Armored Fiber Optic Cable Interlocking or loose tube?

Over the past few years I've received many phone calls about a need for an armored fiber optic cable. Most of the time people want an outdoor armored cable but there's also an indoor version. In one of our recent videos we compare the two.



I also want to mention that if your going to be terminating your own fiber cable remember, indoor interlocking fiber has a 900 size buffer, the loose tube has a smaller size 250. Let's check out the difference.



I think the reason why the loose tube is smaller is that it benefits the manufactures in the making of these cables. The smaller size allows for an overall smaller diameter of the tube inside the cable, this goes a long way in higher strand count cables, especially considering you only get 12 strands of fiber per tube. If you are going to terminate a "loose tube" fiber cable don't forget you need fan out kits.

What you do with a fan out kit is you slide the 250 size inside the fan out kit, the fan out kit builds your 250 size to a 900 and also adds strength and durability to that 250 size. Depending on what brand of connectors you decide to use when terminating you might have to build your cable to the 900 size to properly terminate your fiber cable.

I hope you've enjoyed this read, now do me a favor and share, like this post and follow me on Google plus.

Later skater!

"By Mercy Salinas"

Scary Network Wiring Nightmares!!!

So it's been a little while since I've done a blog post, I'll get back into it. If you haven't subscribed to our YouTube Channel do it now for all kinds of cool videos, like this one!

Video editing furniture desk and LAN station overview

LAN stations have been around forever, but I don't remember feeling a boom in demand for them until the late 90's during the dot com bubble.

LAN Station furniture has recently been more popular with video editing companies for their control room needs so depending on what your needs are you'll find many different types of possible set ups that may suit you best. Let's check out a couple.

If your set up is not complex you might want to consider a 24 inch station. The lower shelf is 14 inches deep and is great for shallow components and allowing you room to stretch your legs. The two 16 inch shelf's above can be adjusted in different increments. Includes a built-in cable management channel keeping your communication and power cables organized. With it's 1000 pound weight rating this will be a station that will last, a lifetime! There is a lifetime warranty, so you'll have something to pound on for a while. You may also want to consider some accessories that'll make life easier. I'd start with casters, keyboard tray, LCD mount and maybe a utility drawer.

Maybe you need to make the most out of the space you have at your location and you have multiple monitors you work with. You might want to consider a corner station, shove it in the corner of your location and you should have enough room for about 3 monitors.

Or, your in charge of a team of people and need to provide an organized solution for multiple work stations. You might want to consider a 96 inch station, this larger station also provides larger lower and top shelf's and is completely modular.

I just want to highlight a couple of options for you and hopefully you can find something that will fit your need best. For me I especially like the cable management, it drives me crazy when all those cables get messy and I have to have casters to easily get behind my equipment. Example.

Share if you care. Thanks!

"By Mercy Salinas"

Color signal transmission distance on coax cable for security cameras

Over the past decade of working with CCTV security camera installation contractors, one of the questions that has come forth is how far can signal travel for my color security camera?

After calling other cctv contractors and getting a feel for what the proper answer is, the "rule of thumb" was 500ft. for color and 1000ft. for black and white. Let's put he color to the test.



Now I need to figure out how far color can travel, perhaps a future blog post! Comment below.

"By Mercy Salinas"

What is and What Size is your Fiber Optic Cable Buffer

Yes, there are two different sizes to your fiber optic cable buffer but before we do a comparison of the two sizes I want to talk about why there's two and what fiber cable construction type is associated with one or the other.

The first fiber cable construction I want to talk about is "Loose Tube". These cables are mostly installed in outdoor only installations. Such as direct burial, pole to pole and anywhere else where most if not all the cable is outdoors. This cable construction is more durable and offers a higher pulling tension. I recently talked with AFL and I wanted to know what the life expectancy is for this type of cable construction and they mentioned that it all depends on the environment but a good estimate is 30 years.

Let's take a look at a loose tube cable from our YouTube channel.   



Another easy way to tell if you have a loose tube fiber optic cable is to read the print on the cable jacket and many cables will have the letters LT on it letting you know it's a loose tube, this cable construction always has a 250um size buffer. I say always because I've been selling fiber since 1999 and I don't remember ever seeing a loose tube with a 900um size buffer. Just makes sense, with a smaller size you can get more strands in a smaller tube hence the 250um size.

So that leads us to the 900um size buffer. This size is commonly found with a distribution cable construction. This is most commonly installed in underground conduits for building to building installations and indoors for riser and plenum installations. It has a smaller diameter, more flexible, lighter and overall just more pleasant to work with. Let's get a look at a distribution cable.



Now that you have a better feel for what size buffer you have before even stripping the jacket let's get a look at what these two sizes look like to the naked eye.



That was a great comparison of the two sizes that are involved with your fiber optic cable. As you can tell after stripping the buffer off the cladding the cladding size is the same, the 125um size. If you're asking yourself what is under the 125um size you then have what's called the cladding and then your core. The core is where your signal is transmitted. For Multimode your core size will be either 62.5 or 50.0 and for singlemode, it'll be 9.0.

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