Fiber Optic Cable Archives - Page 9 of 12

Why do We Run LSZH Cable?

If you have concerns on why do we have to run LSZH cables in some special networking cabling environment, FiberStore editor here is pleased to make it all a little clearer. In this article, we’ll explain a little abut what halogens are, what’s the difference between PVC and LSZH cable, and why do we have to run the LSZH cables.

What halogens are?

A halogen is a nonmetallic element, such as fluorine, chlorine, iodine, or bromine. When exposed to flames, substances made with halogens give off toxic fumes that quickly harm the eyes, nose, lungs, and throat. Did you notice tsat fluorine and chlorine are commonly found in cable insulation and jackets? Even when cables are designed to be flame-resistant, any cable when exposed to high enough temperatures will melt and burn. PVC cables contain chlorine, which emits toxic fumes when burned.

What’s the difference between PVC and LSZH cable?

We know, much of the cable currently in use in the United States and elsewhere in the world contains halogens. The European market is demanding that cables used in LANs, WANs, etc. Meet LSZH specification. The IEC 60332-1 governs the Flame Retardant Grade specifications in reference to LSZH cable.

Essentially the compound used in manufacturing cables meeting the above specifications reduces the amount of dangerous/poisonous gases in case of fire. The main difference in specifications between IEC 60332-1 versus UL 5181, UL 1666 and UL 910 is that the cable under the IEC specifications continue to burn while still emitting very low gases. The UL specs demand that the flame be extinguished, but it can still be emit poisonous/dangerous gases.

A PVC cable is made of polyvinyl chloride. It has a jacked that gives off heavy smoke, hydrochloric acid, and other toxic gases when it burns. Low smoke zero halogen cable has a flame-resistant jacket that doesn’t emit toxic fumes even if it burns. PVC patch cords are soft, while LSZH patch cords are more rigid because they contain the flame retardant compound, and they are aesthetically more pleasing.

Many different fibre optic cable manufacturers are now making low-smoke, zero-halogen (LSZH or LS0H) cables.

These cables are designed to emit no toxic fumes and produce little or no smoke when exposed to flames. Tunnels, enclosed rooms, aircraft, and other minimum-ventilation areas are prime spots for the use of LSZH cables because those areas are more difficult to escape from quickly.

Why do we have to run the LSZH cable?

LSZH cables are popular outside the United States. Some safety advocates are calling for the use of LSZH cables in the United States, specifically for the plenum space. Review your local building codes to determine if you must use LSZH cable. Non-LSZH cables will produce corrosive acids if they are exposed to water (such as from a sprinkler system) when burned; such acids may theoretically further endanger equipment. But many opponents of LSZH cable reason that if an area of the building is on fire, the equipment will be damaged by flames before it is damaged by corrosives from a burning cable.

Why, you might ask, would anyone in his or her right mind argue against the installation of LSZH cables everywhere? First, reducing toxic fumes doesn’t necessarily mean the cable is more
fireproof.

The flame-spread properties are worse than for cables in use today. Numerous studies by Bell Labs showed that cables composed of LSZH will not pass the plenum test, not because of smoke generation but because of flame spread. Most Low Smoke cables designs will only pass the riser test where the allowable flame spread is greater. Second, consider practicality. LSZH is an expensive solution to a problem that doesn’t seem to really exist in the United States.

Benefits From Waterproof Cables

Abrasion, vibration and impact damage, extreme temperatures, moisture ingress, chemical vapours and even fire retardancy will deeply damage your wiring cables. To solve this problem, fiber optic cable manufacturers have developed lots of special cables and cable assemblies for these applications. Such as waterproof cables designed for moisture environment, lszh(low smoke zero halogen or low smoke halogen free) cable provides protection from fire, which is not that easy to catch fire, etc.

Many of these cables have been designed and formulated to withstand the long term effects of being immersed in aqueous fluids of different kinds. They have been constructed using special insulation and jacket extrusions, and a variety of tapes, fillers and other compounds help prevent water from penetrating the cables. These materials are designed to absorb and swell so in the event that a cable is accidentally damaged, the point of entry will swell thus blocking and therefore preventing any water penetration.

In environments where additional protection is needed from moisture ingress, thorough water-proofing of an assembly can be achieved with the use of IP rated parts. Aside from preventing moisture ingress, waterproofed assemblies offer protection from abrasion, impact and heat damage and are ideal for application where units are exposed to extreme weather or high humidity either inside or outside. Waterproof cables are easily defined as any type of cable which can withstand being immersed in water. They can be seen in aquariums such as marine and tropical fish tanks where they are used to power the heaters and pumps and other various pieces of important equipment which is used in the running and maintenance of the aquarium. They have a wide variety of applications and may be used in saltwater, freshwater, solvents or even chemicals.

Waterproof cables are also used to power remotely operated underwater vehicles, which is a tethered underwater robot. These underwater robots are tethered or linked to a ship by a group of cables that carry electrical power, video and data signals to and from the ship. Many of these remote vehicles will also use hydraulic as well as electrical cabling.

Waterproof cables are used in communication, and a submarine communications cable is a cable which is laid beneath the sea to carry telecommunications between countries. They are very widely used in many different applications and even cables that run underground have to be waterproofed in some way. Waterproof cables are used in many different industries for various different applications.

Each installer wants to protect the cable as best as possible. There are a huge variety in the types of cables to choose from. Whether that might be a plastic, armored fiber optic cable or corning optical cable(cables from Corning), there are plenty of benefits in purchasing waterproof cables.

Tight Buffer Cable VS Loose Tube Cable

You may familiar with bulk fiber optic cable, but how much do you know the differences between tight buffer fiber and loose tube cable? This article will focus on tight buffer vs loose tube cable.

Tight Buffer vs Loose Tube Cable Design

Tight buffer or tight tube cable designs are typically used for ISP applications. Each fiber is coated with a buffer coating, usually with an outside diameter of 900m.

Loose buffer or loose tube cables mean that the fibers are placed loosely within a plastic tube whose inner diameter considerably larger than the fiber itself. Usually 6 to 12 fibers are placed within a single tube. The interior of the plastic tube is usually filled with a gel material that protects the fibers from moisture and physical stresses that may be experienced by the overall cable. Loose buffer designs are used for OSP applications such as underground installations, lashed or self-supporting aerial installations, and other OSP applications.

Advantages of Tight Buffer vs Loose Tube Cable

Each construction has inherent advantages. The loose buffer tube offers lower cable attenuation from microbending in any given fiber, plus a high level of isolation from external forces. Under continuous mechanical stress, the loose tube permits more stable transmission characteristics. The tight buffer construction permits smaller, lighter weight designs for similar fiber configuration, and generally yields a more flexible, crush resistant cable.

The other fiber protection technique, tight buffer, uses a direct extrusion of plastic over the basic fiber coating. Tight buffer constructions are able to withstand much greater crush and impact forces without fiber breakage.

The tight buffer design, however, results in lower isolation for the fiber from the stresses of temperature variation. While relatively more flexible than loose buffer, if the tight buffer is deployed with sharp bends or twists, optical losses are likely to exceed nominal specifications due to microbending.

Tensile Loading

Cable tensile load ratings, also called cable pulling tensions or pulling forces, are specified under short-term and long-term conditions. The short-term condition represents a cable during installation and it is not recommended that this tension is exceeded. The long-term condition represents an installed cable subjected to a permanent load for the life of the cable. Typical loose-tube cable designs have a short-term (during installation) tensile rating of 600 pounds (2700 N) and a long-term (post installation) tensile rating of 200 pounds (890 N).

Conclusion

Tight buffer vs loose tube cable, each has its own advantages and uses. Nowadays there are many big brands fiber optic cable manufacturers provide tight buffer cables and loose tube cables. FS.COM, also offers a wide range of bulk fiber optic cables, including cables from corning and cables for different applications, bulk fiber optic cable can be made in a variety of lengths and configurations to meet your needs. For more details, please visit FS.COM.

Size and Weight Advantages of Fiber Optic Cable over Copper Cable

Size and weight factors are always needed to be taken into consideration when preparing for a cable plant installation. Fiber optic cables are now running existing conduits or raceways that are partially or almost completely filled with copper cable. This is another area where small fiber optic cable has advantages over copper cable. In this article, we will do a comparison and try to determine the reduced-size and weight advantages of fiber optic cable that over copper cable.

Advantages of Fiber Optic Cable

As we already know, a coated optical fiber is typically 250um in diameter. We learn that fiber optic ribbon cable sandwich up to 12 coated optical fibers between two layers of Mylar tape. Twelve of these ribbons stacked on top of each other form a cube roughly 3mm by 3mm. This cube can be placed inside a buffer and surrounded by a strength member and jacket to form a cable. The overall diameter of this cable would be only slightly larger than an RG6 coaxial cable or a bundle of four Category 5e cable.

So how large would a copper cable have to be to offer the same performance as the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable? That would depend on transmission distance and the optical fiber data rate. Take Category 5E cable as an example, let’s place a bundle of Category 5e cables up against the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable operating at a modest 2.5Gbps data rate over a distance of just 100m.

A Cat5e cable contains four conductor pairs and as defined in ANSI/TIA-568-B.2 is 0.25” in diameter. Each pair is capable of a 100MHz transmission over 100m. 100MHz transmission carries 200 million symbols per second. If each symbol is a bit, the 100MHz Category 5e cable is capable of a 200Mbps transmission rate. When the performance of each pair is combined, a single Category 5 cable is capable of an 800Mbps transmission rate over a distance of 100m

Now let’s see how many Category 5e cables will be required to provide the same performance as the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable. The 144 optical fiber ribbon cable has a combined data transmission rate of 360Gbps. When we divide 360Gbps by 800Mbps, we see that 450 Category 5e cables are required to equal the performance of this modest fiber-optic system.

When 450 Category 5e cables are bundled together, they are roughly 5.3 inches in diameter. As noted earlier in this chapter, the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable is approximately the size of four Category 5e cables bundled together. The Category 5e bundle thus has a volume of roughly 112.5 times greater than the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable. In other words, Category 5e bundles need 112.5 times more space in the conduit than the 144 optical fiber ribbon cable.

This comparison we just made is very conservative. This distance we used was kept very short and the transmission rate for the optical fiber was kept low. We can get even a better appreciation for the cable size reduction fiber optic cable offers if we increase the transmission distance and the data rate.

In this comparison, let’s increase the transmission distance to 1,000m and the data transmission rate to 10Gbps. The bandwidth of a copper cable decreases as distance increases, just as with fiber-optic cables. Because we have increased the transmission distance by a factor of 10, it’s fair to say that the Category 5e cable bandwidth will decrease by a factor of 10 over 1000m.

With a reduction in bandwidth by a factor of 10, we will need ten times more Category 5e cables to equal the old 2.5Gbps performance. In other words, we need 4,500 Category 5e cables bundled together. In this comparison, however, the bandwidth has been increased from 2.5Gbp to 10Gbps. This means we have to quadruple the number of Category 5e cables to meet the ban width requirement. We now need 18,000 Category 5e cables bundled together. Imagine how many cables we would need if the transmission distance increased to 80,000m. We would need whopping 1,440,000 Category 5e cables bundled together.

These comparisons vividly illustrate the size advantages of fiber optic cable that has over copper per cables. The advantage becomes even more apparent as distances increase. The enormous capacity of such as small cable is exactly what is needed to install high-bandwidth systems in buildings where the conduits and raceways are almost fully populated with copper cables.

Now we have calculated the size advantages of fiber optic cable over Cat5e cable. Let’s look at the weight advantages of fiber optic cable. It is pretty easy to see that thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of Cat5e cable bundled together will outweigh a ribbon fiber optic cable roughly one half of an inch in diameter. It’s difficult to state exactly how much less a fiber optic cable would weigh than a copper cable performing the same job – these are just too many variables in transmission distance and data rate. However, it’s not difficult to imagine the weight savings that fiber-optic cables offer over copper cables. These weight savings are being employed in commercial aircraft, military aircraft, and the automotive industries, just to mention a few.

Conclusion

From the above, we have learned the size and weight advantages of fibre optic cable. FS, a reliable provider of networking equipment, offers a comprehensive line of fiber optic cables and Ethernet cables. Any queation about cabling, please contact us via sales@fs.com.

Common Fiber Optic Cable Types Review

Fiber optic cables has become a standard component in most contemporary cable infrastructures. As used for optical fibers varies, fibre optic cable manufacturers have produced cables to meet specific needs, and it is likely that moe will be created as future applications emerge. Bear in mind that different cable arrangements are variations on theme. Different combinations of buffer types, strength members, and jackets can be used to create cables to meet the needs of a wide of industries and uses.

Let’s go over several common types of fiber optic cables

Cordage

The simplest types of cables are actually called cordage, and are used in connections to equipment and patch panels. They are typically made into patch cords or jumpers. The major difference between cordage and cables is that cordage only has one optical-fiber/buffer combination in a jacket, while cables may have multiple optical fibers inside a jacket or sheath.

The two common types of cordage are simplex and duplex.

Simplex cordage consist of a single optical fiber with a tight buffer, and aramid yarn strength member, and a jacket. Simplex cordage gets its name from the fact that, because it is a single fiber, which is typically used for one-way, or simplex, transmission, although bidirectional communications are possible using a simple fiber.

Duplex cordage, also known as zipcord, is similar in appearance to household electrical cords. It is a convenient way to combine two simplex cords to achieve duplex, or two-way, transmissions without individual cords getting tangled or switched around accidentally.

Distribution cable

Distribution cables is need when it requires to run a large number of optical fibers through a building. Distribution cable consist of multiple tight-buffered fibers bundles in a jacket with a strength member. These cables may also feature a dielectric central member to increase tensile strength, resist bending, and prevent the cable from being kinked during installations.

These cable are ideal for inter-building routing. Depending on the jacket type hey may be routed through plenum areas or riser shafts to telecommunications rooms, wiring closet, and workstations.

The tight-buffered optical fibers are not meant to be handled much beyond the initial installation, since they do not include a strength member and jacket. Distribution cables may carry up to 144 individual tight-buffered optical fibers, many of which may not be used immediately but allow for future expansion.

Armored cable

Armored fiber optic cable has two jackets. The inner jacket is surrounded by the armored and the outer jacket or sheath surrounds the armor. This cable can be used for indoor and outdoor applications.

Armored cables are used for outdoor application is typically a loose tube construction designed for direct burial applications. The armor is typically a corrugated steel tape surrounded by an outer polyethylene jacket. This combination of outer jacket and armor protects the optical fibers from gnawing animals and the damage that can occur during direct burial installations.

Armored cables used for indoor applications may feature tight-buffered or loose-buffered optical fibers, strength members, and an inner jacket. The inner jacket is typically surrounded by a spirally wrapped interlocking metal tape armor. This type of armor is rugged and provides crush resistance. These cable are used in heavy traffic areas and installations that require extra protections, including protection from rodents.

Ribbon Cable

As it name indicate that fiber optic ribbon cable contains fiber ribbons, which are actually coated optical fibers placed side by side, encapsulated in Mylar tape, similar to a miniature version of wire ribbons used in computer wiring. A single ribbon may contain 4, 8, 12 optical fibers. Ribbon cable can be stacked up to 22 high.

Because the ribbon contains only coated optical fibers, this type of cable takes up much less space than individually buffered optical fibers. As a result, ribbon cables are denser than any other cable design. They are ideal for applications where limited space is available, such as in an existing conduit that has very little room left for an additional cable.

Besides, ribbon cables come in two basic arrangements wich is loose tube ribbon cable and jacket ribbon cable.

In the loose tube ribbon cable, fiber ribbons are stacked on top of one another inside a loose-buffered tube. This type of arrangement can hold several hundred fibers in close quarters. The buffer, strength members, and cable jacket carry any stain while the fiber ribbons move freely inside the buffer tuber.

The jacket ribbon cable looks like a regular tight-buffered cable, but it is elongated to contain a fiber ribbon. This type of cable typically features a small amount of strength member and a ripcord to tear through the jacket.

Ribbon fiber provides definite size and weight savings, it does require special equipment and training to take advantage of those benefits. Connectors, strippers, cleavers, and fusion splicers must all be tailored to the ribbon fiber. For these reasons, ribbon fiber may not be the best solution in all situations.

Expect the above cables, there are also other fiber optic cable types like Submarine cable for carrying optical fiber underwater; Aerospace cable designed to be installed in aircraft and spacecraft; Aerial cable (figure 8 cable) for aerial installations; Hybrid cable combined multimode and single-mode optical fibers in on cable as well as the composite cable that designed to carry both optical fiber and current-carrying electrical conductors in the same run.