Industrial DIN Rail Fibre Patch Panel

Industrial DIN Rail mounted Fibre Patch Panel End View showing metal splice cassettes

Overview

The Case Communications Industrial DIN Rail Splice & Patch Panel is ideally suited to installations where space is at a premium.  In addition to providing a fibre termination and patching point, the unit can also be used as a simple through Splicing enclosure or Spur unit, or a combination of these.

There are various mounting options available including DIN Rail, C-Rail and Panel mounting. This allows for the unit to be located and mounted virtually anywhere inside a rack, potentially saving space and reducing cable runs. Incoming plant cable/s can be routed in from the top or bottom (up to 4 entries).

Cables are secured within the integral adjustable clamps. A range of cable sizes can be secured from 6-22mm ø.  Optional central strength member anchor points are also available. Access to the inside of the unit is quick and easy by undoing the 2 quarter-turn fasteners and removing the steel protection cover.

A laser warning sign located on the removable cover alerts users to the fact that hazardous laser radiation may be present at the unit or contained therein.

The industrial DIN rail fibre patch panels have in-built fibre management ensuring that the minimum bend radius is adhered to. Integral Splice cassettes with built-in 12-fibre management make splicing safe and convenient. Fibre expansion kits are available comprising of an additional 12-way splice cassette loaded with fibre pigtails, and replacement bulkhead panel pre-loaded with bulkhead connectors.

Cable Types

The material used on the jacket of the Fibre optic cable is specific to the application. The material determines and mechanical robustness, and the cables ability to withstand, oil resistance, ultra violet light from the sun (which can make the cable brittle), and also its suitability for use indoors ( for example not using Halogen). These days PVC is being replaced by Halogen free alternative materials, this is being driven by stricter regulations.

Cord Jacket Color

The buffer or jacket on patchcords is often color-coded to indicate the type of fiber used. The strain relief “boot” that protects the fiber from bending at a connector is color-coded to indicate the type of connection. Connectors with a plastic shell (such as SC connectors) typically use a color-coded shell. Standard color codings for jackets (or buffers) and boots (or connector shells) are shown below:

Technical Specifications

Typical Losses in a fibre link

There are a number of ways to determine the loss for a particular fibre optic link. The easiest and mostaccurate way is to perform an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) trace of the link. This will give you the actual loss values for all the components on that link (connectors, splices and fibre loss etc.) In the absence of an actual OTDR trace, there are two alternatives that can be used to estimate the power requirement of the link.

1. Estimate the total linkloss across the fibre optic link if the fibre length variables are know.
2. Estimate the maximum fibre distance if the optical budget and loss variance are known.

Loss variable are connectors, splices and attenuations per kilometer of the fibre. If the actual losses for all components are not known an estimate for each is needed to complete the calculations. In this case we would need to take a worst case approach to ensure there is adequet power available for the link. The following table includes commonly accepted loss values used in these calculations.

IEEE Recommended maximum cable distances

Example  Link Loss on 20km Link using 1550nm and 9um

• Splices over 20km at one every 6km = 4 Splices with 0.1dB loss per splice = 0.4db
• Fibre loss at 0.3db per km (old fibre) = 20km x 0.3= 6db
• Connector loss (1 Patch Lead per end with 2 connections Patch lead to Patch Panel to Patch Panel to CPE each end ) = 4 x 0.75db= 3dB (NB Patch panel and Patch leads should be kept clean to reduce loss)
• Total Loss for 20km 9.4db

Ordering Information

Additional Information

Patch Panel Splice Patch DIN Rail Data Sheet (2450 downloads )
For more information please contact Case Communications