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Home > Archive > Data Storage > June 2007 > "Cable Tester" for fibres ??
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"Cable Tester" for fibres ??
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| Nicholas Buckley 2007-06-16, 7:14 am |
| Hi all,
Assuming such a beast exists, can anybody recommend a simple, inexpensive
test tool for fibre cables ?
I had in mind something like an electrical continuity tester, or something
similar to that which my LAN colleagues use to test their cables.
I don't want an all singing, all dancing bench test rig; just a basic,
hand-held device that will allow you to plug both ends of a cable into it
and then say, "Yes, this lc-lc is good to go" or "No, bin it".
This will save me time and effort hiking between offices and datacentres,
even though I know I could (more or less) "prove" a cable's viability by
plugging between an HBA and a switch port.
Many thanks,
Nick,
UK
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| "Nicholas Buckley" <nick_buckley@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:LWNci.43$vA3.21@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
> Assuming such a beast exists, can anybody recommend a simple, inexpensive
> test tool for fibre cables ?
>
> I had in mind something like an electrical continuity tester, or something
> similar to that which my LAN colleagues use to test their cables.
>
> I don't want an all singing, all dancing bench test rig; just a basic,
> hand-held device that will allow you to plug both ends of a cable into it
> and then say, "Yes, this lc-lc is good to go" or "No, bin it".
>
> This will save me time and effort hiking between offices and datacentres,
> even though I know I could (more or less) "prove" a cable's viability by
> plugging between an HBA and a switch port.
The failure for fibre is rarely in the cable itself, at a midpoint, at least
for shorter < 100M cables. What you need to concern yourself with is the
optical connectors. Those can get scratched and covered with dust very
easily. You need a fiber optic inspection scope. Obviously this carries
risk of eye damage if an untrained user inspects a lit cable on the wrong
end, so don't forget to create a business process around the use of the
scope that makes such an event impossible. Alternately, there are some
very good eye-safe solutions that project the image to a CRT or LCD.
--
Will
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