cleaning up a fiber optics connection

zepherin

Currently what I have is 4 LC to LC patch cables going into 4 media converters going into a cat 5 switch. Essentially patching 3 input connections into 1 output. It works, but it is essentially rediculous and precariously stacked (litterally stacked on a ladder) bunch of gear we had on hand. The patch cables I am going to have to give back (sad panda) eventually, so I am going to clean it up.

What I think I need is a 4 port fiber optics switch.
mounting hardware
4 LC gbic
and 4 LC to LC patch cables.
All of this is multimode

What I'm asking, is does anyone have any recomendations on a cost effective switch that I can use, and is there anything else that I will need for this to work?

Spam

I'm afraid that cost-effective and fibre optic switch don't really go in the same sentence together. Dedicated fibre switches can cost anything from £300 (~ $450 USD) to £3000 plus the cost of the GBIC modules which can be from £40 to £100 each. Your best bet is to look for a 24-port Web-managed switch which has 4 SFP slots - the extra 24 ports will be a bit redundant, and there is no room for expansion on the fibre side aside from using media converters again, but you should be able to pick one up for around £150-£200ish, and then budget another £200-£300 for the gbic modules.

As far as recommendations go, my work sells Netgear, Zyxel and Planet switches/gbics etc, and the Planet gear is by far the most economical out of them. Have a look at some of the other lower end brands like Trendnet and TP-Link as well.

Fibre patch leads in comparison are cheap as chips, can get them from as little as £4 each, depending on what sort of length you need. Match your patchleads to the backbone cable you have - it'll either be 62.5/125 (OM1) or 50/125 (OM2 / OM3 - go for OM3 if you aren't sure which here).

zepherin

Thanks, ill keep that in mind, and I don't think ill need to expand this set because it is a closed loop that serves one thing.