Use Fiber Splice Tray
Splice trays are necessary for holding and protecting
individual fusion splices or mechanical splices.
Splice trays are available for all different
kinds of splices, such as mechanical splices from 3M, Corning, AMP
and Siemon Company, bare fusion splices and heat-shrink fusion splices,
and so on.
Normally splice
trays should be matched to the type of splice used. A splice tray designed
for holding mechanical splices usually cannot be used for bare fiber fusion
splices or heat-shrink fusion splices. Although there are splice holding
chips you can purchase to make them work, it is not the ideal way.
Standard splice trays can hold up to 12
splices and you can use several splice trays together for higher strand number
fiber optic cables. The splice tray has room for mounting fiber splices and
excess fibers.
Fiber loose tubes enter the splice tray at one
end and are secured to the splice tray. The loose tube stops at the splice tray
end and individual fibers are exposed and spliced inside the splice tray.
Optical fiber
termination by fusion splicing or mechanical splicing is very common now with
the increasing development of fiber optic network. As optical fibers are
sensitive to pulling, bending and crushing forces, fiber splice tray is used to
provide a safe routing and easy-to-manage environment for the fragile optical
fiber splices. In the past, the fiber splice tray was usually installed in a
box that mounted to wall. Now, you can find a lot of places in fiber optic network
using fiber splice tray. This tutorial is to illustrate where the fiber splice
trays are required and how to use them.
What Is Fiber Splice
Tray?
Fiber splice tray is
generally used to hold and protect individual fiber optic splices. There are
mainly two types of fiber optic splices, one is fusion splices, the other one
is mechanical splices. Fiber splice trays for fusion splices and mechanical
splices are not the same. It is suggested to use specialized fiber splice trays
for different fiber splices. Another important factor of fiber splice tray is
the fiber count that it can hold. Most fiber splice tray can hold up to 24
fiber splices. 12-fiber splice trays are the most commonly used fiber splice
tray in fiber optic network.
Where to Use Fiber
Splice Tray
For most applications,
fiber splice tray is not strong enough to provide robust protection for fiber
splices independently, so it is usually used with other components to protect
optical fibers. It has low space requirement and has great compatibility. Fiber
splice trays are usually used as accessories of other devices, like fiber optic
splice closure, fiber distribution box, fiber optic enclosure, etc. The
following is to introduce the applications of fiber splice tray in details.
Fiber
Splice Tray in Fiber Optic Splice Closure
The fiber optic splice
closure is component which is widely used in today’s fiber optic network for
outdoor applications and harsh environment. It usually contains one or more
fiber splice tray to provide space and protection for fiber optic splices.
Fiber splice trays used in different fiber optic splice closures could have
different designs and fiber counts. Here take the examples of a 96-fiber
horizontal fiber optic splice closure and a 24-fiber dome fiber optic splice
closure.
The following picture
shows the 96-fiber horizontal fiber optic splice closure. It has two input
ports and two output ports providing space for 96 fiber splices. There are four
standard 24-fiber splice trays stacked together inside the fiber optic splice
closure.
The 24-fiber
splice closure is shown in the following picture. It has five entries
providing up to 24 fiber optic splices in two 12-fiber splice tray. The design
of the two fiber splice tray is different from the above ones, which is
suitable for the vertical design of the fiber splice closure.
Fiber
Splice Tray in Fiber Distribution Box
In FTTx projects,
fiber optic cables from service providers are usually required to be connected
with the fiber cables deployed near end users. Fiber optic network installers
usually splice the feed cable to end users by fiber optic splicing. Fiber
distribution box is usually used in FTTx projects to distribute individual
fibers to individual end users. Fiber splice tray is usually deployed in fiber
distribution box to manage and protect fiber splices as shown in the following
picture.
Fiber
Splice Tray in Fiber Enclosure
Except the above
mentioned two applications, fiber splice tray is also very popular in data
center and server room. It is usually evitable to splice fiber optic cables
with fiber pigtails in data center, which requires lower space requirement and
has a better network performance compared with other fiber optic termination
methods. Fiber splice tray is usually installed in fiber enclosure to provide a
safe and easy-to-manage environment for fiber splices. Here takes the example
of fiber splice tray used in FHD fiber enclosure as shown
in the following picture. It is a 96-fiber enclosure which has four
24-fiber adapter on the front panel. This fiber enclosure can hold up four
24-fiber splice tray to provide the space for 96 fiber optic splices.
Fiber Splice Tray
Solution
Fiber splice tray is a
simple and easy component to provide space and protection of fiber optic
splices done by fusion splicing or mechanical splicing. Be very careful when
mounting the splices inside the tray. Minimum fiber bending radius requirement
should always be observed.
