[SunRescue] Fiber was: SBus FDDI card question

[Tim Hauber]

rescue at sunhelp.org writes:
>Isn't terminating fiber kinda tough, even with the right equipment?
>	Greg

Nope, piece of cake, it's the "right equipment" that is the bugger.

Actually, if you use the modern connectors you can get "dry" fiber
connectors, with no epoxy, no gel, no polishing, they actually crimp on.

Here is the basic tools needed for fiber terminating this way.
fiber stripper, kinda like a wire stripper only a whole lot more precise
fiber cleaver, a gadget that will break a fiber off so it has a flat clean
end, usually +/- 1 degree of perpendicular
the crimping tool necessary for your kind of termination
your fancy plugs, some of them are in excess of $10 ea. and you only get
one shot at doing it right.

you can get the tools for a few hundred dollars.

you want to use SC fiber connectors as opposed to ST, because ST are the
older BNC style, and normally require epoxy and polish terminations.

I also invented a mnemonic device to remember which connector was which,
in case you can't remember like I can't.
"SC"=Simple Click - the little square plug wiuth the key that just pushes
in, the also come in a double version that really is just two of the
single ones next to each other.
"ST"=Simple Twist-the ones that are really just a high precision BNC plug.
 These are more fragile, take up more room on a panel, and harder to
terminate.  They are also the plugs you find on older equipment that is
being discarded.  You can buy adapter cables to convert male ST to female
SC, and simple little plastic couplers to hook male SC to Male ST plugs.

Back in the "old" days when fiber networking was first being rolled out
you used pre terminated fibers, and you fusion spliced them to the
building fiber with a little $30K gadget that basically melted the fibers
together in a high voltage arc, kind of cool the first few hundred times
you do it.

In the pipeline, but not approved by any of the standadrds committees for
fiber to desktop intallation are connectors that are even easier to
terminate, smaller, and supposedly more reliable, including one that looks
just about like an RJ plug, with the little side clip and all.

If you are talking about setting up a fiber network, it's a little
different at the closet than wire, instead of building wires terminating
in a jack panel, they are all terminated with a plug, which then plugs
into the back of the jack panel, and your patch cables have the same plug,
and plug into the front of the patch panel, so nothing is permanently
hooked to the patch panel, unlike 10bT, which usually is punched down onto
the back of the jack panel.  You also have to be a little more careful of
fiber, it isn't terribly fragile, but it will break if you twist a loop in
it then pull it.