FIBER & CABLE: Tips

Jacket – The jacket is the external covering of the fiber optic cable. While it offers protection, its primary purpose is not to provide strength. Essentially, the jacket holds all components together: the aramid strength members and buffered fiber, which...

Minus Coplanarity is simply the distance between the lowest fiber and the “best-fit plane” through the array of fibers (also called the “fiber line”). It is a measure of fiber height variation within an array of fibers. A lower number is better, with a value...

Any nicks to the fiber during stripping create an EXTREMELY weak point in the fiber. The transition point where the protective coating ends and the stripped fiber begins is especially prone to damage and is always the weakest part of the entire fiber length of a...

In regards to MT ferrule geometry measurements, Minus Coplanarity (or Minus-Side Coplanarity) is one way to describe how “flat” or “co-planar” an array of fibers is to ensure minimum optical performance requirements of the telecom world, it is important to...

Fiber diameters play an important role in the correct amount/volume injected into the connector. For example, the 900-micron buffered fiber will displace more epoxy than a 250-micron fiber resulting in totally different volumes required to inject into the...

It is important that the manufacturing site takes preventive measures to help reduce the chance of fiber damage during stripping, and measures to identify such damage, should it exist, before connectorizing. Such measures may include: Performing a “bending...

In most applications light is injected into the core of the glass fiber and follows the physical patch of the fiber due to the internal reflection between the core/cladding edge which acts as a mirror. When the fiber core is smaller in diameter, less of core/cladding...