What the Tech: How to Clean an Optic

Maintaining reliable network connections requires clean connectors. If you have a dirty optic, your signal will be blocked which can lead to frame rate loss, lost data, and the inability for data to reach it’s end destination. Dirt and debris can also embed into fiber end face which can cause permanent, performance-affecting damage.

At Integra, we inspect all of our optics to make sure they are clean before they head out the door. Sometimes, ensuring uptime is as easy as maintaining clean optics and thoroughly cleaning dirty ones. Instead of replacing dirty optics, a faster and much more cost-effective solution is simply knowing how to properly clean optics within your network.

Watch the second part of this “What the Tech” series on how to perform a fiber end face inspection.

“Hello, everyone. I’m engineer and optics expert Dan Davis. And today we’re going to get down and dirty on the ins and outs of cleaning fiber optics and why it’s important for network uptime.”

“Network downtime is often caused by dirty optics, which is why it’s important to properly clean them to maintain network uptime.”

“Maintaining a reliable network is as important as having clean connections. If you have a dirty optic your signal is going to get blocked. That will lead to frame rate loss and lost data that ultimately will not reach its end destination. Dirt and debris can also become embedded into the fiber end face which can cause permanent performance affecting damage. At Integra we thoroughly inspect all our optics before they head out the door, ensuring uptime is as easy as maintaining clean optics and properly cleaning dirty optics. Instead of replacing dirty optics, a faster and much more cost-effective method is to simply know how to clean optics within your network.”

“One of the first things we want to do is remove the boot cover. The next step will be to scope the optic. If we find the optic is dirty, we are then going to use our cleaning stick to clean the optic, giving one pump for each side. Then, we’re going to rescope the optic, ensuring that it is clean. At Integra optics, we triple check our work on each and every optic before it goes out the door to ensure that it’s up to our standards. Cleaning optics is quick and easy. To save time and money, inspect optics that are underperforming to see whether they are clean or not before going to replace them.”

“I’m Dan Davis and that’s how to clean fiber optic transceivers. If you want to learn more about network uptime and reliability, give us a call or email.”