cause microbending loss, the link transmission characteristics failed; ointment with acidic also with fiber optic cable metal materials analysis H reaction precipitation of hydrogen molecules, fiber case of H decay will increase dramatically, resulting in the entire link interrupt transmission.

2. Sheath. The cable sheath is necessary to adapt to many different complex climate, but also to ensure the stability of the long-term (at least 25 years). Cable jacket not only have a certain strength, low thermal deformation, wear, water permeability, heat-recoverable, and coefficient of friction, but also should be strong resistance to environmental performance materials processing features. Less or bad sheath material cracking, water seepage through factory acceptance, but the quality is defective use for some time, using recycled plastics to replace quality polyethylene sheath material is more serious. High quality sheath material made of fibe optic cable, a cable skin smooth, bright, uniform thickness, no bubbles, otherwise the coarse skin of fiber optic cable, and a lot of very small pit, and because of the thin thickness, the entire outer diameter of the fiber optic cable will be muach smaller than the high quality cable. Indoor fiber optic cable, usually made of high quality flame retardant PVC, the appearance should be smooth, bright, good flexibility, easy to peel; and otherwise poor skin finish, easy and tight buffer fiber, aramid adhesion phenomenon.

3. Steel, aluminum. Steel, aluminum cable is mainly used to protect the fiber from mechanical side pressure, moisture and other effects, better cable typically use chrome-plated steel strip. Low quality fiber optic cable to only one side done ordinary iron rust treatment, or black (uncoated steel), instead of chrome-plated steel strip, over time, the cable will appear corroded, fiber optic hydrogen loss also aggravate andits easy separation do not constitute the sheath bonded sheath tide also very poor performance; of some places tinned strip instead of chrome-plated steel strip, tin-plated surface of the strip, the bubble is inevitable, so in humid, prone to corrosion under the conditions of the atmosphere and surface condensation or water, especially under acidic conditions, corrosion faster. The tin plating layer is poor in heat resistance, melting at 232 degrees Celsius, only the application of due to squeeze sheaths when the high temperature, such that the peel strength uncertainty affect the cable anti-surge performance. Chromium melting point of 1900 degrees Celsius, chemically very stable at room temperature in air or water will not rust, corrosion resistance, very good resistance to environmental performance, easily oxidized due to surface passivation layer is formed so good. Aluminum generally failed thermal paste method coated aluminum instead of cast qualified coated aluminum, which also affect cable performance.

4. Steel wire. The steel wire in the fiber optic cable mainly used to protect optical fiber from the mechanical tension. Good cable typically use for phosphating steel wire, high modulus short-term tension 1500N and 3000N. And low-quality fiber optic cable will be a very small diameter wire or ordinary steel instead of the one hand, easy to rust; On the other hand, is far less than the tensile strength 1500N construction may strain the fiber. High modulus phosphide stell wire is generally gray color, good toughness, not easy to bend; the alternative wire generally pinch in your hand can be bent a long time, the two rust fracture hanging cable box.

5. Loose tube. The installed fiber loose tube fiber optic cable is generally used polymer PBT material (poly (butylene terephthalate)), this loose tube, high strength, no deformation, anti-aging. Poor quality loose tube fiber optic cable is sometimes replaced with other materials, diameter thin, hand pinch flat, no different from drinking straw, can not afford the protective effect of the fiber.

6. Waterproof tape. Fiber optic cable with waterproof tape or water blocking yarn through the inside of the product showed a uniform distribution of high water-absorbing resin has strong water absorption, under the combined effect of the osmotic pressure, affinity, rubber elastic, super absorbent resin inhalation several times the weight of water. Further, the water-blocking powder once with water swollen gel will instantly, regardless to its much pressure is applied, moisture nor is extruded. Thus, with a water-absorbent resin containing water-blocking tape coated cable core, in case the outer wall of the fiber optic cable is damaged, the wound portion of the high water-absorbent resin to play due to expansion of the sealing effect, can prevent the entry of water to a minimum. Low-quality fiber optic cable commonly used non-woven fabric or paper tape, once the cable jacket is damaged, the consequences will be very serious.

7. Kevlar. Kevlar is a high-strength chemical fiber, most in the field of military-industrial complex, a bullet-proof vest is the producer of this material. It is a patented product of DuPont, is the major cost components of the indoor fiber optic cable, tight buffer fiber indoor cable is mainly used to protect against mechanical tension. Due to Kevlar high cost, poor quality of indoor fiber optic cable outer diameter is generally made ​​very thin, so you can by reducing the few shares aramid cost savings, or use an appearance similar to Kevlar polyester yarn instead (more common) polyester yarn almost can not bear what tension. So that the optical fiber laying easily strain or pull off.

8. Optical fiber. The fiber optic cable core raw materials, the good cable commonly used manufacturers of high quality core. Low-quality fiber optic cable is usually lower fiber and unsolicited fiber, these fibers due to the complex sources, quality is difficult to guarantee, sometimes multimode fiber often mixed with single-mode fiber, and the general lack of small factories necessary testing equipment, not fiberquality of judgment, more so the quality is difficult to be guaranteed. In addition, some bought with cheap short segment later cabled fiber splicing. The naked eye can not distinguish this fiber, the problems often encountered in the construction are: low transmission rate, short distance, fiber attenuation, not and pigtail docking, lack of flexibility, easily broken plate filament when even a single fiber a multi-mode, the other end is single-mode.

9. Coloring ink. Distinguish fiber in order to facilitate the construction of national standards be with bright color and high-quality fiber optic cable are standard in high quality ink colored fiber loose tube, the color is very clear and easy to fall off, while the low quality fiber optic cable is used poor qualityink coloring or simply coloring and inferior ink colors are vivid and sometimes easy to dissolve in the fiber paste the color can not be distinguished, not colored even more great inconvenience to the construction.

10. Product packaging. The fiber optic cable commonly used packaging wooden plate or the iron wooden tray into the shaft, the outside of the plate sealed wooden seal plate to ensure that the bulky fiber optic cable throughout the transit force, bending radius conditions within the scope of the standard requirements. Low-quality fiber optic cable in order to save costs, generally very poor packaging tray, transported to the destination is almost close to falling apart, and some simply do not have the disk, look around cable is shipped, or the disc do not have to seal the wood.

In summary, optical fiber cable real good or bad from the structural design, integrated the difference between the pros and cons of the timber material and production process. Because the cable is not yet a large number of popular, low-quality products, while a lot of hidden dangers, many users even integrators do not understand the line is still used regardless of settings.

It is for this reason that the negative impact of low-quality fiber optic cable industry will be even greater, because the fiber optic cable itself, its value is not significant, but the cost of laying process (direct burial, aerial, wearing a tube) were truly amazing.and time-consuming, coupled with its entire communication link based medium, so if there are problems, no matter how expensive your hardware devices at both ends of the high-end, the entire system will be, without exception, completely paralyzed, will be a very long period of repair, resulting in the loss of thousands of times the difference between the pros and cons.

If you want to know more about breakout fiber cable, hybrid cable or fiber optic cable cost, please visit our website.

What is Loose Tube Fiber Optic Cable

Loose tube cable: small, thin plastic tubes containing as many as a dozen 250 micron buffered fibers used to protect fibers in cables rated for outside plant use. They allow the fibers to be isolated from high pulling tension and can be filled with water-blocking materials to prevent moisture entry.

Loose tube cables are the most widely used cables for outside plant trunks because it offers the best protection for the fibers under high pulling tensions and can be easily protected from moisture with water-blocking gel or tapes.These cables are composed of several fibers together inside a small plastic tube, which are in turn wound around a central strength member, surrounded by aramid strength members and jacketed, providing a small, high fiber count cable. This type of cable is ideal for outside plant trunking applications, as it can be made with the loose tubes filled with gel or water absorbent powder to prevent harm to the fibers from water. It can be used in conduits, strung overhead or buried directly into the ground. Some outdoor cables may have double jackets with a metallic armor between them to protect from chewing by rodents or kevlar for strength to allow pulling by the jackets. Since the fibers have only a thin buffer coating, they must be carefully handled and protected to prevent damage. Loose tube cables with singlemode fibers are generally terminated by spicing pigtails onto the fibers and protecting them in a splice closure. Multimode loose tube cables can be terminated directly by installing a breakout kit, also called a furcation or fan-out kit, which sleeves each fiber for protection.

Loose tube materials for loose tube cables need to possess a relatively high modulus and good processability. During manufacture, optical fiber is fed into the loose tube at a faster rate than it is being produced so that the optical fiber is laid helically within the tube.

To buffer the fibers from each other and from any perturbations on the tube walls, the loose tube is filled with a gel compound similar in composition to the water blocking gels in conventional telecommunication cables. The loose tube material must therefore be compatible with the gel as in conventional cable insulation.

Structure of a Loose Tube Fiber Optic Cable

Elements in a loose tube fiber optic cable:

1. Multiple 250um coated bare fibers (in loose tube)
2. One or more loose tubes holding 250um bare fibers. Loose tubes strand around the central strength member.
3. Moisture blocking gel in each loose tube for water blocking and protection of 250um fibers
4. Central strength member (in the center of the cable and is stranded around by loose tubes)
5. Aramid Yarn as strength member
6. Ripcord (for easy removal of outer jacket)
7. Outer jacket (Polyethylene is most common for outdoor cables because of its moisture resistant, abrasion resistant and stable over wide temperature range characteristics.)

Futures

. Good mechanical and temperature performance
. High strength loose tube that is hydrolysis resistant
. Special tube filling compound ensure a critical protection of fiber
. Two parallel steel wires ensure tensile strength
. PE sheath protects cable from ultraviolet radiation
. Small diameter, light weight and friendly installation
. Long delivery length

More information about fiber optic cable cost, fibre optic cable specification please visit our website.

Why Fiber Optic Cable More Popular Than Copper Cable?

Today fibre optic cables are used the world over for communications. The improvement in communication is brought by the development in fiber optic cables. Why fiber optic cable more popular than copper cable?

Fiber optic cable is a kind of cable which has more than one fiber optic. These kinds of cables are widely used and are also considered as one of the best options for a lot of people. There are a lot of advantages that one can be able to get when using this type of cable.

One of the advantages is that these cables are lighter, flexible and less bulky as compared to other kind of cables. They are widely used in urban areas where there is a shortage of space such as sewer lines, subways and power lines as well. Since this cable is lighter, it can easily fit in small and crowded placed. Optical cables are also easy to transport in various installation location. There is no doubt that flexibility is an advantage since it can be easily fitted in every corner.

Moreover, fiber optic cable cost is low. You can be able to save a lot on your budget when you replace your old copper wirings with optical fiber cable. As compared to copper wires, it also has a higher carrying capacity. This means that you will be able to have transmissions of many signals at a time without experiencing a lot of intrusion.

There are four advantages of fiber optic cabling, these advantages explain why fiber is becoming the preferred network cabling medium for high bandwidth, long-distance applications:

1. Immunity to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)

All copper cable network media sharing a common problem: they are susceptible to electromagnetic interference (EMI), fiber optic cabling is immune to crosstalk because optical fiber does not conduct electricity and uses light signals in a glass fiber, rather than electrical signals along a metallic conductor to transmit data. So it cannot produce a magnetic field and thus is immune to EMI.

2. Higher Possible Data Rates

Because light is immune to interference, can be modulated at very high frequencies, and travels almost instantaneously to its destination, much higher data rates are possible with fiber optic
cabling technologies than with traditional copper systems. Data rates far exceeding the gigabit per second (Gbps) range and higher are possible, and the latest IEEE standards body is working on 100Gbps fiber based applications over much longer distances than copper cabling. Multimode is preferred fiber optic type for 100-550 meters seen in LAN network, and since single mode fiber optic cables are capable of transmitting at these multi-gigabit data rates over very long distances, they are the preferred media for transcontinental and oceanic applications.

3. Longer Maximum Distances

Typical copper media data transmission by the distance limits the maximum length of less than 100 meters. Because they do not suffer from the electromagnetic interference problems of traditional copper cabling and because they do not use electrical signals that can dramatically reduce the long distance, single-mode fiber optic cables can span 75 kilometers (about 46.6 miles) without using signal-boosting repeaters.

4. Better Security

The Copper cable transmission media is susceptible to eavesdropping through taps. A tap (short for wiretap) is a device that punctures through the outer jacket of a copper cable and touches the inner conductor. The tap intercepts signals sent on a LAN and sends them to another (unwanted) location. Electromagnetic (EM) taps are similar devices, but rather than puncturing the cable,they use the cable’s magnetic fields, which are similar to the pattern of electrical signals. Because fiber optic cabling uses light instead of electrical signals, it is immune to most types of eavesdropping. Traditional taps won’t work because any intrusion on the cable will cause the light to be blocked and the connection simply won’t function. EM taps won’t work because no magnetic field is generated. Because of its immunity to traditional eavesdropping tactics, fiber optic cabling is used in networks that must remain secure, such as government and research networks.

If you are looking for high quality communication solution, FiberStore’s fiber optic cable is the best choice. FiberStore provides a wide range of quality optical fiber cables, such as indoor
outdoor cable, loose tube cable, breakout cable fiber, Hybrid cable and so on. Our fiber optic cable specification is very detail and very convenient for you selecting. The optical cable price on the website is per meter price. The more, the cheaper. Customers can also have the flexibility to custom the cable plant to best fit their needs. Only fiber cable that meets or exceeds industry standards is used to ensure quality products with best-in-class performance.

How To Quickly Build Your Fiber Optic Network

What is the most consuming work in building a fiber optic network

There are two works are usually the largest line items in an fiber optic network installation budget: pulling the fiber optic cables and terminating or splicing the cables.

When pulling the fiber optic cables, you must comply with the minimum bending radius of the cable, prepare the cable ends with a pulling eye kit, and filling the conduit with lubricant to minimize the damage risk to the cables.

That’s not all, termination of the fiber optic cable can be a daunting task if you install a large fiber optic network. The time needed for different optical fiber cable termination is different. Therefore, the choice of the optical fiber cale is a key decision to reduce your fiber optic cable cost.

Loose tube gel-filled vs.tight buffered fiber optic cable

Choose the cable type is one of the biggest cost drivers in the cable terminal. There are two basic types of cable used for system installation:

1. Loose tube gel-filled cable

2. Tight buffered fiber optic breakout cables

Loose tube fiber optic cable

Traditionally, loose tube fiber optic cable has been used for outdoor long-haul links. Due to the fragile bare fibers and gel filling, which must be cleaned prior to termination, loose tube gel-filled cable is the most difficult to splice and terminate and also has the highest termination material costs.

Loose tube fiber cable type must normally be terminated or spliced close to the cable entryway of a building to switch to indoor-style cable, as it is generally incompatible with indoor fire codes.

Tight buffered fiber optic breakout cables

Tight buffered cables require less care to avoid damaging fibers when stripping back the cable. Each fiber is protected with its own 900 um diameter buffer structure, which is nearly four times the diameter and six times the thickness of the 250um coating.

This structure leads to the excellent performance of moisture and temperature of indoor outdoor cable tight buffer, lets them directly to terminate connector.

Tight buffered breakout fiber optic cable, has individual subcables within a primary outer cable sheath. This cable is the cable of choice for direct connectorization, as each fiber has its own aramid strength member for connector tie-off.

The connectorized subcables may be directly connected to equipment without fear of fiber damage of connector/fiber interface damage in most situations. Fiber optic breakout cable is by far the least expensive and easiest cable type to terminate and requires the least experience on the part of the installer.

Price comparision between two type of optical cables

Optical cable price is typically lower for breakout fiber cable than for loose tube cable when fiber counts are fairly low. Loose tube cables are lower in price for higher fiber counts. However, higher splicing and termination costs of loose tube cable over moderate-to-short lengths can far exceed the additional cost of tight-buffered cables.

The advantages of breakout fiber optic cable

A typical case in which termination costs dominate is an interbuilding (outdoor) cable entering a building where the required termination point of the cable is some distance from the building
entryway, and it is necessary to switch from outdoor to indoor cable.

Outdoor loose tube gel-filled cable is typically required to be transitioned to indoor cable within 50 feet of the cable entry point to comply with fire codes. However, a tight-buffered indoor/outdoor cable can be used throughout the link, requiring no transitions at the building entryway.

FiberStore have many types of outdoor loose tube cables, such as All-Dielectric Loose Tube Cables, Gel-Filled Loose Tube Cables, Double-Jacket Loose Tube Cables, Central Loose Tube Cables. They offer the best protection in an outdoor environment.