Inspect before you connect
The fiber tech's rule that every connector end face gets scoped, and cleaned if needed, before it is mated.
The installer mantra, often shortened to IBYC, that sums up the leading cause of fiber link failures: contaminated end faces. Every connector, including brand-new jumpers straight out of the bag and the bulkhead side of the panel, is inspected with a scope, cleaned if dirty, and inspected again before mating. Mating a dirty connector presses the dirt into both end faces and can pit them permanently.
I don't care if it's new out of the bag, inspect before you connect, that's how we got the bad port last week.
Dust caps are not clean: they shed plastic and collect dust, so a capped connector still gets scoped.
Also heard as
- IBYC
Related terms
End face
The polished tip of a connector ferrule and fiber, where light leaves one fiber and enters the next.
Click cleaner
A pen-shaped one-click connector cleaner that wipes a fresh strip of cleaning tape across the end face.
Connector
A removable termination that aligns the end of one fiber with another so light passes between them.
Light levels
The transmit and receive optical power readings on a transceiver, read from a meter or the switch's optic diagnostics.