Views: 198 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2020-09-09 Origin: Site
The end face of the optical fiber patch cord refers to the flat section at the end of the connector with different shapes and structures. The end face of optical fiber patch cord is a place that is easy to be ignored. Because of the nonstandard operation, it is easy to be polluted.
1. Visual Inspection
After disconnecting the device, put the optical fiber patch cord under the light, and check whether the end face is clean and smooth by observing whether the light reflection of the end face is bright. Through observation, if the reflection of the end face light is smooth and bright, it is considered to be relatively clean. If the reflection light of the end face is not too bright and smooth, it is likely that there is dirt or scratches on the end face. The end face will seriously affect the quality of optical transmission. Of course, using the instrument to inspect the end face can more comprehensively understand the details of the end face.
2. Instrument Inspection
At present, there are many inspection tool instruments for fiber end faces, among which fiber microscope is the most widely used professional inspection instrument. In general, the fiber microscope used for multimode can show a magnification of 200 times, while the fiber microscope used for a single mode can show a magnification of 400 times.
1. Clean the End Face Without the Aid of Professional Tools
Without the aid of tools, it is necessary to prepare anhydrous alcohol, cleaning cotton ball and lens paper. The cleaning procedure is as follows.
(1) Hold the clean cotton ball in one hand, and then drop the anhydrous alcohol on the cotton ball. The alcohol should not be dropped too much.
(2) Wipe the end face with a cotton ball with anhydrous alcohol in the same direction, the number of wipes depends on the degree of dirt on the end face.
(3) Fold the lens paper for more than 3 layers, and wipe the end face with the lens paper in the same direction until the alcohol is completely dry.
(4) Carefully check the reflection of light on each part of the end face and whether there are fiber debris on the end face. If necessary, repeat the above steps 1 to 3 until the end face is clean.
2. Clean the End Face with the Help of Professional Tools
These fiber optic cleaning tools contains optical fiber cleaning tubes, optical fiber cleaning cards, optical fiber solvent pens, optical fiber cotton swabs and other kits, which is very convenient to use. The specific steps are as follows.
(1) Contact Cleaning Method
1) Dust-free Paper or Dust-free Cloth
Wipe the end face of the optical fiber patch cord with dust-free paper or dust-free cloth and absolute alcohol. The dust-free paper is made of native wood pulp with special processing technology, which has the characteristics of ultra-low dust, pure texture, highly efficient water absorption, fine paper, not scraping the surface of the flowers. Dust-free fabric is strong and soft. It does not produce fiber scraps, it does not carry any chemical impurities, and it does not cause allergic reactions. What's more it doesn't fluff easily. This method is characterized by simple operation and low cost, but the effect is general.
2) Cassette Cleaner
The shape of the cassette cleaner is like a magnetic tape. It uses a special roll of cleaning tape, which is installed in a rolling shell. Because it uses strong adhesive to remove the dirt on the connector end without alcohol, it is very effective for every cleaning. The disadvantage of this method is that sometimes the adhesive will remain on the end surface of the connector, the adhesive tape is a consumable and the cost is high.
3) Special Cleaning Rod
The special cleaning rod for optical fiber is specially designed to clean the inside of the optical fiber adapter or to clean the hard to reach plug end face inside the adapter. Its shape is like a pen, and one end can extend into the ceramic sleeve of the adapter. It adopts a combination of cotton swabs and anhydrous alcohol, or a strong adhesive. There are two common specifications: 1.25mm and 2.5mm. 1.25mm type is for cleaning LC type connector, 2.5mm type is for cleaning FC/SC/ST and other connectors.
(2) Non-contact Cleaning Method
1) Ultrasonic Cleaning Method
Anyone who has worked on the polishing of optical fiber ferrules knows that there is an ultrasonic cleaning process after the optical fiber patch cord is polished, which is used to clean the glue and dirt on the end face of the plug core. Nowadays, there are portable ultrasonic cleaners on the market, and its principle is the same as other ultrasonic cleaning methods. The key of this method is to transform the cleaning liquid into an ultrasonic liquid column in such a small space and send it to the end of the connector. The ultrasonic fluid column will not have any contact with the connector except where it should be cleaned, nor will there be any harmful residue.
2) High-pressure Blowing Method
Its principle is to apply cleaning fluid to the end face of the connector, and then blow it at the end face of the connector with high-pressure gas. The advantage of this method is the short time, but it cannot be cleaned without high-pressure gas. There are also some special gas cleaning tools on the market, which are very convenient.
For which cleaning method to choose, we should consider the performance requirements of optical fiber patch cord, the site environment, and the cost. On the premise of meeting the performance requirements of optical fiber patch cord, we should choose the method with the highest cost performance.
