What to Consider When Picking a Fiber Optic Adapter

SHENZHEN, China - April 12, 2019 - PRLog -- Optical fiber adapter is the connecting parts in the middle of optical fiber connectors. The fiber optic adapter can precisely connect the two end faces of the fiber so that the optical energy output from the transmitting fiber can be coupled to the receiving fiber. It is designed to join and align the connectors of two fiber optic patch cables.

With the widespread use of fiber optic adapters in fiber optic connections, there are a variety of optical fiber adapter to choose, to adapt to different environment installation requirements.  Common types of adapters are: LC adapter, FC adapter, SC adapter, ST adapter, E2000 adapter, MTP / MPO adapter.

With a number of different adapters available, how to pick the high quality fiber optic adapter may become a problem. In general, the following points should be considered when considering fiber optic adapters.

Flame retardant level of the adapter
UL 94, the Standard for Safety of Flammability of Plastic Materials for Parts in Devices and Appliances testing, is a plastics flammability standard released by Underwriters Laboratories of the United States. The standard determines the material's tendency to either extinguish or spread the flame once the specimen has been ignited.

HB,V0, V1 and V2 are different flame retardant grades. Different grades has different fire resistance test methods and different test criteria. Flame retardant grades are gradually increased from HB, V-2 and V-1 to V-0. There is less optical fiber adapters on the market that can reach the UL94-V0 level. HYC's LC Dual/Quad adapters complies with the UL94-V0 standard.

Insertion loss
Usually, insertion loss is required to be less than 0.2dB. If the insertion loss is too high, it will affect the transmission of light.

Repeatability
The adapter needs to be plugged and unplugged frequently, so the durability of the adapter is important. The normal standard needs to ensure that the number of plugging and unplugging can reach more than 500 times without affecting the insertion loss.

Operating temperature
-40℃ ~ 75℃ is a normal working range of the adapter. The operating temperature of this HYC LC adapter is -40℃~85℃.

Materials for adapter alignment sleeve
The alignment sleeve is the most important component of the fiber adapter, which is generally made of metal or ceramic.The fiber adapter made of ceramic will have a relatively good effect. Because the crystal structure of ceramic is hard and not easy to be deformed, it can achieve fast alignment and high-precision optical fiber end face connection.

Generally speaking, the above five points should be taken into account, when considering a fiber optic adapter. There are still some other factors affecting the quality, such as tensile strength and compliance standards,etc. Fiber optic adapters are widely used in communication equipment rooms, FTTH fiber-to-the-home, local area networks, fiber-optic communication systems, fiber-optic connection transmission equipment,defense operations equipment, and so on. Although the fiber optic adapters are small, its quality directly affects the entire fiber link. It should be rigorous and comprehensive while choosing the fiber optic adapters.

More info: www.hyc-system.com