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Guide to Choose the Right Fiber Optic Patch Cable

Now with the fibr eoptic cable being widely used in a variety of industries and places, the requests for fibre patch are being elaborated. Fibre patch cables are being required to be improved and provided more possibilities to satisfy various application environments. Actually, many special fibre patch cables have been created to answer the market demand. But do you know how to choose right fibre optic patch cable for our network system? The following passages may give you a clear guideline to choose the suitable patch cables.

Why You Need Different Fibre Optic Patch Cables?

Fibre optic patch cable, some times also called fibre optic jumper cable, are terminated with fibre optic connectors on both ends. Due to the fact that fibre patch cable can carry more data efficiently, they play an important role in telecommunication and computer networking. And they are also used in numbers of places. Therefore, when you choose fibre patch cables, the first thing you need to know is the environment that the patch cable will be used. Indoor or outdoor? In the air or buried underground? Different environments have different requirements for cables. Let’s take armored fibre patch cable for example. Armored fiber patch cable, wrapped a layer of protective “armor” outside of the fibre optic cable, is generally adopted in direct buried outside plant applications where a rugged cable is needed for rodent resistance.

fibre optic patch cables

What You Should Concern to Choose the Fibre Optic Patch Cable?
Single-mode vs Multimode

Single-mode fibre patch cable uses 9/125um glass fibre and multimode fiber patch cable uses 50/125um or 62.5/125um glass fiber. Generally, single-mode fiber patch cables are the best choice for transmitting data over long distances. They are usually used for connections over large areas, such as college campuses and cable television networks. And most single-mode cabling is color-coded yellow. Multmode fibre patch cables are usually used in short distances. They are typically used for data and audio/visual applications in local-area networks and connections within buildings. Multimode cables are generally color-coded orange or aqua.

Simplex vs Duplex

Simplex Fibre optic cable means the cable composes of only one fibre, then a duplex patch cable consists of two fibres. Therefore, simplex fibre optic cable is common used in a system where only one-way data transfers. And duplex fibre optic cable is applied to where requires simultaneous, bi-directional data transfer.

Connector Types

On both ends of the fibre optic patch cable are terminated with a fibre optic connector (LC/SC/ST/FC/MPO/MTP). With the rapid development of optical fibre telecommunication, many different types of fiber connectors are available. They share similar design characteristics. Different connector is used to plug into different device. If ports on the both ends devices are the same, the patch cables such as LC-LC/SC-SC/MPO-MPO can be used; if you want to connect different ports type devices, LC-SC, LC-FC and LC-ST patch cables may meet your demand.

Polishing Types

It’s known to us that whenever a connector is installed on the end of fibre, loss cannot be avoided. Some of this light loss is reflected directly back down the fibre towards the light source that generated it. These back reflections will damage the laser light sources and also disrupt the transmitted signal. In order to optimise transmitting performance and ensure the proper optical propagation, the end of the fibre must be properly polished to minimize loss. Generally, there are two common polishing types: UPC and APC. And the loss of APC connector is lower than UPC connectors. So the optical performance of APC connector is better than UPC connectors.

Cable Jacket

The cable jacket is to provide strength, integrity, and overall protection of the fibre member. When choose one kind of fibre optic cables, the environment that the cables be used should be taken into consideration. Usually there are three types of jacket: PVC, LSZH and OFNP. Which one you choose depends on where you use the cables. Here are their features.

  • PVC cable resistant to oxidation, it is commonly used for horizontal runs from the wiring centre.
  • LSZH cable has a special flame-retardant coating and it is used between floors in a building.
  • OFNP cable has fire-resistance and low smoke production characteristics. It usually works for vertical runs between floors.
Conclusion

In summary, there are many factors which may affect your choices of fibre optic patch cable. So it’s important to make sense which kind of patch cable can really meet your requirements. FS can provide all kinds of fibre optic patch cables to satisfy your needs!

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