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Optical fiber splicing tool.
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Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...900#post164103
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...1676#post94385
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...900#post133596
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...020#post140840
It would be nice in slow motion.
Ralph
i remember when I first started out with this, the unit was mounted in large airconditioned trucks, and all up cost around $3M for the truck with the gear inside. The fibre splice was created with an small electric arc, and the machine would melt the ends of the glass, and push them together and then pull them apart whilst still molten to get the profile you see at the end. X and Y views were flipped back of forth with a prism mirror for inspection.
Even though this isn’t part of a 3 million dollar setup, I am betting that tool cost at least 10k$.Quote:
Originally Posted by desbromilow
Back in those days the tool was a large console tool which weighed at least half a ton, and cost over $1M, the rest of the cost was for the positive pressure A/C to keep dust out of the truck, the consumables, etc. I'm talking the early 1990's, and Telstra pretty much had the monopoly on fibre networks, and was charged a lot for any equipment. nowadays (as evidenced in the video) you can do splicing in the dirt, and the machine is only a few grand. Consumables have come down a lot in price driven by competition out of asia... but if you insist on buying Corning glass components, the prices haven't moved too much, inflation pretty much cancelling out Burke's law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Sexy
when I ran the fibre out to my shed, it was cheaper to buy preterminated SMOF with home made wall plate joiners, etc than to buy unterminated cable, pigtails, etc and have someone come and do the joints.
What do you do with fiber to the shed? I watched a fiber splice 30 years ago and have always thought it would be fun run some fiber around the shop but never really came up with a use.
Ralph
I use it between the house and shed to get network into the shed. By using a couple of $50 surplus Cisco switches, some aftermarket SFPs, etc I have the internet in the shed, the home network in the shed, geographic isolation for my backup drive, and similar features. I converted an old ADSL modem into a wirelss bridge, and have wifi in the shed as well, but only for internet (none of my private networks are ever put on wifi) - If i choose to, I can even run PoE phones in the same setup, across the existing fibre.
Some of this was done for keeping my skills current, there is Cat5e in the joint use trench alongside the fibre, but there is also 16mm2 3 phase cable in the same trench, and given I can pull over 85A per phase, the fibre is better for noise reduction. The Cat5e were tested as "OK" but I use them for alarm cables rather than network.
$1k on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/YEDEMC-Auto...s%2C178&sr=8-4Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Sexy
The Google Fiber installer had one when they spliced the street-to-house run last week (at my house).
--Rick
I shall presume that's an automated tool, when I worked for BT Marine we had Japanese automated machines that had a 99%+ hit rate, which was great until you had a repair to do on a French cable, the ship would attempt to get far enough out that they couldn't fly a French rep out to it by helicopter, as if they could they'd insist on us using a French manual splicer with a 10% success rate. Trying to splice 12 cores on a rolling ship with such a poor success rate often meant multiple attempts and often cutting the king wire clamp, applied hydraulically, off and cutting back to fresh fibre several times. Thus the repair would take 3-4 times as long to do. Still working in that field, but now on the research side.