Hello everyone,
There are many tools and instruments for inspecting, clean and measuring in optical networks: tools for cleaning, microscope, visual fiber tracer, visual fault locator, light source, optical power meter, PON meter, reference cables, OTDR, fiber identifier, etc. This is a big theme.
When we finished some optical links, we must test them. Measure optical loss is very important, because that we use a light source and optical power meter/PON meter or fiber identifier.
Today, I will talk about light sources, optical power meters, and PON power meters. With these instruments, we can measure total optical loss (including length of optical cable, optical connectors, splices, optical splitters, …).
The light source is an instrument that can emit different wavelengths – 650nm, 820nm, 850nm, 870nm, 1300nm, 1310nm, 1550nm, ... To measure optical loss in multimode fiber we will use light source at 650, 820, 850, 870 and 1300nm. To test single-mode fiber, we will use a light source at 1310 and 1550nm. For the measurement result to be good, the light source must be stable.
An optical power meter (OPM) is the instrument for measure optical power. Using the buttons on the instrument, we can choose wavelength (e.g. 650, 850, 1310, 1550nm) and unit for measuring (e.g. dB/dBm). We can measure only one wavelength at the moment, and this instrument will show the correct value in a system with only one wavelength.
In systems with two or more wavelengths, this instrument can not show the correct value. For example, in the GPON system (RFoG), there is 1310nm (data, US), 1490nm (data, DS), and 1550nm (video, DS). In this situation, we will use a PON meter. It can measure 3 wavelengths in parallel and show us all results on the display of the instrument.
The next pictures show us the PON meter. We can see 3 optical connectors, 2 optical connectors are for measuring in the GPON system. In the middle is the connector for OPM.
For more information, please click:
Main instruments for measuring in optical networks (1)
Main instruments for measuring in optical networks (2)
Main instruments for measuring in optical networks (4)
Thank you!
