Some states have a slot limit on certain species of fish. This means that fisherman can keep fish that are between certain sizes. Fish that are too small or too large must be thrown back to perpetuate the species. It always challenges my ethics when I catch Walter (Figure 1), and is too big to keep, fry, and eat.
Similarly (kind of), there is a slot limit on certain fiber optic equipment (i.e, Device, Panel, Shelf, etc). This limit is based upon the design capacity of the equipment, not on what size you can eat. The OOTB Schneider Electric Fiber Manager™ model has one child object of the Panel titled F_PatchPanelCard. It is possible to leverage Fiber Manager™’s Flexible Data Model to create an intermediate child slot object of the Panel titled F_PatchPanelSlot (Figure 2).
Figure 3 shows a generic Panel with 9 available slots (Note that slot/card names often omit “I”). The quantity of slots are generally found in the manufacturer’s specifications. A specific ArcFM™ Favorite is then built for this specific type of Panel with 9 related Slot records/objects. This (and I presume other future constructed Favorites) can be placed and subsequently tested in a container Patch Location Feature Class Favorite.
Figure 4 illustrates a case where 4 cards are placed in slots A-D. Similarly, a Card Favorite can be manually built from manufacturer’s specifications that includes not only the card, but also the front side and back side ports. SSP has also been able to construct favorites from legacy data and conversion code which prevents the time-consuming process of manual construction.
Utilizing the Location Editor, an applicable card favorite can be dragged into the appropriate slot(s). It should be noted that subsequent attribute edit may be required after placement.
In a past Schneider Electric/Telvent annual conference, I presented a method of dealing with card gaps (spaces in the panel where no card exists). This method of a PatchPanelSlot object is vastly superior (and more usuable) than the previously described method.
What do you think?