ADAT cable failure

R

RRuskin

Rick Ruskin
I had 2 ADAT/toslink cables die on me yesterday. They stopped transmitting data. Fortunately, I have spares but am curious as to what might have caused their demise.
 
It is an optical cable. The cable is prone to physical damage either to the connector or cable itself. Breakage or severe bend or pinching is a common issue. A break can cause a reflection at the break point creating critical errors in data. Toslink cables can be either glass or plastic. Glass is more likely to be a break. Plastic can be pinched causing light to be distorted affecting data integrity.
 
Hey Folk! I am also curious if the cables degrade over time. Never had an issue, but would suck if it did.

Suppose I can just Google it myself... :)
 
jimmys69 said:
Hey Folk! I am also curious if the cables degrade over time. Never had an issue, but would suck if it did.

Suppose I can just Google it myself... :)
Click to expand...
Never had one degrade. Glass would work forever unless it broke or the connector surface got damaged or dirty. Plastic? Who knows?
 
Mine are Hosa, and have not failed so far.
Also, if you bend the cable too sharply, the laser can exit the pipe wall, rather than reaching the other end.
 
I work with fiber optics in general. Dirt is the number one issue with opitcal connectors. Sounds like you may have some schmutz in a connection. Get some canned air.
 
Whatever happened, it was not because the cables had been disturbed from their "as installed" run. I'll be moving things around so I can use a much shorter one with new cables ASAP.
 
Track Rat said:
I work with fiber optics in general. Dirt is the number one issue with opitcal connectors. Sounds like you may have some schmutz in a connection. Get some canned air.
Click to expand...
Yes, blast out the sockets. Also clean the ends of the cables with the wipes you use for spectacles or camera lenses. Boots chemist here do a box of 50 for not a lot of dosh.

Dave.
 
I'm now inclined to think that the bad cables got kinked somehow because all connections were tight & undisturbed for months once in place. With replacements, all is working as it should.
 
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