Tag Archives: LC Connector

LC-LC Patch Cable in Data Center

LC-LC patch cable has already become the main force of high density cabling network infrastructure. To future increase the profits of LC-LC fiber patch cable, manufactures has invented LC-LC patch cables of different features to meet various requirements in data center and increase the network performance.

What Kind of Fiber Patch Cable Is Required in Data Center?

Data center is a place of thousands fiber links. The selection of fiber patch cables will directly affect the network performance. More and more data centers choose to select fiber patch cable of high performance. Generally, insertion loss and return loss of connectors terminated on patch cable and light loss of optical fiber used for fiber patch cable are three most basic factors for fiber patch cable selection. To satisfy the increasing demands for higher density and easier management in data center, the optimization of fiber patch cable has never stopped. The following introduces several popular LC-LC fiber patch cables which represent the trends of fiber patch cable that data center is asking for.

LC-LC fiber patch cable

Low Insertion Loss and Bend Loss LC-LC Patch Cable

When a length of fiber patch cable is connected in network, optical light loss occurs at the optical fiber and the connectors terminated on it. There are different optical light losses, among which insertion loss at the connectors and bend loss in fiber optic cables are the two most commonly light losses that technicians are trying to overcome. Manufactures provides LC-LC fiber patch cables which can minimize these losses to the most.

Insertion loss refers to the fiber optic light loss caused when a fiber optic component insert into another one to form the fiber optic link. To provide low insertion loss patch cable, LC connectors terminated on the patch cable has been optimized. Standard LC-LC patch cable usually has an insertion loss less than 0.3 dB. However, for upgraded LC-LC patch cable, the insertion loss is usually lower than 0.2 dB. To decrease the bend loss, a type of bend insensitive fiber (BIF) has been used in fiber patch cable. With optimized LC connectors and bend insensitive fiber, LC-LC fiber patch cable could provide lower light loss during network transmission.

uniboot LC cable

High Density LC-LC Patch Cable

LC connector was invented for higher cabling density. standard duplex LC-LC fiber patch cable can provide much higher cabling density than other duplex fiber patch cables. To further increase cabling density in data center, the connectors and cable diameter of LC-LC patch cable are becoming smaller. Uniboot LC-LC patch cable is a typical example. This kind of fiber patch cable designed the two fibers of the duplex patch cable into a single cable. In adding the two connectors terminated at each end of the duplex patch cable share the same boot. With less using cable counts, uniboot patch cable can provide higher cabling density and better cooling environment in data center.

Polarity Switchable LC-LC Patch Cable

The development of patch cable won’t stop at low loss and high density. Making fiber patch cable easier-to-use is also important. Polarity of fiber patch cable matters a lot during installation of fiber patch cable, especially for duplex fiber patch cable and MTP patch cable. It is common to change the polarity of a duplex patch cable during deployment. Technicians might need tools to change the polarity of patch cable. However, a polarity switchable LC-LC patch cable can make things much easier. Without any tools you can polarity reversal could be really easy. The following picture shows the polarity reversal of a special designed LC-LC patch cable.

polarity switchable LC patch cable

Conclusion

LC-LC patch cable has been designed into many different types. A high performance fiber patch cable should not only provide low insertion loss and bend loss, but also higher cabling density and easy-to-use features. This is also the trend of data center development.

Secure Fiber Optic Link With Keyed LC Connectivity Products

The fiber optic demand is keeping increasing, which also increases the risks of unauthorized or inadvertent data changes. Various complicate software tools are being invented to secure the data links. Actually, these risks can be effectively reduced by using proper cabling hardware component. Keyed LC (also known as secure LC) connectivity products are suggested. How could keyed LC solve the problems that only complicate software tools can do? How to use them in the fiber optic network? This post will offer you the related details.

Understand Keyed LC Connectivity Products

The biggest characteristic of keyed LC connectivity products is their various colors. And behind these different colors are different keying features. Each color represents one unique pattern, which ensures that only the same-colored products can be connected to support the data link.

keyed LC connector and adapter

For example, the above picture shows the interfaces of a keyed LC connector and adapter which have yellow color and a unique keying pattern to ensure that they only fit each other. It is clearly showed that the inside structures of the yellow adapter and connector are different from the standard ones and are not compatible with the standards ones. All the other yellow-color LC products including LC patch cable, LC adapter panel and LC cassette has the same keying feature. In a keyed LC connectivity system, connections can be identified directly by their colors. If the color does not match, the keying feature will prevent the connector from carrying the signal.

color code of keyed LC products

Full Series Keyed LC Connectivity Products

Some vendor can provide up to 6, 8 or 10 different colored keyed LC connectivity products. In FS.COM, the keyed LC connectivity products are available in 12 different colors. The above picture shows the 12 different keying features that are identified by colors.

The keyed LC connectivity might be needed in any point of the fiber optic network. To satisfy these requirements and increase the cabling flexibility, a full series of keyed LC connectivity products are introduced in FS.COM, including keyed LC connector, keyed LC adapter, keyed LC patch cable, keyed LC adapter panel, keyed LC fiber optic cassette. And rack unit are also available for better network management. All of these products are available for single-mode (OS2) and multimode (OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4) applications. Please note different providers might have different keying pattern, even their keyed LC products are in the same color.

keyed LC connection guide

How to Use Keyed LC Connectivity Product in Fiber Optic Network

The using of keyed LC connectivity products is not much different from the standard ones. However, they are much more easier for identification and management because of their color-identification system. The above picture shows a typical fiber optic link that is commonly deployed in today’s fiber optic network from data center switch to the target devices. The required keyed LC connectivity products are listed in the following table.

Keyed LC Cabling Products Description
Keyed LC Connector 12 different colors; available in simple/duplex, APC/UPC polishing style
Keyed LC Adapter 12 different colors; available in simple/duplex, APC/UPC polishing style
Keyed LC Patch Cords 12 different colors; available fiber types are OS2, OM1, OM2,OM3,OM4
Keyed LC Adapter Panel 12 different colors; available in simple/duplex, APC/UPC polishing style, 6/8/12 ports
Keyed LC Cassette 12 different colors; available in simple/duplex, APC/UPC polishing style,
available fiber types are OS2, OM1, OM2,OM3,OM4

Cabling With High Density Push-Pull Tab Patch Cords

It is inevitable to plug fiber patch cables from the patch panels, switches or cassettes in today’s data center cabling. However, this simple movement becomes harder and harder nowadays. Why? Both the data rate of every optical fiber and the fiber counts being used are increased to support high data rate up to 40/100G or more. Thus, the cabling density increased largely with the deployment of 40/100G Ethernet network. Finger access to every patch cable that is loaded on the patch panel, switches or cassettes becomes difficult. Especially for these patch cables in the middle of the space.

For fiber patch cords attached with connectors like LC, things become more complex. Because this type of connectors are usually locked in the port with a latch on the connector body. If you want to plug out a patch cord with LC connectors, you should firstly unlock the connector from the port by clicking the latch with is with small size (shown in the following picture). Usually an external tool is used to unplug the specific connector in a high density cabling. It seems a problem doesn’t matter much in the whole cabling. However, during practical cabling, network engineer could be headache about this annoying problem. To find an easy and elegant way to solve this finger access problem, a new type of patch cords was invented, which is designed for high density cabling and is known as push-pull tab patch cords.

finger access for high-density cabling

What Is High Density Push-pull Tab Fiber Patch cable?

Compare with the traditional patch cords. This new type patch cord is attached with a connector with a push-pull tab, which can perfectly solve the fiber access problem in high density cabling. Except the additional tab for pushing and pull, these connectors don’t change much from the traditional ones that attached to patch cords. But this little change makes a great difference. The following is offering you the details about this novel product.

High density push-pull tab fiber patch cords are usually attached with LC or MPO connectors, as these two types of connector are currently the most popular in high density cabling like 40G, 100G, 120G or more. The following pictures shows the details of these two types of connectors with push-pull tab.

The one in the left of the following picture is an LC connector attached on push-pull tab patch cable. It’s of standard LC size. When the tab is pulled the LC connector would be unlocked from the port easily, cause the tab is linked to the latch of the LC connector. Once the LC connector is unlocked, the patch cords would be smoothly plugged out from the port and other patch cords around it by pulling the tab slightly. As for MPO connector with push-pull tab shown in the following picture on the right side. Finger access becomes easier. The tab can greatly simplify the use of MPO connectivity when manual access to the release slider and rear portion of the connector is restricted. In this way, easy insertion and extraction of MPO patch cords can be achieved.

push-pull tab patch cords connectors

Get More From Push-pull Tab Patch Cable

Is finger access the only advantage of push-pull tab patch cords. Definitely NO. The following illustrating will surely make you exciting about push-pull tab patch cable.

  • Flexibility and adjustability: it has been proved that push-pull tab can increase the cabling density by 30% to 50%, which can satisfy the future high density cabling requirements for 120G or more.
  • Reliability: To reach the specific connector you want, you might loosen or remove other connectors around it, which can highly increase the reliability of the network.
  • Cost-save and time-save: it is clear that with push-pull tab patch cords, cabling becomes easy and elegant with higher ROI.
Fiberstore Push-Pull Tab Fiber Patch Cable Solutions

If you are looking for a simple and easy high density patch cabling solution, push-pull tab patch cords provided by Fiberstore can satisfy your requirements. The following chart is the most common applications of push-pull tab patch cords for your references.

Application Patch Cords Cable Type Connectors on Both Ends
10G to 10G Cabling Duplex LC Push-pull Tab Patch Cord OM3/OM4/Single-mode Duplex LC Duplex LC
40G to 40G Cabling 12-fiber MPO Push-pull Tab Trunk Cable OM3/OM4/Single-mode MPO (male/female) MPO (male/female)
40G to 10G Cabling 12-fiber MPO to 8 LC Push-pull Tab Break out Cable OM3/OM4/Single-mode MPO (male/female) 4 Duplex LC
100G to 100G Cabling 24-fiber MPO Push-pull Tab Trunk Cable OM3/OM4/Single-mode MPO (male/female) MPO (male/female)

For more details and customized solution of push-pull tab patch cords, you can always access Fiberstore by FS.COM or emailing us at sales@fs.com

LC Connector Introduction

Fiber optic connectors are used to the mechanical and optical means for cross connecting fibers. Fiber optic connectors can also be used to join fiber cables to transmitters or receivers. There have been many types of connectors developed for fiber cable. Single mode networks have used FC or SC connectors in about the same proportion as ST and SC in multimode installations. But LC connector with smaller size and higher performance has become popular and the connector choice for optical transceivers for systems operating at gigabit speeds. The following text gives a detailed introduction of LC connector.

History of LC Connector

LC stands for Lucent Connector, as the LC connector was developed by Lucent Technologies as a response to the need by their primary customers, the telcos, for a small, low insertion loss connector. Then the LC design was standardized in EIA/TIA-604-10 and is offered by other manufacturers.

SC connector and LC connector

Advantages of LC Connector

There are solid reasons that the LC is the preferred connector for high-performance network. From the appearance, LC connect is like a mini size of SC connector. LC connector borrows split-sleeve construction and a cylindrical ferrule (usually ceramic) from SC connector. LC connector has a push-and-latch design providing pull-proof stability in system rack mounts. The picture on the right shows the appearance of SC connector and LC connector.

The ferrule size of LC connector is 1.25 mm which is half the size of SC connector ferrule—2.5 mm. LC connector is rated for 500 mating cycles and its typical insertion loss is 0.25 dB. An interesting feature of the LC is that, in some designs, the ferrule can be “tuned” or rotated with a special tool after it has been assembled. This offers a considerable performance advantage. The design and performance of LC connector address the need for high density and low insertion loss.

Application of LC Connector

LC connector can be found in many places for termination and connection, especially SFP transceivers for gigabit transmission. For example, the optic interfaces of Cisco SFP transceivers are all LC connectors. Some other applications are as following:

Simplex and duplex LC connectors

  • Telecommunication networks
  • Local area networks
  • Data processing networks
  • Cable television
  • Fiber-to-the-home
  • Premises distribution
LC Connector Selection Guide

To meet the needs of market, there are various types of LC connectors provided now. During the selection of LC connector, transmission media should be the first factor to consider. LC connector favors single mode fiber optic cable. But it can also be used with multimode fiber optic cable. Signals sometimes are transferred over simplex fiber optic cable and sometime duplex fiber optic cable. Thus, LC connector has both simplex and duplex design. The picture above shows an APC simplex LC connector on the left and a UPC duplex LC connector on the right. Some other factors like polishing style (APC or UPC), hole size and cable diameter should not be ignored. For more details about LC connectors, you can visit Fiberstore which provides various LC connectors with high performance and low price.

Several Common Types Of Fiber Optic Cables And Patch Cables

1.FTTH Indoor Cable

FTTH (Fiber To The Home), as its name suggests it is a fiber optic directly to the home. Specifically, FTTH refers to the optical network unit (ONU) mounted on home users or business users, is the optical access network application type of closest to users in optical access series except FTTD(fiber to the desktop).

There are 5 main advantages of FTTH:
First, it is a passive network, from the end to the user, the intermediate can be basically passive;
Second, the bandwidth is relatively wide, long distance fits the massive use of operators;
Third, because it is carried business in the fiber, and there is no problem;
Fourth, because of its relatively wide bandwidth, supported protocol is more flexible;
Fifth, with the development of technology, including point-to-point, 1.25G and FTTH have established relatively perfect function.

2. Indoor Fiber Optic Cable

Indoor optical cable is classified according to the using environment, as opposed to outdoor fiber optic cable.

Indoor optical cable is a cable composed of fiber optic (optical transmission medium) after a certain process. Mainly by the optical fiber (glass fiber is as thin as hair),plastic protective tube and plastic sheath. There is no gold, silver, copper and aluminum and other metal, fiber optic cable generally has no recycling value.

Indoor fiber optic cable is a certain amount of fiber optic forming to cable core according to a certain way, outsourcing jacket, and some also coated layer of protection, to achieve a communication line of light signal transmission.

Indoor cable is small tensile strength, poor protective layer, but also more convenient and cheaper. Indoor cable mainly used in building wiring, and connections between network devices.

3. Outdoor Fiber Optic Cable

Outdoor fiber optic cable, used for outdoor environment, the opposite of indoor fiber cable.

Outdoor cable is a type of communication line to achieve light signal transmission, is composed of a certain amount of fiber optic forming to cable core according to a certain way, outsourcing jacket, and some also coated with outer protective layer.

Outdoor cable is mainly consists of optical fiber (glass fiber is as thin as hair), plastic protection tube and plastic sheath. There is no gold, silver, copper and aluminum and other metal cable, generally no recycling value.

Outdoor cable is greater tensile strength, thick protective layer, and usually armored(wrapped in metal). Outdoor cables are mainly applied to buildings, and remote networks interconnection.

4.Fiber Optic Patch Cable

Fiber optic patch cable, also known as fiber jumper, used to connect from the device to fiber optic cabling link. Fiber jumper has a thick protective layer, generally used in the connection between the fiber converter and Fiber Termination Box. Commonly used fiber jumpers include: ST, LC, FC and SC.

Main Categories
Single-mode fiber patch cable: General single-mode fiber jumper is colored in yellow, connector and protective sleeve are blue; long transmission distance.

Multi-mode fiber patch cable: General multimode fiber jumper is colored in orange and some in gray, connector and protective sleeve are beige or black and the transmission distance is short.

Fiber optic jumper connector interpretation:
SC Connector: square fiber optical connector;
FC Connector: round with thread;
ST Connector: similar to BNC;
LC Connector: transceiver separation structure;
MT-RJ Connector: square, one with double fiber;
PC Connector: direct contact;
APC Connector:8 degree tilt angle of contact surface;
UPC Connector: arc contact surface.