Fibre and UTP Testing equipment

[ConradJones]

Hi Guys,

 

I am in the market for some cabling/termination testing equipment (not immediate so special offers aren't important) and I am interested in your experiences with the kit you have / have used.

@m25man I know I've you've spoken on this before! Fluke rings a bell.

 

I am also looking at get into fibre termination, so would be interested to hear from anyone that currently does this and which kit they are using for this.

 

I am aware of the different standards of fibre, so I would appreciate keeping to the topic of the equipment and peoples experiences of it.

 

The money is there for this equipment, I'm not interested in saving a few pennies for inferior equipment but at the same time there is no need for extravagance.

 

Thanks

 

Conrad

[john]

The kit to test and certify fibre is horrific in price, are you going to be doing enough to warrant the cost of the kit? The Fluke tools for certifying it and the fusion splicer alone will be Thousands and that hasn't even got you to the copper.

 

I thought at one point it would be good to do the fibre but costs are just not worth it unless your terminating stuff weekly, my local firm could come and do it far cheaper it was a couple of hundred quid to get them to test all my fibre links around site including the full Fluke report.

[Duke5A]

I've never had to test fiber beyond using a laser pointer, but I have used some of the Fluke tools for copper and can say I don't particularly care for them. The tester is expensive and requires licensing to unlock all of its features. Imagine having a multimeter that requires licensing to measure resistance.

[plexer]

I've never had to test fiber beyond using a laser pointer, but I have used some of the Fluke tools for copper and can say I don't particularly care for them. The tester is expensive and requires licensing to unlock all of its features. Imagine having a multimeter that requires licensing to measure resistance.

 

Sorry but that just shows you naivety as to what the testing equipment is actually doing and just because a laser pointer comes out the other end that doesn't mean anything regarding a fibre installation apart from the fibre isn't broken and even then I wouldn't trust it.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Fluke Networks DTX 1200 & DTX 1800 Cable Analysers

 

Those are the kiddies

 

DTX1800 Cable Analyser Kit with MM and SM Fibre Modules with 1 year Gold Support - £16,638.00

 

Ben

[cpjitservices]

We use JDSU fiber testers here, its ok having light at the other end But if you have dirt on the fiber (which can only be seen using a fiber scope or similar) you wont get the best connection.

[plexer]

Roll up roll up get your splicer here:

 

INNO IFS10 Fibre Optic Fusion Splicer Sales - Hire - Service Authorised Repair Centre another £5K

 

Ben

[m25man]

@ConradJones without doubt the DTX/DSX is the benchmark of TDR testers both Fibre and copper and it is almost compulsory if you plan to install and certify on a large scale.

Same goes for Fusion Splicing if you need to do hundreds a month your insane using anything else but these things can cost 10s of thousands to buy so learning how to use one is vital and then you can just rent one when you need it.

 

Fluke have an entire arsenal of tools for the entry level tech to industrial giant but be aware they are annoyingly clever in that I doubt that there is one single tool in the entire range that does what you need, you always need one more, be it unlocking additional features or the next tool up the range and now 10Gbe is the standard a whole load of new ones are needed.

 

They are carefully grouped into frontline servicing, verification, diagnostics, installation and certification so explore the range carefully and try them out if you can before hand.

 

http://www.flukenetworks.com/datacom-cabling?td=products#Cabling_Certification_–_Versiv

 

I have so many of them now the Fluke senior design team made a special effort to come and visit us to obtain feedback into how we use them so as to help them design the Versiv Range.

I'm an addict, and Fluke feed my habit... Trouble is I can't afford to keep buying new ones.

That's why they started the buy back and trade in schemes. They are indeed the crack dealer equivalent of network tools.

 

As far as termination kits go the simplest method is cold crimping and a loss tester, for less that £2k for all the tools needed, you will soon be knocking out several ends in an hour but remember without certification kit you won't get any serious contract work.

 

Builders want an entire site with several hundred terminations done and every one has to be logged, documented with a loss figure and transmission test report. I'm afraid a laser pointer and camera phone doesn't count!

 

We have to look after Data/Voice and more importantly nowadays HD-SDI over copper/fibre I can't be messing around with a laser pointer when Aastro or SIS have a satellite going hot in 5 mins and there's no camera feed... I need to find a working link not just one with a light coming out of it.

For this work we have a selection of these tools that we pull out almost daily.

http://www.flukenetworks.com/enterprise-network?td=products#Portable_Network_Analysis_and_Troubleshooting

 

Best of luck with your venture.