Fiber bend radius

[nj47]

I'm looking to run fiber from one end of my apartment into my server closet. Currently I've got cat 6 cable run and hidden as well as possible since I can't put it inside the walls and I'm hoping to run the fiber alongside the existing cable.

My question, is will the bend radius around the door frame be too tight for running fiber - or will I be able to run it without ruining the cable?

A picture of the setup in question is attached.



Thanks!

 

[pyro_]

You could look at getting bend insensive fiber cable which has almost no bend radius on it

 

[Kybber]

The recommended minimum bend radius is 10-15x the diameter. So for a 2mm fiber cable, the bend radius should be 20-30mm. However, as pyro says you may want to get bend insensitive fiber. Take a look at the information and photos here: LC to LC Duplex PVC/LSZH/OFNP 10G OM4 Bend Insensitive Fiber Patch Cable | FS.COM

 

[Jerry Renwick]

To make sure the better performance of your network, you'd better use the bend insensitive cables. The price of this cable is very low just as the one that Kybber has recommended.

 

[bds1904]

I 3rd the bend insensitive fiber. I use it just about every day and stuff like that lasts a very long time.

 

[nj47]

Ordered the bend insensitive fiber!

Because I was curious I ended up running my existing fiber anyway to see how it would do. It's currently working just fine, I tested it vs. straight fiber between the same servers and `iperf` consistently was the same for each cable - but some of the bends are pretty tight and I suspect it would deteriorate over time if I left it as is.

 

[aero]

You shouldn't expect to see any difference in iperf. But if your switch can show you the optical receive power level you'd likely notice a lower signal on the normal cable vs bend insensitive.

As long as the signal is still within acceptable operating range it would be fine.

 

[pc_doom]

If you are worried about bend loss issues, you'b better try a bend insentitive fiber cable. The price of bend insensitive fiber patch cable is almost the same as the normal fiber patch cables, but you will not worry about over bending the patch cables any more.