Standard fiber color charts
Can you list all of the fiber cable color codes in the world? Well no. Because a lot of the color codes have no names. They just.. exist. Sometimes cable techs dig out some old cable, look at the fiber colors – and it does not match any of the known codes. So they write it down and the code lives on without a name.
Many sources will offer you color code charts of cables up to 576 fibers, which are usually 24 tubes * 24 fibers. With a standard color designation – 12 colors, then 12 colors with a black ring (or dotted color). But what happens to the tube №25 in a thicker cable? Which color should it be? Should it have a blue ring? Should it have 2 black rings? And what happens to the 37th tube in an even more thick cable?
If a single tube has 48 fibers, then usually
– the first 12 fibers are color coded
– the second 12 fibers have a black ring
– the third 12 fibers have two black rings
– the fourth 12 fibers have three black rings
There’s apparently no black fiber with a black ring. Black fiber has either a yellow or white ring.
If a cable has an enormous amount of tubes, they are coded not like fibers. Usually it goes like this:
– the 1st twelve tubes are color coded
– the 2nd twelve tubes have a black ring
– the 3rd twelve tubes have a red ring
– the 4th twelve tubes have a green ring
– the 5th twelve tubes have a blue ring
– the 6th twelve tubes have a double black ring
– the 7th twelve tubes have a double red ring
– the 8th twelve tubes have a double green ring
– the 9th twelve tubes have a double blue ring
– the 10th twelve tubes have a triple black ring and so on
The color chart files look like this:
| TIA-598-C | /12 per tube | /24 per tube | /36 per tube | /48 per tube | ||||
| 12 fiber color chart | jpg | |||||||
| 24 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | ||||||
| 36 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | ||||||
| 48 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | |||||
| 96 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | |||||
| 144 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | jpg | ||||
| 192 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | |||||
| 216 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | |||||
| 288 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | jpg | ||||
| 384 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | |||||
| 432 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | jpg | ||||
| 576 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | jpg | ||||
| 864 fiber color chart | jpg | jpg | jpg | jpg | ||||
Ribbons
Ribbons are tricky bastards. Read more about ribbon and spiderweb construction here.
Thick ribbon cables are usually divided into sections or units, each containing a pile of separate ribbons. How do you distinguish one ribbon from another without constantly re-counting them? All manufacturers have their own ring coding for ribbons. But instead of putting 50 rings on a ribbon, they use marks of different width, meaning different numbers.
For instance, Corning and AFL uses two types of marks – 1 & 5.
Prysmian uses marks for counts 1 & 5 for 36-ribbon stacks and 1, 5 & 20 for 72-ribbon stacks.
Sumitomo uses marks for counts 1, 5, 10 & 50.
Corning ribbon marks
AFL ribbon marks
Prysmian 36-stack ribbon marks
Prysmian 72-stack ribbon marks
Sumitomo ribbon marks
Different manufacturers stack a different amount of ribbons into sections and blocks. Hence all of them have different color charts for the cables with the same amount of fibers with the same overall color code, which is TIA-598-C in this case. All this charts are for 12-fiber ribbons. The charts also contain ribbon marks. The files look like this:
