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Fiber optic line

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by jeff anderson

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I have a fiber connection from one end of the building to the other. It uses st connectors and 10MB transceivers. I want to switch to SC connectors and 100mb transceivers. Do I need to do anything to the box that the fiber comes in on? I also want to know if I can change the connectors on the fiber line or does it take special tools and knowledge.

7 replies

by mckaytech

I assume that your patch panel probably has ST connectors and your new 100mb transceivers have SC. The easiest way to handle that is to get patch cables with ST on one end and SC on the other and leave the patch panel alone.

Terminating fiber connectors requires expensive equipment and a fair amount of skill to do right. The process generally is to strip the fiber cover, epoxy the fiber into the connector, cleave the fiber and then polish the end. To get a good connection, you have to havea fiberoptic microscope and you have to know what you're looking at in terms of surface finish. If you don't polish enough, the connection is bad and if you over-polish, the connection is bad.

Rough costs would be $500-$750 for good tooling, $100 for the connectors you'll inevitably spoil and have to re-do, and about $2000 for the training class to learn how to do it right.

I'm usually a big fan of Do-It-Yourself, but terminating fiber is one of those skills I'll leave for someone who does it for a living.

regards!

paul

by mckaytech

I don't know who told you about the speed limitations but I would be very interested in knowing their rationale.

We just recently completed a project in which we are running Gigabit (1000 MHz) over fiber and we are using SC/ST patch cables at both ends of the fiber run. It seems to run fine at 1000 MHz so I'm curious why it wouldn't run at 100 MHz.

Our systems runs like this: Cisco Catalyst4000 GBIC (ST) -> patch panel (SC) -> fiber run -> patch panel (SC) -> Cisco Catalyst3500 GBIC (ST).

So... I can't explain what you're being told.

paul

by jeff anderson

Thanks for the insight. Heres how it looks. Fiber comes from ceiling into a box. Box has 3 sets of sc connectors leaving box. On set is connected directly into a switch. I was told that I had to go to SC to have 100mb on fiber transceiver. Dont know if that is true or not. If I go to a ST - SC patch cable then I would not get 100mb speed. Can you clarify this. I know absolutely nothing about this stuff. Thanks for your time.

by otl

I agree with answer #1, limitations are encoding / decoding equipment on each end of the fiber and the fiber and repeater operating properties.

FYI - ST - SC patch cables currently supporting WDM 4 layers deep (8257 MB)

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