If your business uses fibre optics, you need a visual fault locator in your toolkit. It’s that simple. This nifty little tool can help you to quickly and easily inspect any optical fibre, patchcord or cable to identify breaks or damage. It can also help you to pick up where there might be ineffective fusion splicing in single/multimode optical fibres.
Visual Fault Locator
How it works
The visual fault locator uses a powerful red light laser beam which is injected into the fibre. This allows for the tracing of fibres and quickly illuminates any breaks or defects that may be present. The Codecom visual fault locator can detect issues up to an 18km range and is suitable for both multimode and singlemode fibres.
Why it’s so important to have one on hand
Fibre optic networks use an infrared light which the human eye cannot see. Additionally, the jumper, connector and optical fibre network is both integrated and complex, also making any fault locations challenging to identify. The visual fault locator swiftly and adeptly pinpoints issues that may otherwise take an impossible amount of time to find or may be invisible to the naked eye. The key benefit then to the visual fault locator is the timeliness and efficiency in identifying and thus addressing issues that this tool allows.
Difference between a visual fault locator and a fibre continuity tester
The key difference between a visual fault locater and fibre continuity tester is the light source. As discussed, the visual fault locator uses a red laser beam while the fibre continuity tester uses a high intensity green or red LED light. The laser is much more powerful which means that the visual fault locator provides much more information to the technician than when they use a fibre continuity tester. Here’s the testing reference guide as outlined by the fibre optics association.
Different types
There are numerous types of visual fault locators—from pen-style, to handheld to portable. The Codecom product is small, portable and easy to operate. It offers a multi-adaptor that will connect with almost any adaptor type.
In short, the visual fault locator is a highly effective and quick tool to help you troubleshoot, test and measure your equipment to either isolate or prevent problems—both large and small. Its quick detection abilities and precision will boost productivity while minimising loss. We can’t recommend this product more highly.