Do You Know How to Install a Fiber Optic Patch Panel?

Nowadays, fiber optic patch panel is becoming popular in optical fiber wiring systems, especially in high-density wiring environments such as data centers and server rooms. Fiber optic patch panel is convenient for people to access the optical fiber cables in the box, and can protect the optical fiber cables well. In addition, the drawer type structure helps the high-density wiring and cable management. Since the optical fiber cable is fragile and easily damaged by pulling, bending or squeezing, we should be very careful when installing the optical fiber cables in the fiber optic patch panel.

 

The installation of fiber optic patch panel can be divided into three steps: installing the optical fiber patch panel on the rack, introducing the fiber optic cable into the optical ffiber optic patch panel, and planning the optical fiber cable path in the optical fiber patch panel. Here is the detailed description of the three steps:

 

1. How do install the fiber optic patch panel on the rack?

 

This step is very easy, we only need to install the brackets on both sides of the optical fiber patch panel, and then fix the brackets at the designated position of the rack with screws (as shown in the figure below). Before installing the ooptical fiber patch panel, we should first confirm the installation direction of the optical distribution box according to the needs. 

 

2. How to Introduce optical fiber cable into the fiber patch panel?

 

After fixing the optical fiber patch panel on the rack, the optical fiber cable can be introduced into the optical fiber patch panel through the cable hole. At this time, it is necessary to prepare a suitable sheath to help us guide and fix the optical fiber cable in the optical fiber patch panel. The optical fiber cable here usually uses pre-terminated branch fiber jumpers or pigtails. 

 

Since the front panel of the optical fiber patch panel can be pulled out, the length of the fiber optic trunk cable in the patch panel should be long enough. As shown in the figure below, in order to ensure that the optical fiber cable will not withstand excessive tension when the front panel of the patch panel is fully pulled out, , the cable length between A and B should not be less than 31 inches.In addition, A, B and other necessary positions in fiber patch panel need to use cable ties to fix the optical cables. The movable cable ties are also used in the above picture. Single branch cable does not need to be fixed with cable tie.

 

After fixing the optical trunk cable, you can start routing the branch optical cables. Firstly, connect each pre-terminated fiber optic pigtails to the adapter panel to ensure that the ports correspond to each other. Then fix the optical fiber adapter panel to the front panel of the distribution box through the bending radius control clip. In this process, be careful not to exceed the bending radius of each optical cable.