Question Can fiber optic be used with lasers ?

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C0RLoCK

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Aug 20, 2019
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I saw a recent video from DIY Perks on Youtube showing how lasers can be used to transmit sound to speakers wirelessly using an optical sound connection. It made me remember how fiber optic worked, and made me curious as to whether or not fiber optic might be used the same way to create a "Visual Lan" network wirelessly using lasers and "Optical Receivers" connected to a fiber optic cable?
 
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C0RLoCK said:
I saw a recent video from DIY Perks on Youtube showing how lasers can be used to transmit sound to speakers wirelessly using an optical sound connection. It made me remember how fiber optic worked and made me curious as to whether or not fiber optic might be used the same way to create a "Visual Lan" network wirelessly using lasers and "Optical Receivers" connected to a fiber optic cable?
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Yes. Fiber optic cable is often used in networking with lasers. Both LEDs and actual lasers can be used as the source for light in optical networking.
But point to point laser networking is not tied to fiber cable.
So I am not sure what your question is.
 
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Well for starters since networks are bidirectional you would need 2 fiber cables to transmit in both directions. So that raises the cost. And 2 transmitters and 2 receivers on each end and 2 jacks and plugs, etc. so the costs mount up. The alternative is modulators and demodulators (modems) which is what you have when fiber networks enter your house, etc.
 
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dwd999 said:
Well for starters since networks are bidirectional you would need 2 fiber cables to transmit in both directions. So that raises the cost. And 2 transmitters and 2 receivers on each end and 2 jacks and plugs, etc. so the costs mount up. The alternative is modulators and demodulators (modems) which is what you have when fiber networks enter your house, etc.
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He is talking about a special case where the traffic is only 1 way but it is now extremely common to only use a single fiber strand for networks. Ethernet fiber connection are still 2 strands but most the fiber going to people houses is a single strand. They use different color lasers so they can send both data connections. They also many times have addition lasers colors for cable tv, a VoIP telephone solution and other stuff. Almost all fiber connections that are 100 gbit or more are using multiple overlapping lasers.

To the main OP question. There are many commercial solution that use fiber to transmit sound. They are simple little modules you buy that take the fiber in on one side and put out audio connectors on the other. Hard to say what type of light source they are using. Likely LED since LED is also a directional light source and they make special LED for fiber use. You can use actual lasers but that is generally only used for distance.

It all depends on what you mean "visual lan". You generally can't see the light colors used for fiber transmission. 2 common frequencies/colors used are 1310 and 1550nm. For short distance they use 850nm. 850 nm is has a barely visible red color. Those green laser pointers you see run at 530nm. Note the lasers used for fiber optic are actually fairly dangerous. You can't see them but just like the lasers you can see they can damage your eyes is you look directly into them.
 
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kanewolf said:
Yes. Fiber optic cable is often used in networking with lasers. Both LEDs and actual lasers can be used as the source for light in optical networking.
But point to point laser networking is not tied to fiber cable.
So I am not sure what your question is.
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I was more curious if point to point laser networking could be used and built yourself using fiber optic cables as the connection medium to the computers. The cable would transmit the light signal to a laser diode, shoot it at a reciever far away which connected to another cable and distant computer.

I live on a 6 acre property in Southern Oregon, so we have lots of evergreen trees. Wifi is very unreliable when trying to get a mesh network without latency, speed loss, or signal dead zones, if this idea was possible, then it wouldn't matter how far away you were from the main router.
 
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bill001g said:
To the main OP question. There are many commercial solution that use fiber to transmit sound. They are simple little modules you buy that take the fiber in on one side and put out audio connectors on the other. Hard to say what type of light source they are using. Likely LED since LED is also a directional light source and they make special LED for fiber use. You can use actual lasers but that is generally only used for distance.

It all depends on what you mean "visual lan". You generally can't see the light colors used for fiber transmission. 2 common frequencies/colors used are 1310 and 1550nm. For short distance they use 850nm. 850 nm is has a barely visible red color. Those green laser pointers you see run at 530nm. Note the lasers used for fiber optic are actually fairly dangerous. You can't see them but just like the lasers you can see they can damage your eyes is you look directly into them.
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Using lasers for distance would be the point, and by "Visual Lan" I don't mean visual to us, but visual to the pc. It would be a wireless connection between 2 or more computers, so creating a Local Area Network via line-of-sight, because lasers can't shine through solid, nontransparent objects.

This is just a theory, and I'm curious. I think it's fun and important to have a think tank and ask strange questions, if people didn't, then we wouldn't have the greats like Nicola Tesla who pushed our technology forward, nor Science Fiction to give us inspiration to actually push for.
 
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I don't think there are many cases for legal line of sight laser equipment. The risk to people and animals would be relatively high, and easily blocked by rain and snow. You would be better suited to line of sight radio, AKA WiFi, over short distances. Special directional antennae perfectly aligned can greatly increase range. There are certainly more expensive point to point microwave based with ranges measured in kilometers.

Just to be clear, both lasers and radio are both speed of light technologies. So is wired for that matter, in that case the wave carrying the electric field is speed of light effectively. What determines the latency is the conversion and routing hardware at either end. Propagating through circuits and being processed is what takes up significantly more time than the actual data transmissions.
 
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C0RLoCK said:
I live on a 6 acre property in Southern Oregon, so we have lots of evergreen trees. Wifi is very unreliable when trying to get a mesh network without latency, speed loss, or signal dead zones, if this idea was possible, then it wouldn't matter how far away you were from the main router.
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Optical would be even more unreliable. Lower frequency waves MIGHT penetrate foliage. Light is much higher frequency than radio.
 
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It has been many years but a company I worked actually made device that used lasers to talk between buildings. This was before wifi point to point was common.
They eventually discontinued the product. It needed extremely accurate alignment and even moderate wind would deflect the mounts enough to drop the connection. Bad weather also greatly reduced the bandwidth. A foggy day completely blocked it and day with constant light rain was close to unusable.

Starlink I think uses lasers between their satellites but that works because there is no air or weather to affect it.
 
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