Optical waveguides – Accessories – Splice box and surplus fiber storage/trays/organizers/ carriers
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-13
2001-10-09
Sanghavi, Hemang (Department: 2874)
Optical waveguides
Accessories
Splice box and surplus fiber storage/trays/organizers/ carriers
C385S134000, C385S137000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06301424
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to distribution frames and, more particularly, to apparatus for routing cables in a distribution frame.
Modern high speed telecommunications equipment increasingly relies on the use of optical fiber as a transmission medium, since it provides the bandwidth needed by customers. However, the optical fiber cables must be handled with care to prevent optical losses. When an optical fiber is bent, micro-cracking may occur and damage the expensive fiber cables. It is therefore important to control the bend radius of the fiber. As a general rule, fiber handling and packaging is much more restrictive than wire handling and packaging.
As customers demand higher bandwidth, the communications service providers are interested in purchasing the most compact system that takes up the least amount of floor space. Accordingly, increasingly higher fiber counts are packaged into a limited space. To complicate matters, optical fiber organization always involves slack management for two reasons:
1) Fiber termination can yield length variation that dictates its manufacturing tolerance; and
2) It is desirable to have equal length fiber cables used for multiple equipment module locations.
To satisfy these constraints, it is known to use valuable space within the same bay frame or adding additional half width or full width bay frames to provide room for slack management. This is disadvantageous in that equipment space is always at a premium and adding additional bays takes up floor space. Further, using space in the same equipment bay is not always feasible since the same space is sought after for packaging active equipment. It would therefore be desirable to provide a cable management system which, in a limited amount of space, efficiently routes optical fiber cables, provides slack management, and routes the cables in a manner to minimize bending.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, there is provided apparatus for routing cables in a distribution frame which comprises a planar panel having a plurality of takeup spools with their axes aligned perpendicular to the plane of the panel for the storage of excess lengths of cable, and a hollow cylindrical member mounted for pivoting movement about a pivot axis. The longitudinal axis of the cylindrical member is parallel to the pivot axis and the cylindrical member has a longitudinally extending gap in its wall. Cables are routed to the panel, are selectively wound on selected ones of the spools to provide slack management, are routed into the cylindrical member, and are routed out of the cylindrical member through the gap.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4053719 (1977-10-01), Debortoli et al.
patent: 5825962 (1998-10-01), Walters et al.
patent: 6160946 (2000-12-01), Thompson et al.
Davis David L.
Knauss Scott A
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Sanghavi Hemang
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