Fiber Optic Testing and associated important facts!

Fiber optics cables serve as backbone in almost every field like school, college, university, MNC’s and telecommunication industry. These cables comprise of transparent delicate fibers which are thin like hair and play a vital role in transmitting of data from one end to another.

Regardless of the distance because of fiber cables only, fast and reliable data communication is possible. It is because of the prominent fact that conventional media of communication has been replaced.

Although, a crucial step for efficient workflow of fiber cables it is must to follow fiber optic testing. During this process, quality standards, performance and working of fiber cables is evaluated. Via this way defaults are easily checked in the cable which helps in taking preventive measures beforehand.

Components that are tested under it are connectors, detectors, receivers, splices, LED etc. In order to check cable there is special fiber optic testing equipment that is used for testing purpose. Depending on the type of components that are needed to be checked, testing equipment also vary. Moreover it’s important to make sure that one is using right testing equipment such as fault locator, power meter, coupling adapter, cleaning wipes, optical loss testing set, alcohol for cleaning.

Following are few things that are needed to keep in mind, before performing it:

Foremost thing which is must to assured is that you have sufficient knowledge about how to perform testing. Especially, when you are not experienced in performing such activity, you can end up making mistakes and cause additional losses to the cabling.

Use of tools is important to be known in order to perform right method of testing. For example, use of cleaning materials like pure alcohol without judging where the fault is, can lead to damaging of cables.

Needs to read all the instructions carefully, so as to perform testing efficiently.

Before starting with the testing procedure make sure that tools are working properly. In regard to this you need to buy tested equipment from a reliable manufacturer, who is known for delivering best quality tools to its clients.

If you aren’t aware of equipment working then you need to consult professional of fiber optic testing company. They would not just determine the faults but solve it right away to avoid the loss occurring to the company, due to its failure.

A proper understanding of network layout is required so as find faults easily. Troubleshooting cannot be performed by the time one is not aware of the network.

Alongside testing, inspection is also carries out to ensure there is no loss of light in the fiber cable. This helps in detecting damage and contamination that result in loss of signal.

Before starting with the testing procedure make sure fiber optic testing equipment are fully bench tested by the manufacturer company.

Various phases of fiber optic cleaning process

Fiber optic cables require routine inspection and cleaning. This task needs to be performed in order to ensure that they meet the higher standards of performance. While few of the cables only needs basic tools for inspection and cleaning, there are other sorts of cables that require special type of equipment for the same.

There are four phases of the cleaning process:

1st Phase: Cleaning using fiber optic products

There are different types of fiber optic cleaning products that are available for the job, which if used properly, ensure that cables and other connecting devices are free from contaminations like dust particles, oil, spotting and damages like scratches, chips, or anything else for that matter, which frequently deposits on the cable’s surface due to its regular use. Here are few of the popular products used for cleaning:

Wipes: Both dry and wet wipes are used to loosen the dust particles, to remove the oil residuals and evaporative water spotting. There are some precautions (like follow single circular and straight wiping motion instead of back and forth wiping) that must be taken during cleaning with wipes in order to protect the cable surface from scratches, pitting and chips.

Alcohol: Isopropyl alcohol is commonly used to dissolve oil deposits and loosen dirt contaminations. Some amount of this cleaning solvent is applied on wipes through sprays and ultrasonic cleaning.

Air: Air cleaning involves the use of compressed air canes with narrow nozzle extension to blow away the deposited contaminations. Air cleaning method is sometimes used after drying when lint-fibers have any problem.

Ultrasonic: It is the commonly used cleaning method in manufacturing environments. This type of fiber optic cleaning approach uses laser device for removing lint fibers, dirt, and oil contaminations, without touching fibers or connectors.

2nd Phase: Drying

In this phase, open air dry, wipes and pressurized air dry techniques are implemented, as the final operation in the cleaning process, to dry the component surface.

3rd Phase: Inspection

Conducting fiber optic inspection is vital to find and locate the areas of faults on the cable surface. To do this task, various inspection tools such as hand scopes, video scopes, and microscopes are used before and after cleaning.

Before getting started with the cleaning task, it is important to carry out inspection before, so that you can employ appropriate cleaning and troubleshooting procedures.

4th Phase: Re-polishing

Re-polishing is done when chips, scratches, or burns are detected, due to mishandling or inadequate cleaning motions, on the end-face of the fiber connector. Re-polishing is most often required in areas where mating and de-mating of connecting devices is frequent.

Inspection and cleaning is necessary to ensure correct functioning of fiber-optics

Known as a backbone of today’s fast speed and reliable communication networks, fibre optics is a transmission medium relies on light signals instead of electric current for high-speed data transfers. Optical fibers are the thin threads of flexible plastic or glass that functions as a “light-pipe” or “waveguide” to transmit light signals between two ends of the cable.

The downside of these cables is that they are easily vulnerable to contaminations like dust particles, oils from human hands, water spotting and damages like pitting, chips, and scratches that occur on the surface of the fibers. These problems occur either due to regular use and mating or de-mating of cables, or due to the inadequate cleaning procedure. These issues with the fibres will gradually decrease the performance of this high-speed data-communication medium.

To avoid such problems, right fiber optic testing, cleaning and inspection procedures need to be implemented at regular time intervals. Inspection on optical cables can be done before and after cleaning. It is a good practice to inspect cables before in order to find and locate the real problem so that appropriate cleaning and troubleshooting methods can be executed. For example, you may be implementing the best cleaning approach, the inspection procedure showing a different type of damage that cleaning is not a solution.

Mentioned below are some important points to remember about inspection:

Inspection is not always essential if your cleaning method is consistent and correct.

Eye inspection technique will be more effective to find larger contamination, but not minute particles or oil deposits. It is a good idea to use various inspecting devices such as video scope, hand scopes, and microscopes to locate contaminations and damages.

Use scope inspection, is it is essential for your application. This is because of the reason that it is very time consuming technique, especially, when it is need to inspect tens, or even hundreds of connecting devices in an installation.

After you done with the inspection, cleaning of fiber optic is executed. During this, several types of cleaning tools are used in order to ensure that cable is completely free from dust contaminations. Compressed air canes (that have nozzle tube extension with a pressing button on the top), Isopropyl alcohol, dry and wet wipes, cleaning swabs, soaking, and ultrasonic are some of the most common tools used for loosen dirt contaminations and dissolve oils.