This is a rig I had built to teach how to troubleshoot fiber with an otdr, power meter, and visual light source.
These were all recycled materials.
Basically you take a patch panel and splice to the outer tail of the cable then take another and splice to another cable going to a splice enclosure.
If you leave it like that there is only the basic end to end test, but you can splice different counts back and forth in loops till you have different footages. If you have a high count cable reel that is 10000 feet you can easily have ranges to 120k'. Also produce opens, bad splices, and macrobends. This way you can have hands on "real" issues that can be identified and remedied. This is a pretty basic setup and can be expanded with multiple cases and reels but I had to have something that could be moved out of the way when not in use. Another good addition to this kind of practical setup would be to have different generations of connectors and live electronics to expose more of a system. I talked to one instructor and he had a lab setup that would have loud alarms if the students broke a connection or attenuated a signal to much.
If you ever go to a practical training for fiber splicing this kind of training is essential so you can face many of the real world issues with some familiarity.
