Corning understands the importance of connector cleaning to ensure network optical performance. The following questions and answers explore the importance of clean connections and Corning’s new factory cleaning and packaging process – Corning® CleanAdvantage™ technology that will help address those issues and eliminate the need for traditional cleaning processes.
When connectors are clean, light can be easily transmitted through the core from one side to the other.
However, dust and other contaminants will affect the amount of light transmitted and cause back reflections and insertion losses that cause system instability.
An unclean connector end face will cause light scattering and permanent damage to the end face when the connector is mated. From the four pictures below, you can see the main factors that cause light scattering and permanent damage to the end face.
The IEC 61300-3-35 (effective version 2.0, 2015-06) standard defines the cleaning requirements for the connector end face and defines the scope of each area.
Taking the 1.25 mm (1250 µm) LC connector ferrule as an example, we will find that the clean areas A to D defined by the IEC standard only occupy 4% of the total area of the entire connector ferrule end face.
When working on site using traditional cleaning methods:
Cleanliness in area X is poor or not cleaned
There is no feasible method in the field to obtain a completely clean connector
Traditional dust caps cannot fully guarantee the cleanliness of a brand-new connector. It can mainly prevent dents and scratches, but it cannot block dust and debris. Common sources of pollution from traditional dust caps:
Corning’s new factory cleaning and packaging process – Corning® CleanAdvantage™ technology (available on the EDGE and EDGE8 solution products) – have clean end surfaces when they are first used. The optimized dust cap keeps the end face of the connector clean until the first main connection.
Therefore, it saves you time and cost during the initial installation. In this way, when you use the CleanAdvantage technology connector, you only need to directly remove the dust cap to connect with confidence.
Corning’s new factory cleaning and packaging process – Corning® CleanAdvantage™ technology (available on the EDGE and EDGE8 solution products) – have clean end surfaces when they are first used. The optimized dust cap keeps the end face of the connector clean until the first main connection.
Therefore, it saves you time and cost during the initial installation. In this way, when you use the CleanAdvantage technology connector, you only need to directly remove the dust cap to connect with confidence.
