Fiber Optic Patch Panels Tutorial
What Is Fiber Optic Patch Panel?
Fiber optic patch panel, or fiber optic patch bay, is a common cable management facilities. It includes a series of connection points of electronic equipment and the mainly connections are fiber optic patch cables. The patch panel allows circuits to be easily arranged and rearranged by simply plugging and unplugging the path cables, or changing the circuit of select signals without the use of expensive dedicated switching equipment. It can be an opened box used to protect the bare fiber and the optical fiber cables, meanwhile it protects spaces for fusion splicing and components connections by fiber adapters. During the unused condition, all fiber optic connectors, fiber patch cables and adapters should be kept away from dust. Fiber optic patch panels help with the installation density of the fiber optic cabling and provide more convenient organization and management.
A typical fiber optic patch panel has some jacket on the front side to receive short patch cables while on the back of the panel. There are either jacks or punch down blocks that receive the connections of longer and more permanent cables. The patch panels are often used to connect several computers by linking them via the panel, which enables the LAN to connect to the Internet or another WAN.
Types of Fiber Optic Patch Panels
According to the installation ways, there are mainly two types of fiber optic patch panels: wall-mounted patch panels and rack-mounted patch panels.
Wall-Mounted Fiber Optic Patch Panel Wall-mounted fiber optic patch panels use the inside fiber optic adapters panels, patch cables and pigtails to realize the function of optical fiber distribution. They are used for protective connections for the fiber cables and pigtails in fiber optic cabling and user terminal applications. The patch panels are installed on the indoor wall and terrace to provide a flexible fiber management system for transitional outside plant cable to inside cable and connector assemblies. |
Rack-Mounted Fiber Optic Patch Panel Rack-mounted fiber patch panels are used to terminated and distributed optical fiber cables. They are convenient to organize and connect the fiber optic links. These patch panels are applied to many fiber optic products, such as DWDM MUX DEMUX, Rack Chassis Splitter, Optical Distribution Frame(ODF) etc. They are fully stable with no risk of movement and offer secure environment for fiber optic adapters, patch cables and pigtails. |
According to different applications, fiber optic patch panels can be classified as following:
Loaded Fiber Optic Patch Panel |
Swing-Out Fiber Optic Patch Panel |
Fixed Fiber Optic Patch Panel |
Slide-Out Fiber Optic Patch Panel |
High-Density Fiber Optic Patch Panel |
Fiber Optic Patch and Splice Combos Patch Panel |
Signature Series Patch Panel |
LGX Fiber Optic Patch Panel |