Laying FO Cable

Laying of FO cable is a procedure in which, by selecting the nodal elements, you define its future path, and by accepting the offered path, the program automatically generates the FO cable.

When defining the path, the program connects the selected nodal elements using the shortest possible path (procedure described on this page).
When you need to assign the path so that it deviates from the shortest path, do it in the manner described in "Laying Linear Infrastructure" page (in Laying along Arbitrary Path section).
Precondition for cable laying is to have the trench routes and FO nodal infrastructure elements (ODF, OTB, Patch Panel, IPAN, FO splice point etc.) drawn in the site plan.
FO cable is laid along the routes in the drawing.
FO cable properties depend on the command being used for FO cable lying.
These properties can be changed later through the Properties window.

Following commands can be used to lay FO cable:

• SMF cable (designed) (with the property  Cable Status - Designed)
• SMF cable (built) (with the property  Cable Status - Bbuilt)
• Predefined SMF cable (predefined number of buffer tubes and fibers with property  Cable Status - Designed)
• Aerial SMF Cable (with property  Cable Laying - Aerial)
• Disconnected SMF Cable (with property   Disconnected - YES)
• MMF Cable (designed) (with the property  Cable Status - Designed)
• Existing MMF Cable (built) (with the property  Cable Status - As-built)

Procedure

From the main menu run  Fiber Optics > SMF Cable (designed) command.

The command is now active. The cursor is displayed as a small square with the text next to it asking you to Select FO Nodal Element (Figure 1).
Select the nodal element by clicking on its symbol or label (in the example we’ve selected the ODF).

Figure 1

Red rectangle appears signaling that you have properly selected the nodal element (Figure 2).

Figure 2 

Now, by clicking on the symbol of the element up to which you want to lay the cable, select the next nodal element (in the example it’s the Splice Point).

After selecting the second nodal element, second red rectangle is displayed, now connected by a red line with the previous one.
Red line and rectangles are temporary and are displayed while the command is active.
They represent the future path of the cable that’s being laid (Figure 3).

Figure 3

End the command by right-clicking or pressing the ENTER key.
The program draws the cable along the given path.
The cable with the label appears in the site plan (Figure 4).
(Cable label doesn’t display the cable type data until you define cable capacity (number of fibers and buffer tubes) in the Properties).
The cable is located at its default layer.
Line thickness, type and color are determined by the layer settings.

Figure 4

Cable properties can now be changed through the Properties window.
Select the cable.
Vertexes of the polyline representing the cable are highlighted (blue rectangles) (Figure 5).

Figure 5

In the Properties  window (Figure 6), enter the "Number of buffer tubes" and “Number of fibers".
(We can also modify some other properties if there is a need for that.)

Figure 6

After entering values in the Properties window, click in the blank space of the site plan drawing,
to refresh it, after which the cable label is displayed with the data on the cable type, number of buffer tubes and other data related to the selected cable (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Additional information on the principles of linear infrastructure laying in TeleCAD-GIS
are on Laying Linear Infrastructure page.