Fiber Breaks Faulty Connectors Sharp bends Bad Splices Fiber Similar Faults located by VFL Fiber Visual Fault Detector

Whenever you need to install or troubleshoot fiber cables,Visual Fault Locator (VFL)

is an easy and essential tool for quickly positioning the problem areas.

As a fiber optic tester, VFL is used to trace optic fibers, check fiber continuity and find fiber breaks,

damaged connectors, defective splices, tight bends in optical cables.

Two basic types of VFL are pen shape VFL and hand held VFL. Pen shape VFL is very small with a pocket size to be carried anywhere.

Hand held VFL has a range of connector bulkheads styles from universals to specific connector types.

How VFL Works?

The invisible light signals are typically transmitted at 1300 nm to 1650 nm wavelengths over fiber optic cables.

Different from the way thatOTDR (optical time-domain reflectometer) locates the faults by measuring the time

of the incidence and the amplitude of the reflected pulses sent to the fiber optic cable,

VFL uses powerful visible light at the wavelengths between 360 nm to 670 nm to visually and quickly locate

the faults in the cables.

When the visible light leaks out at a certain point of optical cable, it shows that the VFL has reached a fault.

It is also easy to see light leaking through the plastic cable jackets under the right illumination of VFL.

Generally, a VFL can work at the distance between 2 km to 5 km.

Using VFL is not a difficult task. Just follow the steps to know the operation procedure:

Step one, remove the plastic connector covers from both ends of the fiber cable.

• Step two, connect the VFL to one end of the fiber cable.
• Step three, press the tester button and observe whether light emanates from the other end of the fiber. This gives a simple indication of the continuity of the fiber link.
• Step four, repeat the above steps with other fiber cables to see if visual light is leaking out from a faulty splice. This may illustrate an easy way of carrying out visual fault locating on bad splices or joints.
• Step five, disconnect all equipment, put the plastic covers back to the connector ends and return everything to the state it was.

Notes:

• Point one, do not look directly into the VFL’s output.
• Point two, cover the VFL’s output with the dust cap when it is not in use.
• Point three, VFL is not recommended to be used on dark colored or armored cables.