Utmost care is required to keep the working of delicate fiber optic cables long lasting. Only professionals in this field can only make that happen.

However, finding a trustworthy professional is quite a difficult task because there is countless number of providers available in market which make promises but fail to deliver. This is where, one need to devote ample time and effort to find out the best option.

Here are few tips that you must adhere in order to find a reliable provider:

Right away selecting a provider is not a good idea. One must search well through the available options, before making a final decision. In regard to this one can go for online searching, looking into directories, asking peers & friends and also to those people who have taken the help of providers in past.

If you want to safeguard yourself from hefty bills, then make sure to take care of the price factor. You need to see that all your requirements are met in a cost effective way. So, don’t go for a provider who charges a heavy sum for your needs.

Where other factors are important, this factor is also equally important to be considered, after all you are doing this all for cleaning fiber optics. So, whether you buy a simple or complex cleaning aid from a reputed service provider that claims to provide automated fiber cleaners like Aefos Inc, make sure each of the equipment should be good enough to perform the process of cleaning. Thus, there is a need for paying attention towards the quality of equipment. This would give you an assurance that the cleaning would be performed appropriately.

For maintaining the equipment in a long run, a proper back up and maintenance support is required. And this is only delivered by the help of cleaners who gives this kind of service to their customers. Via this way you get assured that you will get timely visits by the service provider at regular intervals which would help you in keeping the machinery free from any technical glitch.

After having looked at the points, you must have got an idea about what all things you must keep in mind in order to search for a trustworthy cleaner. So, never miss out these points, if you don’t want to face any hassles in the long run of your business.

If you don’t want to come in contact with counterfeits that offer automated fiber cleaners, then make sure you keep all the aforementioned points in mind.
 
With advancement in technology, a big difference can be seen in the devices used for communication purposes. Gone are the days, when traditional copper wires were used widely for data transfer. The transfer of data with the help of copper wires is prone to many risks.

First of all, it is not possible to send data at a very fast speed. Secondly, the data sent from one end is not similar to what has been received at the receiving end.

Due to these flaws, fiber optics have replaced traditional modes of data transfer. The best part is that fiber optics sends data in the form of light waves at a very fast speed. Moreover, whatever is send from one end is exactly received at another end.

Nowadays, these types of systems are used widely. Today, school, colleges and organizations make use of fiber optic in order to have fast communication and data transfer.

With their continuous usage, it is necessary to clean and test these systems at regular intervals so that they can function properly.

There are a variety of fiber optic cleaning systems available at Aefos Inc to clean different components of the entire fiber optic unit. You need to choose the one according to the type of network and system.

But, it is a must for you to follow certain instruction in order to carry out cleaning process without any trouble.

1. First of all, do not forget to check whether the power source is off from both ends or not.

2. If laser sources are used, make sure that you have turned off all the sources before you start with cleaning process.

3. Wearing safety glasses is a must, and inspect all the components thoroughly before you start cleaning.

4. While cleaning the connector, its ends should never be touched.

5. If you are using alcohol for cleaning purposes, the bottle should not be left opened near open spark as alcohol catches fire very easily.

6. Bring into use protective caps for unplugged fiber connectors. 

Apart from this, there are a number of techniques that you can use for cleaning purposes. First one is known as dry cleaning. It is the cleaning technique that is carried out without the usage of solvents. Other one is known as wet cleaning. In this technique, a solvent is involved in the cleaning process.

In dry cleaning methods, products like air dusters, canned air and compressed air are used for making a fiber optic system free from dust, dirt and other contaminations.

On the other hand, in wet cleaning, alcohol with lint wipes and soaked wipes are used for cleaning connectors and other components.

However, you need to have adequate information about cleaning methods and products so as to get the job done in an effective manner.

So, are you ready to complete this procedure successfully?

Do a thorough research on the web to find a reputed company that deals in a wide range of sophisticated fiber optic cleaning systems.
 
Optical fibers are the bundles of thin glass or flexible plastic threads that use light signals, often in the form of laser beams, to transmit data from source location to the destination location. The concept behind using light signals is that they travel at enormous speed, thus results in fast communications. These thin strings covered in a material in order to allow light signals to move through the strands devoid of escaping out the sides.

Because of the below mentioned properties, this transmission media has become backbone of almost every organization, institute, and other groups that rely on communication media:
  • Speed: Optical fibers functions at very high speeds as compare to electric signals
  • High bandwidth: Large capacity to carry data
  • No signal refreshing: or signal regeneration is needed to speed up signals
  • Greater resistant: environmental factors and electromagnetic noise such as motors, or effects from neighbouring cables.
To preserve the aforementioned factors of fiber cables it is necessary to run the cleaning and inspection measures timely. With the passage of time, the quality of light signals gets decreased due to various forms of contaminations accumulated on the ferrule.

Ferrule is a plastic, ceramic, or stainless steel component of the optical fiber connector that holds the fiber thread and aligns it to the plug. The opening of the ferrule is so tiny that it needs magnifying glass to see it. Imagine the effects of dust particles, once entered in this part. Therefore, regular maintenance cleaning measures must be implemented in order to protect your network from being destroyed.

In our routine activities, we face micro structures like dust that gives our skin an ugly appearance. We need skin toner and cleaner to remove these tiny particles. Similarly, the contaminations like dust, oil from hands, hairs etc., that get accumulated on the connector’s end-face are need to be cleaned before its functioning get hampered by them.

There is wide range of fiber ferrule cleaners available at Aefos, like air sprays, lint-free alcoholic wipes, cleaning solvents, dry wipes, available in the market. Loose dust particles that deposited on the connectors’ end-face are blown out with the help of air sprays or air compressors. Air compressors have a thin-long nozzle that fits over the small opening of the end-face. These air containers comprise of moisture free air and inert gas that blows the small particles when the button on the top of the compressor is pressed.

Dry and wet wipes are used to individually or with other cleaning measures to wipe out the dust or residuals of cleaning. Wet wipes or lint-free alcoholic wipes are used to support wet cleaning of ferrules. Cleaning solvers like alcohol is used to remove rigid accumulations like oils from the cable surface.

Fiber ferrule cleaners provide high quality data transmissions without causing data or signal loss.
 
If you want to buy best testing products, you need to be very choosy while making a choice. Various things are needed to be considered in order to get reliable and best equipment.

Want to know what those points are? Let’s have a look:

  • You must do thorough research in market. However, some people go along with people's word of mouth and end up choosing a provider who is not at all good. Therefore, one must trust themselves and make an effort to search on their own, instead of only going along with people's views.

  • For searching you can opt from either of the two ways or perhaps go along with both of them to get better results. Those two ways are ask people views (who have bought the equipment from a service provider) and rely on the source of internet (best medium to search about anything on World Wide Web).

  • Note down the list of names that you have come across, while you’re searching. After doing so, contact each one of them and try to know about them, as much as you can (this would help you find a reliable provider).

  • To buy equipment you can either visit nearby stores or order online. However, looking to the busy schedule of people besides going out to each store for availing the equipment, you can make a great deal on internet just via few clicks of button.

  • Compare services and features of the listed providers and the make a choice amongst those as per who can full fill your needs.

  • You must feel free to ask anything from the provider, as after all, you are the one who will invest to buy fiber optic products from reputed providers like Aefos Inc.

  • A provider must have certain qualities like certified, have knowledge about equipment, supply wide variety of products, must have obsolete components, good in communication etc.

  • Along with qualities of a provider, it’s of vital importance to see that provider has a good team of professionals, as well. They must have complete information of each component, products and services, so that everything can be explained to you in detail.

  • A team of professionals should also have testing experts as well, so that before handing over the equipment to the buyer each of the products is tested properly. This would give a sense of satisfaction to the supplier that he has delivered reliable products to the client. Subsequently, this would also help in bringing a good name to the supplier’s brand, as well.

  • With reliability feature of component, find out the prices of products offered by the supplier. This is because for the same product some may charge you high and some may low.Therefore, both factor of reliability and cost should be taken into consideration as if any point you miss then either the quality would be hampered or supplier would grab money from you.

After looking into the aforementioned aspects, make a note to never miss on these points while buying fiber optic products.
 
For an efficient work flow of the appliances, testing and cleaning for all the modern day devices is the vital step that is must to be followed.

Thinking why it is necessary and how it is possible? Then here are answers to your questions. Let’s have a look:

Why should you clean fiber optic cables?

As time passes by fiber optic cables and connectors get accumulated with dust and dirt, which makes the cause of cleaning cables more prominent. Following are few more reasons for the same:
  • Oil, dust, dirt gets collected on the end-faces of connectors
  • Dirt leads to scratches and pits
  • Due to dust, the signal in the cable breaks causing digital bit error rates to increase

For the process of mating and unmating, it’s important to clean the connectors in order have good data transmission from one end to another

What are the advantages of using cleaning kits?

After discussing above in the question why cleaning is required, now coming on to the question what are the benefits of carrying the process of cleaning, here are few reasons for the same:

  • Unhindered data flow is carried in same speed, after cleaning of the cables and connectors.
  • No loss of data
  • One can perform the process of cleaning all by them, without getting in touch with any professional cleaning technician.

Which method is preferred for fiber optic cleaning?

No coming further to the question which method or supplies are needed to clean fiber optic cables, here's the answer to the query:

To clean cables and connectors there is not just one or two cleaning supplies, besides there are different ways to clean. Following are the ways that help perform this method:

  • Air spray: This cleaning tool is used to blow away the loose particles of dust from the cables. As it is a non-abrasive cleaning method, thus it does not cause any roughness or scouring on the cables.
  • Reel cleaners: It helps in providing the most reliable, uniform and quick results. It contains weaved polyester cloth that helps in cleaning the optical fiber connectors.
  • Swab or stick cleaners: Where wipes and reel cleaners cannot work, the swab cleaners play a great role. This is because it reaches out to small and congested ends where wipes cannot reach.
  • Lint-free wipes: These are wet wipes that helps in removing the dust from the end-faces of the connectors. These contain isopropyl alcohol that helps in cleaning the cables perfectly without leaving any dirt.
  • Soaked wipes: These wipes are not wet and they contain Pre-saturated towelette. As these wipes are soft therefore, it does not cause any abrasiveness on the cables and connectors while performing cleaning process.

In order to have good flow of data transmission then make sure to perform fiber optic cleaning process after regular interval of time!
 
Considering the fact, when dust particles get accumulated on the fiber cables, it starts hindering the quality of signal. Therefore, it becomes vitally important to clean those cables on time with the help of various cleaning equipments like air spray, lint free wipes, cletop stick, soaked wipes, reel based fiber connector cleaner and alcohol with lint free wipes etc.
Besides all this, there is another cleaning device called automated ferrule cleaner, also known as AFC, which is used for cleaning dust particles from optic fiber connector end faces.

Features of AFC

  • It is the most efficient and light weight portable cleaner.
  • It helps in removing 1um particles, organic & in-organic contamination and grease from the connector.
  • No battery or power source is required for the working of equipment.
  • Up to 350 wipes per cleaner is present in it.
  • Connectors that can’t be easily cleaned because they are difficult to reach out, then this AFC equipment has adjustable cleaning tip angle of up to 45 degree that makes the process of cleaning easy.
  • To control the pressure of cleaning, spring loaded tip is there.
  • Without hurting the sleeve and ferrule end face, both the connector and bulk head ferrule are cleaned easily.
  • With a simple trigger option, the whole operation of cleaning is performed with an ease.
  • Dry cleaning process is also as fast as cleaning process. Basically, it just takes 4 sec to complete the dry cleaning part.
  • Disposable cartilage is used.
  • Variant probe tips options are available in this cleaner like FC, SC, ST (PC/APC/UPC) male or female adaptors.

Preparation of tool

Before starting with the use of AFC cleaner, there is few tool preparation tips related to ferrule cleaner that is provided by Aefos Inc To name a few are:

1. Firstly, remove batteries from cartilage packing and then follow the battery installation procedure:

  • Put first battery on left position with positive pole outwards
  • Then put the red ribbon below the first battery
  • After first battery is placed firmly, second battery should be placed with negative pole outwards
  • Once the both battery poled are in place, the cleaner is ready to receive the cartilage

2. After placing the batteries, then the cartilage is needed to be installed. However, a slow
insertion should be made, so that the tip of AFC is not damaged.

3. Then install the tip adapter to the AFC cleaner by removing its tool protector. In regard to unscrewing the protector, it must be done in counter-clockwise and then pulled without toughing its cleaning tip.

4. Lastly, firmly screw the tip adapter to the AFC cleaning tool, being careful of not to touch the cleaning tip. This is because if cleaning tip gets dirty, the cleaning will degrade.

Ferrule cleaner is considered the most vital and final process of cleaning that helps in preventing signal error in the equipment.