I'm just as happy with splice trays. The biggest issue with cassettes isn't that they're hard (IMO) it's that they're expensive.
If I was writing the checks, I'd get something with a slide out "drawer". I'd use distribution pigtails from the front of the panel to the splice trays so you don't have individual strands moving around when you slide out the drawer. I'd want both the OSP cables and the splice trays to be secured to the sliding drawer rather than the housing. What I've seen too many times: (1) you have a slide out in the rear, but the OSP cables are so rigidly secured that you can't actually slide it out. And (2) there are bare fibers (or tight buffered) being moved around every time you use the slide out and every time you pull out a splice tray. If people are consistent with the materials and methods you won't have those problems, but the bigger you get, the harder it is to monitor everyone's output. And I think therein lies the appeal of cassettes. In order to splice it they pulled out enough buffer tube to reach a table, so you have slack by default. The buffer tube is secured to the cassette. The OSP cable is secured to the housing and never has to move. The fiber pigtails never have to move separate from the cassette. The biggest idiot you have for a splicer can only screw it up so much. But instead of paying extra for cassettes I'd spend some labor creating a written spec that everyone has to follow or suffer the consequences. If I can afford him, I'll put Steve Jones in charge of consequences because he seems pretty creative about it. -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Chuck McCown <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 9:02 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] "Central Office" style fiber patch panels It has been a while but I was able to get the cassette out the front for splicing. That said, I really hated the cassette system. From: AF [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Forrest Christian (List Account) Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2025 2:04 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] "Central Office" style fiber patch panels I don't particularly have a problem with cassettes, it's more about some of the cassette designs being atrocious for service and mounting. Especially when you're apparently doing it the wrong way and trying to use the cassette as a splice enclosure. My frustration really came from having situations where there was something wrong with the splicing in a particular strand and staff needing to access their splices, and couldn't because (gasp) other strands in the cassette were active. You can't really pull a cassette out the front like some require if you've got lots of patching in place. With moving to the preterminated assembly that should be eliminated. - Forrest On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, 12:38 PM Adam Moffett <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I guess I missed a good thread while my parents were visiting from Texas. You didn't like cassette systems, but I find the cassettes more convenient than a slide out splice tray. We use this one: https://fiberonellc.com/ucs-1200/ Fiberone will pre-terminate it with a 300ft tail of 288 for a pretty reasonable price. Then you can have the tail hit a splice case outside, but you still have the means to splice in a new pigtail if you have a bad connector at the panel. We use 2-meter jumpers and cable managers that open up so you can just pull jumpers out of the rack without disconnecting them. I've never had to disconnect jumpers to pull a cassette out and work on it. I can send you a picture off list if you want. I've used an LGX cassette similar to what Mike Hammet posted as well, but not the same brand. I think I determined that they were more expensive per port than getting an actual distribution panel, but they're nice if you're adding a 12F drop into the site and you already have an LGX bracket with space available. -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Forrest Christian (List Account) <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Friday, August 1, 2025 3:10 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] "Central Office" style fiber patch panels Yeah, we've pretty much decided that's what we're going to do. We're still figuring out the details. Thanks everyone for bringing me (back) up to speed here. - Forrest On Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:15 AM Trey Scarborough <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: yeah Im on the same page panels with long enough tail to get outside or to a specific splice point in the building. If its a hut or small building we would typically just go out to the closest hand hole and do the splice there. If its in a building we will usually build our own splice enclosure for all cables from each path out of large Hoffman type metal wall enclosure. You can get a lot of splices in a 36" x 42" x 12" enclosure especially if its ribbon spliced. On 7/30/25 20:29, Chris Fabien wrote: > We've found the pre-loaded panel with a long enough pigtail to get you > outside to be the preferred approach. Our latest fiber hut has 3x 432F > panels, and for now has 3x 288F coming into it. > When I've tried to do a 288F in the back of a large patch-N-Splice > style panel it always ends up a huge mess and it's very hard to > service if you need to fix a bad splice or something. > > On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 9:17 PM Mike Hammett > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> This might be a middle of the road. >> >> https://thinklynn.com/products/categories/bladehd/ >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Mike Hammett >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Forrest Christian (List Account)" >> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> >> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" >> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> >> Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2025 12:13:41 PM >> Subject: [AFMUG] "Central Office" style fiber patch panels >> >> >> >> >> I'm looking for a source/model/etc for fiber patch panels, which are similar >> to those found in a comm room/meet me room/etc. I think these might be >> called "distribution panels". >> >> >> Specifically, one designed to be mounted in a 2-post rack, with the fixed >> plant cable/splicing all happening in the rear, and the patching all >> happening in the front, and no need to unmount/move the patching in the >> front if some splicing work needs to occur in the rear. That way, the >> outside plant people can do their work in the rear without having to deal >> with patches in the front. >> >> >> So far, almost everything I've seen tends to be either cassette-based, where >> you do all the terminations and then somehow mount that in a rack, but if >> you have to gain access to the splices again, you have to pull the whole >> cassette out, OR the style where the entire splice tray and connectors slide >> out the front - in which case you have to leave enough slack or otherwise >> pay special attention to the patching for the slide-out function to work >> after you have several patch cables plugged in. >> >> >> An ebay search for "adc fiber distribution panel" gives me some examples of >> what I'm looking for, but they aren't exactly plentiful and I also want to >> use something consistent. >> >> -- >> >> >> - Forrest >> -- >> AF mailing list >> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> >> >> -- >> AF mailing list >> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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