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Troubleshooting Fiber

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Troubleshooting Fiber

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The simplest troubleshooting tool is the Visual Fault Locator, or VFL. This inexpensive tool that should be found in virtually every fiber technician’s tool bag usesa bright laser beam of light (typically red) that can be easily seen by the human eye, unlike the invisible infrared light used by active electronics within the system. A VFL is ideal for testing continuity and polarity from one end of the link to the other and finding breaks in cables, connectors and splices. It is also agreat tracing tool for locating the other end of a single fiber terminated within a rack. Some field-terminated connectors also include a VFL window, which allowsfor connecting the VFL to the connector immediately following termination to verify that the termination was done correctly—if the light from the VFL escapes and appears in the connector’s VFL window, the two fiber end faces within the connector were not properly mated.

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