Tools · Cable
Fiber optic color code calculator
Pick the scheme your cable follows and enter a fiber number to get its tube and color. Or click a fiber in the cable below to get its number.
Tube
Fiber in the tube
Click a fiber to see its number and colors above. Colors on screen are approximate: the standard defines them as paint samples, not screen values.
The first twelve colors, side by side
Every scheme starts from a row of twelve colors, and fibers further along the tube repeat it with a mark. The rows begin differently: TIA with blue, DIN and S12 with red, ABNT with green.
| No. | TIA-598-D | DIN VDE 0888 | S12 | ABNT NBR 14160 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue | Red (Rot) | Red | Green (Verde) |
| 2 | Orange | Green (Grün) | Blue | Yellow (Amarela) |
| 3 | Green | Blue (Blau) | White | White (Branca) |
| 4 | Brown | Yellow (Gelb) | Green | Blue (Azul) |
| 5 | Slate (gray) | White (Weiss) | Yellow | Red (Vermelha) |
| 6 | White | Slate (gray) (Grau) | Slate (gray) | Violet (Violeta) |
| 7 | Red | Brown (Braun) | Brown | Brown (Marrom) |
| 8 | Black | Violet (Violett) | Black | Rose (pink) (Rosa) |
| 9 | Yellow | Aqua (turquoise) (Türkis) | Violet | Black (Preta) |
| 10 | Violet | Black (Schwarz) | Orange | Slate (gray) (Cinza) |
| 11 | Rose (pink) | Orange (Orange) | Aqua (turquoise) | Orange (Laranja) |
| 12 | Aqua (turquoise) | Rose (pink) (Rosa) | Rose (pink) | Aqua (turquoise) (Azul claro) |
Names in brackets are the ones the scheme's own documents print.
How the calculator works
From the fibers-per-tube figure it works out which tube the fiber is in and where it sits in that tube. Then it reads both colors from the scheme you picked. Every rule comes from the standard itself or from a cable datasheet that follows it.
TIA-598-D sets 48 positions. Positions 13 to 24 carry one black mark, 25 to 36 a double black mark, 37 to 48 a green stripe. Where the mark would not show, its color changes: black fibers get a white mark, and the green fiber gets an orange stripe.
DIN VDE 0888 and S12 are known up to 24 positions, with rings on 13 to 24 and a clear fiber where black would be. For ABNT NBR 14160, the Brazilian datasheets give the twelve fiber colors and the tube rule, but not how fibers 13 to 24 are marked. Where our sources for a scheme stop, the calculator says so and does not invent the next color.
Colors on screen are approximate. TIA-598-D defines each color as a Munsell paint sample, and we converted those to screen values. For the other schemes we show the same screen color for a color of the same name.
Where your cable may differ
The cable datasheet beats any table, this one included. The standard leaves room, and cable makers use it.
Under TIA-598-D, fiber 20 is black with a white mark. Many cables do it differently: a yellow mark, or a natural fiber with a black mark. Under DIN VDE 0888, fiber 22 is clear; under S12, fiber 20 is.
How many fibers go in a tube is a matter of cable design, not of the color scheme. In Thailand and Vietnam a 24-fiber cable is usually 4 tubes of 6, while some Indonesian factories make it 2 tubes of 12. Some two-layer cables in Indonesia number the outer tubes from 1 again and add a gold and a silver tube.
Factories in Southeast Asia print Grey, Pink and Turquoise where the standard says Slate, Rose and Aqua. These are the same colors, and the standard lists both sets of names. In Malaysia a two-fiber drop cable is blue and yellow, not blue and orange.
Questions
Is the fiber optic color code the same in every country?
No. TIA-598 covers the USA and Southeast Asia, Germany and its neighbors use DIN VDE 0888, Sweden uses S12 and Brazil uses ABNT. Russia has no mandatory scheme, and each factory writes its own into the cable datasheet.
How are the fibers after the twelfth marked in a 144 or 288 fiber cable?
Usually with tube colors rather than marks: such cables hold 12 fibers per tube and count the tubes. Fiber 145 of a 288-fiber cable is the first fiber in tube 13, and under TIA-598-D tube 13 is blue with a black mark. Positions 13 to 24 inside one tube only occur in tubes that hold 24 fibers.
What do the buffer tube colors mean?
Under TIA-598-D, tubes follow the same twelve colors as the fibers. Other schemes often color only the first tubes and leave the rest white or yellow. In Brazil, tube 1 is green (the pilot) and tube 2 is yellow (the direction), and the rest are white. Together they show where to start counting and which way to go around the cable.
Can I print the color code chart?
Yes. Print this page from your browser, and the table of the first twelve colors goes onto paper together with the cable you set up above. To keep it as a file, choose “Save as PDF” in the print dialog.
After splicing
When the fibers are spliced and the link is tested, open the OTDR traces here: one fiber at a time, a whole folder or an archive.