The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 30, 2002
Filed:
Feb. 04, 2000
Paul Nickelsberg, Lexington, MA (US);
Dean R. Craig, Middleboro, MA (US);
Walter F. Kalin, Laconia, NH (US);
Joseph Rapoza, Merrimack, NH (US);
Wilcom, Inc., Laconia, NH (US);
Abstract
A hand held optical fault locator used to determine the distance to a discontinuity in a fiber optic cable, such as a break, nick, cut, scrape, indentation, or the like, a splice, a connector, or the end of the cable. The locator includes an analog front end, a complex programmable logic device (CPLD), a laser diode and drive, a microcontroller, at least one input, and at least one output. The preferred locator allows a user to select a specific index of refraction, to measure the distance to a fault directly in feet or meters, to measure fiber lengths at counting frequencies in the 100KHz range, to determine fiber reflection events in the digital-time domain, and to make accurate measurements without the use of a sensitivity adjustment feature.