To our readers,  friends and family here is wishing you all the best in 2010.

Thanks to the many who contributed in 2009… We will see you all in 2010!

The most common style of USB mini-B connector is the 5-pin version. Because of it’s compact form factor, this connector is widely used by manufacturers of consumer devices, such as cellphones, MP3 players, and digital cameras.

The picture to the left demonstrates the difference between the full size USB and mini version

There are countless stories of “nightmare” fiber optic installations.  Many of the nightmares were caused from polarity issues!  The concept of polarity itself issimple,  the transmit needs to go to receive and vice versa.  However, things do tend to get complicated when there are multiple connections involved

in the fiber pathway.  This blog will explain why it is important to have a solid understanding of the polarity concept, and a way to ensure you can make a fix in the field if needed.

If you follow TIA-942 standards, you will be running light from your equipment to the MDA (Main Distribution Area) in order to manage your connections properly.  Potentially, there are more coupling points in between depending on the size andlayout of your data center.  You could end up with 3 to 5 connector couplings in any channel.  To complicate this more, you throw in the different light path methods.  There are four accepted methods –  A, B, C, and D. Different manufacturers have adopted different methods for a myriad of different reasons.  It is important for the end user or installer to know what these are. and especially know what you are buying as you plan out your installation.   If you do not understand your light path, you can easily end up with catastrophic network failure.

In a perfect world, you should be able to connect your trunks to your enclosures and then jumper right to your equipment and have the correct polarity.  Sometimes this does not happen.   We offer fiber jumpers come with side release clips.  This allows you to simply reverse the polarity in the duplex housing of the jumper assembly and eliminate your problem.

Check out this quick tutorial by Josh Taylor, Senior Product Manager for CABLExpress® explaining and showing the different core measurements and fiber types.

CABLE Talk with CABLExpress Product Manager Josh Taylor is a series of cable and data center tutorials that offer a unique perspective about the latest data center trends and best practices, as well as useful tips and tricks.  If you find this edition interesting book mark the CABLExpress YouTube channel for both past and upcoming shows.