Category: Fiber Optic Cable

Cost Effective POF Fiber In General

Through glass fiber optic cable is more welcome in today’s telecommunication system, plastic optic fiber(POF) is another option as it can do something that fiber optic doesn’t do. Before the invention of the plastic optical fiber, the glass optical fiber had been invented but still it never met the standard set because it only managed medical imaging at a certain level. POF’s tight bend radius and low cost make it unique for Medical Imaging applications.

Since the modifications to enhance better POF Fiber have been on and we experience major improvements day by day. Most of the technology we use especially in communication and data transmitting is through the plastic optical fiber. One of the most exciting developments in polymer fibers has been the development of microstructured polymer optical fibers (mPOF), a type of photonic crystal fiber. Traditionally PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) is the core material of plastic optic fiber, and fluorinated polymers are the cladding material. Since the late 1990s however, much higher-performance POF based on perfluorinated polymers (mainly polyperfluorobutenylvinylether) has begun to appear in the marketplace. The latest state of POF, engineers now know the right types of plastics and manufacturing techniques to develop graded-index and low-NA plastic fiber with transmission rates of 3 Gb/sec in runs exceeding 100m.

POF in Simple:

  • PMMA and Polystyrene are used as fiber core, with refractive indices of 1.49 and 1.59 respectively.
  • Generally, fiber cladding is made of silicone resin (refractive index ~1.46).
  • High refractive index difference is maintained between core and cladding.
  • High numerical aperture.
  • Have high mechanical flexibility and low cost.
  • Attenuation loss is about 1 dB/m @ 650 nm.
  • Core/Cladding size 1 mm.
  • Bandwidth is ~5 MHz-km @ 650 nm.

Plastic optical fiber is commonly applied to consumer short-distance fiber for electronic appliances and motor vehicles. POF has been called the “consumer” optical fiber because the fiber and associated optical links, connectors, and installation are all inexpensive. Due to the attenuation and distortion characteristics of the traditional PMMA fibers are commonly used for low-speed, short-distance (up to 100 meters) applications in digital LANs, home appliances, home networks, industrial networks (PROFIBUS, PROFINET), and car networks (MOST). The perfluorinated polymer fibers arecommonly used for much higher-speed applications such as data center wiring and building LAN wiring.

Unlike the fiber cables used in long distance communication systems that require precise cutting, polishing, and alignment or the connector terminations on CAT5/CAT6 cable that require special equipment like fusion splicer, fujikura electrodes, fiber cleavers, optical fiber aligners, LAN Network Tester, cable crimping tool and so on. POF Fiber can be installed by anyone using a simple cutting tool. POF Fiber can be easily installed under baseboards and along carpet edges or around door moldings. It can be pulled under carpets, fit through small holes, or run inside the wall cavity and attic as is done with traditional wiring practices.

Corning Fiber Optic Cable: World Leader in Fiber Optics Technology

From the time they introduced fiber optic technology in the 1970, corning has been at the forefront of fiber optic technology, forming the designs, products and guidelines that have become standard in the industry today. Corning’s broadened product range means they are now an industry leading fiber optic cable manufacturers in a number of customer focused solutions including:

Corning fiber optic cable
Corning connectors and related hardware
Corning distributed antenna systems (DAS)
Harsh environments products of Corning

As the inventors of optical fiber in 1970, innovation is at the core of Corning’s successful history of technology and the foundation of providing compatible solutions that meet our customer’s ever-changing needs. Such solutions include FiberStore solutions that provide the successful and efficient foundation of your data center, local area, intelligent traffic system and industrial networks.

After half a year after Corning fist debuted the “Thunderfolt Optical Cable” at CES 2013 in January alongside a USB standard solution dubbed “USB 3. Optical Cables”, Corning announced that its Thunderbolt Optical Cables are the first completely optical fiber products to receive Intel’s certification.

Corning’s all-optical Thunderbolt cable use the company’s ClearCuve VSDN optical fiber technology to deliver high data speeds over longer distances than traditional copper cables. The optical fiber version are also 50 percent smaller and 80 percent lighter than their copper counterparts.

Corning plans to make the cable available at various lengths starting at 10 meters, through final products specifications have yet to be revealed.

Corning has put over 3,000,000,000 US Dollars investment in China; it has 8 manufacturing factories in China with around 3000 workers. Corning Inc China headquarter is located in Shanghai. For fiber optic cable business, it has one optical fiber company and one fiber optic cable company in Shanghai, which is fully run and invested by Corning. Meanwhile it has two holding companies for fiber optic cable business in China, one is in Chengdu and other is in Beijing. Not only on fiber optic cable business, Corning also provides LCD products and ceramic products used on cars in China. FiberStore is proud to offer an extensive line of Corning products! Whether your application is indoors, outdoors, aerial, riser or plenum, you’re sure to find the perfect fiber optic cable for your installation among Coring’s Optical Fiber Communication product lines.

Are Your Sure that You Have Chosen the Truly Low Smoke Non Halogen Cables

This article will guide to buy the truly low smoke halogen free cable, which is fully compliant with IEC standards and ultimately offers maximum safety and assurance in application. Awareness of the impact of smoke and harmful gases emitted during a fire has led to a growing demand for an alternative to more traditional plastic halogenated cable constructions.

Although low smoke and flume cables are commonplace, however, in the event of a fiber, these cables can still release toxic and corrosive gases. In the next text, we will tell you the difference between low smoke non halogen or low smoke and halogen:

It is true to state that a cable can have low smoke characteristics so that in the event of a fire, it will not release the dense smoke plumes seen with a traditional PVC cable. However, cable can be low smoke and fume and yet still release toxic and corrosive gases when ignited. Despite its low smoke generation, this classification of cable, commonly known as LSF (Low Smoke and Fume) still typically contains PVC based compounds, making it exempt from halogen free compliance.

The fact is cables which have PVC in their insulation or cable jacket are not compliant and cannot be deemed to low smoke non halogen. If they contain PVC, they are not halogen-free.

Stringent fire requirements, environmental concerns and new legislation have resulted in an increased demand for both low smoke and low smoke non halogen cables. This increase in demand has also led to a growth in the number of cable manufacturers and suppliers in the market.

A low smoke cable and a low smoke non halogen cable are often confused people as a multitude of cables available and the industrial abbreviations used to describe them. Whilst a low smoke cable is acceptable in some industries and applications, for maximum safety, fully compliant low smoke non halogen cable from a reputable cable manufacturer is recommended. A high performance low smoke non halogen cable can bring benefits in addition to compliance, particularity in the case of flame retardants which is vital to help prevent the spread of fire.

Conformity to the IEC standard 60332-1-2 is a fundamental requirement for flame retardants for communications cables whether halogenated or not; however, superior quality Low Smoke Non Halogen cables can achieve a higher rating to the IEC standard 60332-3-24. Superior flame retardancy to reduce the spread of fire, wider operating temperatures for confident use in varying temperature applications and improved tensile strength for durability can all be achieved from a premium quality cable designed for total reliability and safety.

Reputable fiber optic cable supplier will build these additional benefits into their cable design and manufacturing processes. Process capability does not necessarily bring process stability, consistent manufacturing quality is vital for assured performance and Flame Retardant Low Smoke Non Halogen compliance.

Plastic Optical Fiber System

There are numbers of services providing large-volume information content, such as high-definition movies, continues to increase rapidly. Single-mode glass optical fiber has been widely deployed in data trunk lines and pipelines to connect large cities and nations. It has already become indispensable as an information transmission medium. However, SM GOF is mechanically weak and lacks sufficient bending ability. Moreover, as the core diameter is very small, just 10 um, extremely precise techniques and expensive devices are required to connect fibers to signals receiving devices.

Because of this, SM GOF is rearly used for very short reach networks, such as local area networks in buildings. Facing this “last hundred meters” problem in optical fiber infrastructure, plastic optical fiber has obvious advantage over it:

POF fiber is made out of a plastic such as acrylic (PMMA) as the core material and fluorinated or perfluorinated polymers as the cladding materials. It carries optical signals along a core made from plastic, instead of the more traditional silica, the price of which is much cheaper. It can cost approximately one fifth as much as comparable glass fiber. Which puts it within reach of more consumers. Customers who want to connect to the silica fiber optical network maintained by a telecommunications company usually cannot afford traditional optical fiber for internal wiring, but the plastic optical fiber can help to make the connection.

Plastic optical fiber (POF) systems offer the promise for low cost applications in communications, data transmission, illumination, lighting, imaging, sensing and light transmission. Plastic fiber optic systems provide the same advantages of glass optical fiber (GOF) but at lower cost and easier use. Glass optical fiber systems have received more attention than POF, mainly due to their rapid acceptance in telecommunications as data rates up to 100 Mbps and distance up to 100 meters.

Plastic fiber optic cable systems are also finding increased applications for sensors and lighting. The technology is also moving rapidly as evidenced by recent papers on multimode and single mode POF, high temperature fiber, integrated POF circuits, laminated lightguides, discrete components both active and passive, optical switching, and other developments too numerous to mention.

However, POF has two important weaknesses: it has significantly lower bandwidth than GOF, and its attenuation is far higher. Recent developments conquering both of these issues now mean that POF is regarded as the strongest candidate at present for optical data transmission over the last hundred meters.

Affordable Plastic Optic Fiber

Plastic optical fiber, Polymer optical fiber or POF is an optical fiber which is made out of plastic. Similar to the traditional glass fiber, plastic fiber transmits light (or data) through the core of the fiber.

Traditionally PMMA (acrylic) is the core material, and fluorinated polymers are the cladding material. Since the late 1990s however, much higher-performance POF based on perfluorinated polymers (mainly polyperfluorobutenylvinylether) has begun to appear in the marketplace. The perfluorinated polymer fibers are commonly used for much higher-speed applications such as data center wiring and building LAN wiring.

Advantages of POF

  • Plastic fiber is an inexpensive type of fiber and generally lower quality than glass optical fiber. Attenuation is generally higher with plastic fiber. Unlike glass, plastic fiber can easily be cut and bent to fit in hard-to-reach places and the larger core also allows for slightly damaged fiber to work. PoF is much larger in diameter which results in lower data rates making it most suitable for high bandwidth signal transmission over short distances. POF products are most commonly used in medical, automotive, home networks, as well as digital audio and video interfaces.
  • One of the most exciting developments in polymer fibers has been the development of microstructured polymer optical fibers (mPOF), a type of photonic crystal fiber. POF fiber also has applications in sensing. It is possible to write Fiber Bragg grating in single mode and multimode POF.
  • Plastic fiber attenuation over short distances is not a major problem and therefore is becoming popular in more popular especially where there are budget concerns.
  • Plastic fiber is extremely durable and is able to be bent much more than glass fiber, however it is flammable, so care must be taken in deciding whether plastic fiber is correct for particular applications.
  • POF sustains a data transfer speed of 2.5GB/s, which isn’t as fast as glass optical fiber, but is much faster than traditional copper wire.

Although the actual fiber optic cable cost per foot is similar to the plastic fiber, their installed cost is much higher due to the special handling and installation techniques required.  POF offers promise for desktop LAN connections, can be installed in minutes with minimal tools and training. POF cost approximately one fifth as much as comparable bulk fiber optic cable, which puts it within reach of more consumers.  Bandwidth exceeds anyones estimates for the next decade. Prices are competitive with copper. Standards groups are now looking at options for POF. POF could prove the next viable desktop connection.