Fiber optic cabling provides the massive amounts of bandwidth needed to run today’s bandwidth-hungry data centers. However, end face contamination can virtually cripple the high performance that fiber cabling offers. End face contamination is the silent killer of fiber optic cable assembly performance! The good news is that it is simple to eliminate the problem – so never fear, read on and become educated on the topic.
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How does the contamination get there?
The major culprits are skin oils, dust particles and condensation – just to name a few. Even if the assemblies are brand new in the bag, they could still be contaminated with condensation from high elevation transportation and humidity conditions. Watch this short video to learn more.
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How can you tell if an end face is contaminated?
Look at it! You can’t see it with the naked eye, but there are many inspection scopes available on the market. The first step is to invest in one. Without being able to get a visual inspection, you are powerless to know if there is a problem or not.
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How can you get rid of the contamination?
There are great products on the market to make this VERY easy. One click cleaners are the most common and cost effective at this time. There is a great example in the video mentioned previously.
So remember to inspect, clean and inspect. Repeat if necessary.
Oh yeah, don’t forget to Respect Layer One!






This post is just a quick reminder that there are some cool items and solutions out there that will really help you save space in the data center.