Tag Archives: fiber patch panel

Fiber Termination Box Overview

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Fiber termination box (FTB), known as optical termination box (OTB) as well, is a compact fiber management product of small size. It is widely adopted in FTTx cabling for both fiber cabling and cable management. In some circumstances, fiber termination box can be regarded as the mini size of fiber optic patch panel and optical distribution frame (ODF).

Fiber Termination Box Classification

Currently, the market embraces a great amount of fiber optic termination boxes and other devices for cable management. And the names and model numbers of these fiber termination boxes vary from the design and idea of different manufacturers. Hence to identify the detailed classification of fiber termination box could be a hard task.

Roughly, fiber termination box can be categorized as fiber optic patch panel and fiber terminal box according to the size and applications. Judging by the appearance, fiber patch panel is of gibber size whereas fiber terminal box is smaller.

Fiber Patch Panels

Fiber patch panels are of wall mounted type or mounted type usually with 19 inch size. Generally, there is a tray inside the fiber box that helps to hold and protect the fiber links. Various different kinds of fiber optic adapters can be pre-installed in fiber patch panels as the interface, via which the fiber box could connect with the external devices.

Fiber Terminal Boxes

Besides fiber patch panels, one can also count on fiber terminal boxes for fiber distribution and organization. While typical fiber terminal boxes are with 12 ports or 24 ports, 8 ports, 36 ports, 48 ports and 96 ports fiber are available in the markets now. They are often installed with FC or ST adapters on the panel, either on the wall or put in horizontal line.

According to the design, FTB can be further divided into wall mount type and rack mount type.

The wall mount fiber termination boxes are designed for either pre-connectorized cables, field installation of connectors, or field splicing of pigtails. They offer an ideal solution for building entrance terminals, telecommunication closets, main cross-connects, computer rooms and other controlled environments.

wall mount FTB

The rack mount slide-out type fiber termination box usually for fiber splicing, distribution, termination, patching, storage and management in one unit. They support both cross-connect and interconnect architecture, and provide interfaces between outside plant cables and transmission equipment.

rack mount FTB

Moreover, in terms of installation environment, there are indoor FTB and outdoor FTB.

Indoor fiber termination box acts as the transition point between the risen cable and the horizontal cable, in this way, it provides operators much more flexibility when managing cables. Besides, indoor FTB makes it possible to leave space for overlength and terminated fibers, as well as for fiber splicing.

The outdoor fiber terminal boxes are environmentally sealed enclosures to distribute fibers for FTTX networks. They are also designed for fiber splicing, termination, and cable management.

Features of Fiber Termination Box

Fiber termination box contains the shell, the internals (supporting frame, set fiber disc, fixing device) and optical fiber joint protective element. Prominent advantages of fiber termination box lie in efficient cable-fixing, welding and its protective role in machinery of the optical fiber.

A insulation is always demanded between cable metal components and cable terminal box shell in a fiber termination box, which provides space for cable terminal and remained fiber storage. In addition, fiber termination box also facilitate the installation of different occasions since it is easy to access, which turns out to be time and cost saving.

Fiber Termination Box Application

Fiber termination box is universally used in telephone, agricultural telephone network system, data and image transmission system, CATV cable television series, indoor cable through force access and branch connection. Fiber termination box is available for the distribution and termination connection for various kinds of fiber optic systems, especially suitable for mini-network terminal distribution, in which the optical cables, patch cores or pigtails are connected. In addition to that, fiber termination box can be applied to joint fiber pigtail, protect fiber optic splices and share out the connectivity to individual customers.

Conclusion

Fiber termination box nowadays plays an indispensable role in the field of communication network with greater reliability and flexibility. This article may simply provide you a guideline when choosing fiber termination box for your infrastructure, for more detailed information and tutorial, please visit www.fs.com.

Related Article:1000BASE-X SFP Modules Overview

Physical Cable Management

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The physical level of cable management covers the actual cabling itself. Using physical cable managmement systems ensures that you keep your cables in a safe, neat layout.

Because fiber optic cabling is brittle, the glass fibers within the cables can bend only so far. If they get twisted into a knot or around a tight corner, they snap like glass. Broken fiber optic cable is hard to identify, because sometimes the light still gets through just enough to work. Think of a garden hose with a kink: Some water will gets through, but in spurts versus a steady flow of water. When a fiber optic cable sometimes lets light through and sometimes doesn’t, you end up with a flaky connection that can cause all kinds of issues out on your SAN. With orderly cable placement, if a cable does ge broken somehow, it’s easier to replace it if you don’t have to fight with that giant day-glow orange spaghetti under the floor.

A good cable management system usually comes in the form of a rack or some types of 19” rackmount panels that securely hold the cabling. The rack or panels have tracks where the cables run next to or inside your equipment racks so that they can easily yet safely flow between one component and another.

Some of these systems come with patch panels, which have rows of fiber optic ports on the front that allow you to connect the cables that come out of components or other patch panels. Patch panels give you a prelabeled system you can use to interconnect your components or other patch panels. Patch panels give you a prelabeled system you can use to interconnect your components without having to run new cabling every time you want to add or change something in your SAN layout. With patch panels, you hook up all the connections on each of your components to the ports on the panels. You run the fiber-optic cables from your server’ HBAs to a patch panel as well. All cabling is run en masse to the backs of these centrally located panels. When you want to connect components to your servers, you use short fiber optic cables (patches,) usually less than 3 meters long (abount 10 feet), to patch the ports from your arrays to the ports of your swiches to the ports for your HBAs.

Figure 1 shows how a typical patch panel solution connects your SAN components without requring you to lift a floor tile or roll a spoll of cable across the floor. Another benefit of using a patch panel is that running fiber-optic cable on a one-by-one basis can be very expensive. In a fewer times electricians have to come in to put in more cables, the better. Running a group of cables in one shot from the very beginning is much cheaper and faster than doing it one by one later.

fiber optic patch panel

Patch panel systems also make things very flexible. Now that you have all the endpoints of your SAN components in one place, you can easily control what talks to what by using the short, easy-to-manage patch cables. Following is the diiferent ports example of fiber optic patch panel, there are 12 port fiber patch panel, 16 port patch panel, 24 port patch panel.

12 port fiber patch panel loaded with a 12 port Multimode LC Adapter plate and a fiber optic splice tray. Also included is a pack of 60mm splice sleeves and a 12 pack of Multimode 62.5/125µm LC Fiber Optic Pigtails. This Pre-Loaded 1U Patch Panel comes with three adapter plates for easy expansion without the need to purchase more panels. Any unused adapter plate slots are covered with a blank plate to protect the insides of the patch panel.

12 port fiber patch panel

16 port patch panel provides efficient and easy management of fiber optic cables in the rack or cabinet. Pre-loaded, feed-thru duplex multimode connectors are mounted on a 16-gauge, cold rolled, black powder coated steel panel.

16 port patch panel

With this High Density 24 port patch panel, you can easily make one rack unit support your 10GB or higher applications. They allow you to quickly add new devices to your system without having to manually install or reconfigure other devices. The fiber is routed and connected on the inside of the cassette. There is no cutting, polishing, or terminating. These patch panels are perfect when you have high fiber count installations.

24 port fiber patch panel

Fiberstore offers a complete range of fiber optic patch panel, loaded Patch Panel Kits with pigtails from 6 ports to 36 ports in all connector types LC, LC APC, SC, SC APC, FC, FC APC, and ST and up to 72 ports with LC or LC APC. 2U Patch Panel Kits with pigtails from 6 ports to 72 ports in all connector types LC, LC APC, SC, SC APC, FC, FC APC, and ST and up to 144 ports with LC or LC APC.

Fiber Enclosure Systems and Patch Panels

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As previously mentioned, fiber optic cables have a very small core that can be easily damaged if not protected properly. Also, to conform to the minimum size of a fiber optic loop and not violate the critical angle, we need to have a way to keep excess fiber optic patch cables, as well as terminated building fiber, neat and protected from damage. Fiber-optic enclosures and patch panels allow the cable installer to protect the delicate fiber cable from damage, while still making it useable for the network adminstrator. A commmon device that is used as a fiber-optic cable enclosure is called a Lightguide Interconnection Unit (LIU). The LIU provides a location to terminate individual fiber-optic strands into a patch panel, which will be discussed in the next section. An LIU is generally made of galvanized steel that is then power-coated to provide durability. Most major LIU manufactures make their devices 19 inches wide so they can be installed in a normal communications rack. If the LIU is to be located in an enviroment where there is a risk of moisture or corrosives, the LIU can be sealed with gaskets to make it virtually waterproof. Most LIUs have swing out trays in the front and the back to provide easy access to the patch panel located inside. Also, most LIUs provide a place to route excess cable to ensure that all loops are of a minimun diameter, so the cable will not get damaged and maximum ligth can traverse the cable.

Patch panels for fiber-optic cables are usually installed into the LIU. Because the core and cladding of two fiber optic cables that are to be joined together must match perfectly, the patch panel must be manufactured to exact specifications and some standard type connector must be used to ensure a good fit. (Fibe-opticon connectors are discussed in the next section.) Another patch panel issue deals with attenuation. Remember from the previous discussion that when you splice or join a fiber optic cable, you can introduce additional ligth loss or attenuation. The same holds ture for the fiber optic patch panel. The connectors on the patch panel should identify total loss at various wavelegths, and these losses should be added to any other cable loss on that particular cable to ensure compliance with standards and good operation of the fiber optic cable. Now we will introduce you two fiber optic patch panel in the market, they are 12 port fiber patch panel, 24 port patch panel from our store.

The 12 port fiber optic patch panel can be loaded with SC/LC/FC/ST adapters on the panel, front panel port are optional to fit simplex or duplex adapters, the fiber optic patch panel is loaded with inside trays and accessories.

Features
  • The shell is high intensified & insulated material, thus having excellent mechanic performance
  • It is solid and durable
  • Adapters output: 12 core
  • Strength core and shell was insulated and with grounding lead
  • Suitable for inserting installation of SC, FC, ST and LC adaptor
  • Full accessories for convenient operations

The 24 port fiber optic patch panel is reliable fiber optic organization and distribution products, it is sliding type, convenient for operations and maintenance, The 24 port patch panel has wide operation temperature and suit density fiber optic installations.

24 port Patch Panel

Specifications
  • Environment temperature: -40°C ~+80°C
  • Relative humidity: ≤85% (30°C)
  • Atmosphere pressure: 70~106KPa
  • Insulated Resistance: ≥2×10MΩ/500V (DC)
  • Intensity ≤ 15kv (DC) /1min no spark-over and no flying arc
  • Fiber bending radium guaranteed more than 40mm: ≥40mm

Application: It is applicable for straight-through connection and diverged connection in aerial layout.

  • Duct and direct buried.
  • It can protect fiber connectors commendably.

Fiber optic patch panel is an integrated unit for fiber management, we offer wall mount patch panel and rack mount patch panel, these equipment function is to fix and manage the fiber optic cables inside the box as well as provide protection. There different models to fit for 12 core fiber, 24 core fiber, 36 core fiber, 48 core fiber, 72 core fiber and 96 core fiber applications. They can be with different adapter interface including the SC, ST, FC, LC MTRJ, E2000, etc.