ribbon cable

Five Basic Principles of Ribbon Cable

Ribbon fiber optic cable, do you know more about it? Trying to understand the capabilities of these fiber optic network passives can be confusing. How to choose the best ribbon cable for your fiber infrastructure is an even bigger challenge. To avoid confusion, we've created a quick-answer list of basic ribbon cable questions to help you get your fiber network up and running.

What is a ribbon cable?

The exact name of ribbon cable is ribbon of optical fiber, which consists of flat ribbons. This is achieved by making a series of individual fibers and laying them down and bonding them to each other. Using this technology, up to 24 fibers can be combined together. The fibers are usually placed side by side to form a flat ribbon.

It is then held in place using a special waterproof tape material. This process uses only coated fiber, which helps provide extra space when working on the network. This type of fiber optic cable is often one of the solutions whenever installers have applications in tight installation spaces such as many data centers. Due to the design of the ribbon cable, splicing is easier, saving time and money.

Ribbon cables are described by many international standards organizations, including the International Electrochemical Commission (IEC) and the Institute of Insulated Cable Engineers (ICEA). Fiber optic ribbons are specified as part of the IEC 60794 series of specifications and ICEA Fiber Optic Cable Documents, which are ANSI-approved American National Standards. The external factory fiber and cable specifications for the GR-20-CORE relate to the fiber and ribbon cables mentioned in this document.

Ribbon Cable Features and Benefits

The first advantage of ribbon fiber patch cords is that it saves time and reduces installation costs. Since the cables are pre-bundled (usually made up of 12 individual fibers), installers and technicians can perform simpler and faster high-quality splices, allowing all fibers in the ribbon matrix to be stitched together at the same time. This means less installation time, lower installation labor costs, and faster recovery during downtime.

A second benefit of ribbon cable is increased fiber density in a given cable. Of particular importance is fiber density, an attractive feature and benefit as the number of fibers in data centers increases.

Disadvantages of Ribbon Cable

Conventional fiber optic cables can bend smoothly in all directions—within the proper bend radius specification, the ribbon fiber has a restricted plane of motion, but can only bend along its longitudinal axis. This is called "preferential bending" - because fiber optic cables only like to bend along the axis of motion. The orientation of the ribbon structure inside the cable cannot be controlled, so any bending of the ribbon fiber may be perpendicular to its longitudinal ribbon axis, which may create stress on the fiber. This can damage the fiber optic cable and cause insertion loss (loss of signal power).

Ribbon Cable Applications

Ribbon cables can be used for indoor FTTH networks and indoor/outdoor point-to-point applications, as well as interconnect and crossover applications in MTP fiber optic junction boxes; 12-core flat fiber optic cable is one of the most widely used ribbon cables, 12-core ribbon fiber patch cords Can be terminated with LC connectors or SC connectors, such as simplex, duplex or MTP connectors can be easily terminated; ribbon fiber patch cords can also be sewn with loose tube fiber optic cables. The specific method is to remove the coating of the ribbon fiber optic patch cord, and then stitch together 12 fiber optic fuses in batches.

However, ribbon fiber is not always the best choice indoors: When indoor ribbon fiber is shipped to the cabinet, it becomes challenging to handle fiber optic cables for termination. In fact, some say that many ribbon cables feel like "iron bars" when machined. As you can imagine, this makes installation difficult. Even if the termination process is faster, the complexity of routing these cables to cabinets and racks can save time due to the lengthy installation time of the cables.

Difference Between Ribbon Cable and Loose Tube Cable

Ribbons and loose tubes look different. Ribbon cables are mostly flat, while loose tube cables use a bundle of cables, most of which are round. The structure is different. Ribbon cables consist of fiber optic ribbons, while loose tube cables typically consist of 0.9mm sleeves.

Different fiber arrangements. The ribbon fiber jumpers inside the fiber are arranged in color order, bundled and arranged in a relatively fixed form. The bundle fiber jumpers inside the fiber are not set, and each fiber is more independent.

generalize

Ribbon cables are lighter, more compact, and easier to handle and splice. As transport protocols evolve to higher and higher data rates, it is best suited