Hello
everyone!
Today, I want to detail explain the troubleshooting process for dirty optical connectors. And if I have already written about this theme, this is a very important and one of the most common themes at FTTH seminars. Most problems on the optical network are caused by dirty connectors. Let's get started!
Dust is all around us. There is oil on the fingers. All this can very easily be found on the surface of the optical connectors. The size of a single-mode optical fiber is 9/125 um and when the surface of the ferrule gets dirty, this can lead to problems. For multimode optical fibers, it is not a big problem, because, their size is 62.5/125 um or 50/125 um.
Figure 1. The clean and dirty optical connectors
First, dirty optical connectors can drastically increase the attenuation on the connector pair. A typical attenuation is 0.5 dB or less. Dirty connectors can increase attenuation on the connector pair and in some cases lead to a broken link. The optical attenuation can be even 6-7 dB.
Figure 2. Dirty optical connectors
Second, dirty optical connectors can be permanently damaged. Because if the optical connectors are dirty and are being connected and disconnected, the connector pair may be damaged and attenuated.
Because of all this, it is very important that the optical connectors are tested and kept clean. We have to constantly clean the optical connectors when we connect a link or when we measure. If we do not use optical adapters and connectors, they must be closed.
The procedure of visual inspection and cleaning is as follows: with an optical microscope we visually check the surface of the ferrule, if everything is ok, we can connect that connector. If there is pollution, clean the connector. Then check the cleanliness of the optical connector again. If it is still dirty, repeat the process until we get a clean connector. In the next figure, we can see this process.
Figure 3. The procedure of visual inspection and cleaning optical connectors
I will continue to explain this troubleshooting process in the next article >> Troubleshooting process for dirty optical connectors (2)
Thank you!
