Speaking of fibre being bad for your health, in the early days when fibre shards werent a known hazard, my older colleauges spent a whole week in the cable chamber of a BT exchange jointing cables straight through. They werent aware the shards can pierece the skin, so they were splicing over a large tarpaulin. On the last day they sat down to dress all the joints onto bearers etc, and sat on the tarpaulin. All the hundreds of offcut shards of poor cleaves etc ended up piercing them in the legs and behinds, and they had to go to hospital and sit in a hot vaseline bath for 8 hours to persuade the fibre shards to exit the skin. Fibre and fibre safety has come a long way!!
30 years ago I was working at a cable TV company here in the US, fiber was being introduced into the distribution system and some of the techs learned some of those painful lessons. I don’t remember anyone suffering career ending injuries or damage but some guys did end up in the hospital.
Great vid. Did I miss the use case for so much fibre in a domestic environment? I’m as geeky as they come with fibre in my own home, desperately looking for more uses cases, now matter how sketchy they may be! I have a loft rack with two servers, a switch and my workstation, all connected by fibre. Beyond that I’m struggling to find end devices that need, or have, 10Gbe or better connections. (Otherwise, cheap as chips cat6 will do). Whilst it’s good to see how the pro’s do it, pre made fibre is quite cheap, so us DIYers just end up with it neatly coiled out of the way behind the back of the rack. Do-able when you’ve only got 4 cables but if you’ve got tens or hundreds then not so practicable! It is a green tech though. Pushing 10Gbe data down a fibre transceiver needs less power than its equivalent 10G base-t for a cat6 cable…… and a much poorer range to boot…….
I’d guess a big consideration is because they are going to a few different locations outdoors (house, barn, gates, shed, etc.) it’s a good idea to use fibre even if some of the devices (e.g. at the gate) only need a few mbps, because it’s 100% electrically isolated so lightning isn’t a problem. Actually pulling a multicore cable and splicing instead of pulling a bunch of pre-terminated cables is definitely going over the top, but why not if you want to do it nicely and are willing to pay little up front?
Yeah you're quite right there isn't much point for end devices in a domestic environment. But @Stephen Gentle is along the right lines, it's a nice to use fiber for building links etc, just because it gives a bit more flexibility for future use, not just in terms of swapping transceivers for faster speeds, but also having more cores to provide completely different connection types if wanted. And also bang on about the electrical interference, running through ducts etc. There is also the fact that I enjoy splicing so I'm always looking for places to practice.
Imagine doing a 96 way os2 patch panel, sat at an outside green cabinet in sub zero temperature for about 4 hours in the wind and rain under an umbrella.. Been there, it's no fun.. lol
You guys have chosen the wrong country to do fiber installation in… All Swedish installers are either working in a van or trailer, they have enough slack to bring it inside. My guess it’s a 50/50 for work quality and work environment.
You should take better care of the fiber that gets cut off, it is dangerous. Ive done some fusions. Its cool the first 100, but after that its what it is.
It's the inevitable first comment which always nice to see when I'm death scrolling. Oh I see you're here, did you learn anything? After that incident recently in IOT home automation. HAHAHA.
The splicer boxes have reduced in size which is pretty cool. I had BT fibre installed 10 years ago and it was a box a little larger that you would hang in front of you with a harness. It's cool to see the technology get smaller and watch the machine align the splices. Really liking this video, not many out there on this especially from the UK.
Nice intro to splicing! Just a heads up on how the cleaver works - it doesn't actually cut the fibre per se - it scores the glass and literally whacks it to get a cleaner cut than you'd otherwise be able to with snips etc
I spent years jointing 144F cables and live break ins to spur a cable off... quite intense. Not very happy that I didn't see a sharps box. Technically, if you get a piece of bare fibre cut into skin and break off it can actually kill you if it gets in the blood stream... caveat is that it is a billion to one chance but good practice to keep work area intrinsically clean. Working on an actual live core transmitting is idiotic too even banging out an ILM. Hopefully the missing good practices were edited out 🤓
That's an interesting point actually. I've seen manufacturers even suggest using a visible light whilst using their cleaver, or cold connectors. But I believe you 🤣 I'll have to research this more.
Large fibre cables aren't bad, youll be amazed how quick you get when you get in the swing of it. (Especially if you get a ribbon splicer, it can do 12 splices in one) A tray of 12 splices in 15 mins. Contracting for BT back in the day gave 5 quid a splice, doing a full 144F joint in a day wasnt hard and would land you a good whack.
I would really love to be paid per splice. I can do 350-400 splices a day easily. Would be good money if I was paid that way, but I am on an hourly basis, so I get like the same money an hour that may company charges the customer for one splice. Total ripoff IMO if I can do 48 in an hour.
Business fibre jointer in South Wales here, it's nice to see you looking at fibre. Awesome field to work in. I think it would be awesome for you to get into fibre Cory! Expensive to get started, but having a splicer is basically the same as having a money printer!
I can't remember if it was Facebook marketplace or a pawn shop around me but there was a cheap Chinese splicer that showed up and I've never done it I've only watched videos on it I was still seriously considering getting it.
Great to see the practical side. 20+ yrs ago I was responsible for the UKs first private telephone network link using fibre. It was instead of 30 BT leased lines with repeaters. We used Pirelli’s preproduction interface boxes and got a whole 2M signal. Not 10 or 100 nevermind Gigabit. It linked two university campus telephone systems with thousands of users. Based on the under sea technology it was a lot bigger. Keep them coming 😊
Fiber splicing is not too bad. Doing it inside is heaven compared to trying to get the damn stuff to splice in the cold/rain and wind. It's good to see you learning new stuff. A few times I turned up to a new build and the builders had run a copper cable and didn't know anything about fibre so the copper cable they had run behind all the walls was useless.
Took a while for me to spot that the two camera pictures were X and Y so showing different profiles of the cable (is it still a cable if it's glass?) Really interesting. Never had to do fibre as I stopped being responsible for IT hardware before it hit the mainstream. I do find it interesting that while I was always having to fight with the higher ups to run spare cat5E for future proofing/breakages, it seems like a typical fibre run has 4x or 8x the individual connections you're likely to use. How times change!
I think that's mostly because of the cost and it's glass it's fragile it might break better run extra. It's also just cheaper for the company to throw a bunch in since they're so tiny when making the cable.
Just for reference, single mode fibre is often listed as 9/125. The 125 is micrometres is the thickness of the glass and is the size of human hair. The section the light goes down is the 9 micrometre core. That is the black line when looking at the screen of the splice machine!
Back in 1997 my team designed a fibre network for central Paris deployed in the walk-through sewers there. To connect to buildings we left a coil of cable every 200m that could be unwound up the nearby manhole into the back of a van - the humid environment in the sewer is a no-no for fusion splicing!
Upgrading to a thermal jacket stripper will make life a whole lot easier than using the three stage stripper tool. You strip off the jacket and the acrylic layer all in one go, enough to use the alcohol wipes to clean it for cleaving. There is less chance of cutting the fiber(seen in 11:34) and reduce the damage on the cladding on the stripping. The thermal strippers typically require the use of a fiber holding bracket that over all I find better to work with as it reduces you needing to handle the fiber directly. The brackets will also help you not have to fumble with having to put the fiber in the splicer in the right place in those internal holders for fusioning or during the cleaving procedures. The best cleaver I have used is the Sumitomo FC-8R, which allows you to orient the fiber in pretty much anyway you need to cleave it at. It does not need to be set flush on a floor for the cleaver to work well, which some cleavers require to be and leaves you doing things in awkward positions on occasions depending where the fiber is dropped. Used with the fiber bracket holders it makes the cleave go much faster than having to align the fiber for each cleave as the FC-8R will accept the fiber bracket right after you have cleaned it with alcohol. It almost can be used by one hand to set the fiber and cleave it. It is hard to go back to using other cleavers once you have used that one... Using a V-groove or core alignment splicer with separate fiber holders makes live easier as well I would say. Using three stage tool and common cleaver and splicer without fiber holding brackets Remove outer jacket -> Remove outer acrylic -> Clean with alcohol pad -> Align fiber in cleaver -> Cleave fiber -> align fiber in fusion splicer and lock with internal holder. Using Thermal jacket remover with cleaver that accepts fiber bracket holder, and V-groove or core alignment splicer with separate fiber bracket holders. Place fiber in proper holding bracket -> Use thermal jacket remover(removes jacket and outer acrylic all at once takes about 5-6 seconds) -> Clean with alcohol pad -> put bracket in cleaver -> Cleave -> place fiber bracket in splicer There is no alignment steps with the 2nd one as the bracket is set to hold the fiber in the optimal location for each procedure. So your not spending time aligning on each step. We have that splicer shown here in the shop as a backup since it was real cheap, it is the AI-9 model from SignalFire. Although on amazon you will see that its also sold as some other brands who just resell it. The AI-9 is pretty good at manipulating the fiber in the holders to get it into position for the fusion arc even if you are not really that precise of putting them in the internal holders. For the price you pay it is a fairly decent fusion splicer that does the good job at its price point. However, I would warn you that that the app used to control the unit does asks for some strange permissions, such as access to your contacts... It controls a fusion splicer, needing to know the number of your girlfriend or family is not necessary to do its job... If you use this splicer I would suggest you to get a cheap throwaway tablet of some sort to connect to this thing to control it for security reasons. signalfiresplicer.com/web/gyzs.html
I live near a bunch of data centres and watch the fun of new fibre runs and some new splices in street pits. Watching them working in 40 degrees C temps or bucketing rain, tucked in the back of a van or small tent... One other story - many moons ago a fuel tanker ran off a road and overturned, with a huge burning fuel spill. The truck fell over right on top of huge pit covers. Buring fuel and phone lines/fibre splices doesn't mix too well...
Love Cory ... erm... LAN... not WAN haha... brilliant you taking care into the tech/ networking field. Fibre splicing is easy with the right gear and plenty of patience!
This was a awesome video.. I am working with fiber every day and you did a great job :D Fun to see. Started to watch your videos a few weeks ago and i am thinking about starting as electrician apprentice but its 5 years in my country and i am 35 years old know. But fun to see your every day work and when you cut your first pipe :D
They redid the fibre internet around here like 7-8 years ago, because it's an installation that was originally installed in 2003 and they were modernizing the equipment all the way from the centrals to the customers. The old equipment needed 2 strands for each connection to work, one for Tx and one for Rx, but the newer stuff is able to run something like 100 times faster using only a single strand for both Tx and Rx. They had to swap the connector to make the fibre work with the new boxes, and they brought in a very similar big splicer box to get a clean cut, and were kind enough to explain what they were doing and why, which was really neat because fibre communication is just one of those things that was more or less advertised as magic when I was little and the tech was brand new. Now, I'm on the consumer end and the two-core cable that comes out of the wall is actually quite thick - about the same thickness as a power cord, but it wasn't till the techs showed up to redo it that I realized it's that thick because there's something like 10 layers of insulation to protect the glass cores, and the core inside is amazingly thin. We actually have 2 channels on each core, but only use the one for the internet, and it still amazes me how fast you can chuck data down a hair thin piece of glass (we've got 1000/1000 Mbit in these parts now, which is the fastest consumer line you can get in Denmark)
Did a few large cabinet refesh's in a plant a few years ago and they were doing multi core fiber terms for 2 days each cabinet we reipped apart and re wired with new 10g equipment. i did not envy the fiber techs at all.
One thing which caught us out in the early days of using fibre in the network is that where RJ45 ports on a switch are auto-sensing, fibre ports are generally not (we used Cisco kit). Depending on who wired for you, you may need to swap over send/receive fibres on the panel! We had two different contractors fitting them opposite ways on the fibre patch panel when extending to a new building. Simple once you know! And you can buy simple testers to check your fibres - even as simple as a laser torch to shine through.
Cory and Oliver, be careful with that visible fault finder. It looks like it has way more than the permissible output power. Great video showing modern techniques.
Also be careful because there are some transceivers that use infrared in high powers so not only is it not visible to the eye it can do damage to the eye.
I've always been interested in how this works, first really instructional video I've seen on it! The link in the description doesn't work btw, I'd be really interested to see what's getting offered in the course!
Years ago, I used to work for a company that laid and repaired undersea fiber cables. The engineers at sea had practically the same equipment. I had a go at it once, my cleaving was, well.. a bit shite and my connection was pretty lossy! Mental to think they'd be doing that stuff at sea. I had FTTP installed the other day so obviously bugged the Openreach engineer loads to see how it's done. It seemed SOO much simpler (and presumably more reliable) that the old copper stuff.
The fibre strands are something like they use in ceilings for fancy folks homes and Rolls Royce's. That would be no good for me to do with my eyesight. 🔎 Very interesting video 2x👍
@@corymac I really mean it Cory, look after your apprentice, keep up the good work and in turn look after the industry. I'm 2 years older than you and look up to you.
For any newbies watching this video, after stripping the fiber, I strongly advise against blowing into the stripper to clean it of debris. You risk the debris getting in your eye.
Its so cool to see how much this has moved on since i was splicing fibre! I had to cut the glass and then polish the ends with multiple different ultra fine grit pads and then glue them into their connectors ready to plug into the fibre trays!
Nitpick:8:40 the white is the core the dark is the cladding. 9 micron vs 25 micron. You don’t strip cladding as is suggested in the beginning of the video. It’s a common misnomer. Either way, it’s a pain in the ass to splice
Just to mention Mr Chilli 🌶 was incorrect I work for a Full Fibre ISP and there are a lot of what he's calling cold joints. All of the distribution cabinets use preterminated blown fibre with a cold joint so the installer can just plug it in. So they are 100% used in the industry 🤔 to add yes I have spliced fibre super cool process.
Cory, you should always do a power test on a new fiber installation and document it as a bench mark, so if you have to come back because there is an issue, you know what the splices power through put was and can then see if the fiber cable is damaged or not.
@@corymac Also, if you have any distance with your fiber, using an OTDR to measure from the source to the splice helps identify the splice location. It will also show if you have any problems between the source and the splice.
@Dean G Fiber optic cables transmit data by using light (Photons) to carry information through a glass or plastic fiber. Part of the process is data encoding: The data to be transmitted is first encoded into a digital signal using binary code.
@@Jay369 I have a degree in this subject. I know EXACTLY how they work. The binary code is the representation of the information to be transmitted, with that be voice, digital images, text messages or anything else. That data stream comprises 1's and 0's which is then used to modulate the laser.
Many moons ago I worked for a company that did R&D and production for BICC Brand Rex. We produced a number of fibre cleavers and splicers, as well as the blocentre which blew multiple fibres (up to 12) through 8mm conduit and was capable of multi-kilometre runs. Things have moved on since, the splicers we produced all hand-aligned the fibres using micrometer adjustable stages witht he operator looking through a microscope.
@@Chillielectrical Not sure how subsequent designs work but we used hypodermic needles about 6 inches long to guide the fibres into the pressure chamber and provide sealing. Within the chamber were two inverted toothed belts to provide traction and a buckle detector.
My only criticism after seeing you working with fibre would be that you need to be a bit more disciplined with the cleaved shards. I cringed when you broke the fibre and just brushed the shard off like it was dust. Those shards are DANGEROUS. OMG **** goose bumps ****
The key to optical fibre is that it is made using two mediums with different refractive indexes. It is common to use two types of plastic or glass. It is the difference in refractive index of the inner core and the outer layer that creates the "reflective" layer, causing the light to be internally reflected down the inner core of the fibre over very long distances. Both the inner and outer layers make up the fibre itself, which is about the thinkness of a human hair.
What you have described is true for multimode fibre but is not true for single mode fibre. Most companies using fibre for long distance communication are using single mode.
Thanks Cory for another great video. One of my many roles was IT and infrastructure. While I'd seen many finished projects with what you've shown I'd never seen the fibres spliced. A backhoe took out a huge chunk of east coast Aus data centres and internet connections some years ago where hundreds of bunches of fibres merged and entered a building. They all ran via different routes but had one point of failure. Oooops.
Fibre splicing is a task I like a lot to do. It's the kind of job you that is very easy to learn but requires some finesse to do it. When I need to do it, I just put the phone on silence, put the headphones, select a playlist on the iPod and just zone out while doing one by one. Before I realized the work is done, the day is finishing and I just pack and go home. Of course most of the fibre splicing I've done was inside buildings with controlled environment. I have a ton of respect for those that have to do outside in hot/cold/rainy/windy days. But tell Oliver that machine is way better than the Fujikura I rent sometimes. The Fujikura although is considered the "Rolls Royce" for this kind of work, it doesn't have Phone Connection, Fibre Test Light or even OTDR/Powermeter functionality as Oliver's one. It just spices together, headsrinks and measures the lost of the splice. Nothing more. If I need to use a test light I have to use a light injector and if I want to measure how good the fibre is point to point I have to use the Power Meter. Other than that, it was a refreshing topic to touch and an extra knowledge you get. Keep up the good work and the original videos.
@@Chillielectrical May not be expensive but heck in your case one machine does the job of four tools. Is less weight in the arms when something combines the function of three or four different tools.
I’m new to splicing myself, I’m not a full time splicer but due fibre becoming the standard medium for communal TV systems and networking these days I bought myself the exact same splicer he has. I’m sure if you were making off 100’s of splices a day it wouldn’t make the cut but for doing a few here and there it works well. Great video 👍
11:38 - Breaks the glass his first try. Lmfao. I was almost holding my breath watching the fiber tech doing it first and doing it correctly so to see Cory break the fiber like a mere mortal man like me was hilarious. He then got it down in another try with 2 perfect core ends to fuse. It does look satisfying.
5:20 "hold it at a 45° angle" Ehm not really. If the pliers are doing a 250 to 125µm strip you should hold it at 90° or you damage the cladding of the fiber. Tilting the tool is only done if the stripping hole is worn out after a few hundred fibers.
I think I need to go to Specsavers! Throughout this video my vision has progressively deteriorated with my eyes not able to focus on the screen😭often at the most interesting points... Goodbye cruel World, now I need to find a Dog & a white stick, while I still can.
Excellent vid Cory. I did my C&G fibre optic course in the 90’s when it was the latest big thing; and to expand my knowledge as an electrician at the time 👌
