On 2021-02-15 14:38, Ethan O'Toole wrote:
FS.COM is pretty good.
I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone else that provides the same kind of value.
I used to work at a place that used 10baseFL. It was a big waste of money. Every computer that came in had an Intel 100mbps nic, it got yanked and replaced with a $400 10 megabit fiber card. But when lightning struck near one of the buildings, it blew out like $100K worth of Lucent Definity phone boards and every HP cat5 jetdirect board.
We had it to span a 12-story building with waaaaay to large a collision domain. :) But it sounds like 10base-FL (forgot that name...) saved your computers?
I still have a Sun and Indigio2 FDDI card or two somewhere, and one for Indy. At one point in time I had like 5 Indy/Challenge S all on FDDI. Will probably bring some of it to the next swap event.
I have some mild interest in these things. :) -- Jameel
On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, Jameel Akari via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Before somebody says "it's not vintage!" consider that 1Gb Ethernet on fiber was spec'd for FDDI cables, and there were optical transceivers for even 10Mb Ethernet - I brought a set of AUI to 2xST for the Unix Town networking, just because I had them. Also, early 1Gb Ethernet was all 1000base-SX with SC connectors, at least that I saw. It took a while for copper UTP to be supported. I have a few Digital and Sun 1Gb NICs that are optical, and so I run them that way.
Now, at 25m, you /really/ don't need fiber for 1Gb Ethernet. Properly installed UTP copper should work reliably for years in normal environments. It's surprising and unusual you had some fail. Exception: crimped RJ45 ends on solid conductor UTP cable is likely to fail over time if there's any movement or vibration. Punch on some jacks and use premade jumpers.
You can run 10Gb over Cat6A UTP at this distance as well. This is harder to terminate by hand, but you could just get premade patch cables (they will be 26-28 AWG stranded, most likely)
But since you've already got optics and fiber is a lot cheaper than it used to be... why not?
- You're better off not trying to use the same cabling for 1Gb and 10Gb, but: - You *can* do short-range 1000base-SX with OM3, though it's not spec depending on where you look. It will work. - By the book, use OM2 for 1Gb and OM3 for 10Gb, assuming short-range optics like your SX SFPs. (SFP, not GBIC, if you're talking LC connectors) - OM2 is usually orange and OM3 is usually aqua-blue.
- As far as I can tell, you don't need mode conditioning for SX (short-range) optics. If you needed to use LR 1Gb optics, or use single-mode optics into MMF cabling plant, then you'd use a mode-conditioning cable to clean up the noise.
- Bend radius is typically 10x the outside diameter of the cable, unless otherwise specified. Here, it's a single strand of a duplex cable. So if it's about 3mm across, bend radius is 30mm. (but see below on bend-insensitive cable). When I dress cables I usually eyeball 3-4" diameter loops. Any smaller just doesn't look or feel right anyway.
I'm assuming that at only 25m you're buying pre-terminated cables with LC plugs both ends. This means you need large enough holes in things for those plugs to fit through. Otherwise it's definitely not worth splicing your own at this scale.
https://www.fs.com/products/74386.html?attribute=226&id=99219 - for $16.72 each at 25m, you get new "bend insensitive" cable (7.5mm radius!)
I love FS.com for all manner of fiber and related cabling: https://community.fs.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-multimode-fibe... https://community.fs.com/blog/single-mode-cabling-cost-vs-multimode-cabling-... These have some rule-of-thumb charts.
I think that covers it?
-- Jameel Akari
On 2021-02-15 12:25, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I've posted this in the CDL list also. I don't know of a polite way to post once to both and I'm not sure it's a good idea to try. :-)
It has been a while since I played with fiber (2010) and I'm trying to figure out if I should go fiber or copper in my home. Here's what I know from my current switch:
- SX GBIC - LC - duplex - MMF
I want to buy about 25M of fiber. I think the price is competitive with copper. I'm also hoping that the fiber will age better than the copper. I'm seeing a few old copper drops fail to lower settings. One went to 10/half (wow, that's bad).
The GBIC & switch I have handle 1G. So I can easily pop in a few 1000baseT, put them into a LAG and get 4G (4 ports). So I'm covered for a while.
- Can the same piece of fiber handle 1G or 10G? (in case I upgrade in the future). - Does anyone know the bend radius of this fiber? - What color should I expect for SX fiber. ? - What's a "mode-conditioning patch cord" ?
I'm seeing a $35 price for 25 Meter OM3 LC LC Fiber Patch Cable (Corning 50/125um core/cladding) and it says 1G but with a "mode-conditioning patch cord" (an attenuator?).
Any pointers?
-- Jameel Akari