Fiber Optic Maintenance

By Dimitri | March 13, 2023

What can happen when the optical end face is dirty?
The beam of light may not be able to travel through the core.
Optical connectors become contaminated from a variety of reasons.
Usually 2-15 micron sized contaminants will have an impact on the signal transmission and could cause damage to the optical end face.

The majority of network down time is caused by optical connector contamination.

“In a recent study, 98% of installers and 80% of network owners reported that issues with connector contamination was the greatest cause of network failure.”
Source of data NTT

Clean Before Connecting

Wet Cleaning

Dry Cleaning

Full Kit

When the unclean optical connector is mated, the contaminant is forced into the ferrule and may become permanently damaged. In this situation, the damage cannot be removed with an optical cleaner.

When contaminants adhere to the core, they will cause an increase in signal interruption, an increased amount of insertion loss and degradation of return loss.
Also, these kinds of contaminants can cause chips, pits, and scratches in the connector end face under the pressure of the physical connection. Large contaminants can result in gaps in the physical connection, resulting in increased loss. These kinds of contaminants can actually spread and migrate by the physical connection.

Check Out Our Cleaning Solutions