Fiber Cleaver FTTH Fiber Optic Tools High Precision 6C Cable Cutting Fiber Optic Knife Tools Fiber Cleavers 12 Surface Blade

Product Information

Before cleaving, a fiber coating needs to be stripped off with a coating stripper tool, or dissolved with a suitable solvent. The latter technique – chemical stripping – may be required in problematic cases, but takes more time. Thermal stripping may be another option. optical fibre type, the blade condition or the operating environment may affect the cleaving angle. Since the measuring device has been changed from an interference microscope to a fusion splicer, this specification value is now higher than that of the previous model (CT-30). Fibers with particularly large diameters, e.g. beyond 200μm, can also be difficult to cleave. They need a higher tension force. M.A. Al Mamun, P.J. Cadusch, T. Katkus, S. Juodkazis, P.R. Stoddart, Quantifying end-face quality of cleaved fibers: Femtosecond laser versus mechanical scribing. Opt. Laser Technol. 141, 107111 (2021)

When we need to join two optical fibers together, we usually use mechanical splice or fusion splice. On OTT’s Certified Optical Fibre Installer (COFI) courses you can use a range of different tools and learn about common cleaving problems and their causes. After the course it is good to practice and practice is free of charge.

CTX-02

Tools for fiber cleaving are called fiber cleavers. Different kinds of such instruments are explained in the article on fiber cleavers. Simple and inexpensive cleavers, based e.g. on some pen-shaped scribes, are sufficient for simple purposes, when used with proper training. For a higher and more consistent cleave quality, which is less dependent on the operator, mechanical precision splicers are used, which are substantially more expensive. Problematic Cases

Md. Abdullah AlMamuna, J. Peter Cadusch, T. Katkus, S. Juodkazis, R. Paul Stoddart, Quantifying end-face quality of cleaved fibers: Femtosecond laser versus mechanical scribing. Opt. Laser Technol. 141, 107111 (2021) Warranty: One year or 600,000 cuts, whichever comes first when cutting 12-fibre epoxied MT ferrules Recommended adapters: LC, LC-APC, LC-Duplex, SC, SC-APC, ST, FC, FC-APC, MDC, MDC-J, and SMA connectors with fiber diameter of <300 μm. Bare ferrule adapters are also available. The optimum settings of a mechanical fiber cleaver – in particular, the applied tension – substantially depend on details like the glass materials and the fiber diameter. Often, fiber cleavers are pre-adjusted for silica fibers with the standard diameter of 125μm. For fluoride fibers or other mid-infrared fibers, for example, one may have difficulties finding suitable parameters for repeatable cleaving results. Since fracture is such a violent and difficult to control process, even the best commercial cleaver will sometime produce defective cleaves.

Fiber Cleaving Tools

Cleavers, like fusion splicers, continue to evolve with new and improved features, such as automated fiber scrap collection, automated scoring mechanisms, and the latest automatic blade rotation technology. Cleaving is the process by which an optical fiber is “cut” or precisely broken for termination or splicing. Just like cutting glass plate, fiber is cut by scoring or scratching the surface and applying stress so the glass breaks in a smooth manner along the stress lines created by the scratch. Properly done, the fiber will cleave with a clean surface perpendicular to the length of the fiber, with no protruding glass on either end. Y. Yajima, H. Watanabe, M. Kihara, & M. Toyonaga, Optical performance of field assembly connectors using incorrectly cleaved fiber ends, In: Proceedings of the OECC2011 (2011) Conversely, if the Fresnel reflection of a fiber end needs to be exploited (e.g. for building a fiber laser), it is important to keep the cleave angle small – well below the beam divergence angle corresponding to the fiber mode. Large mode area fibers are more critical in this respect.

Sometimes, a new cleave is required when a fiber end has become dirty, as it is hard to reliably clean fiber ends. Fiber Cleaving Tools Note that cleaving is not cutting, as the bulk of the process is just breaking. Only the initial tiny break is prepared with a blade. Fiber cleaving is an important technique in the area of fiber optics. When optical fibers are connectorized, when they should be fusion-spliced or when light should be launched into fibers, the fiber ends need to be prepared such they have clean surfaces. Usually, such surfaces should be as flat as possible, at least over the area of the fiber core (sometimes over the full cross-section), and often it is important that the surface is either perpendicular to the fiber axis or has a well-defined angle against the fiber axis.

What is a fibre optic cleaver?

M. Kihara, Faults and novel countermeasures for optical fiber connections in fiber-to-the-home networks, (2013) Cleaving is the standard method to obtain such surfaces, or sometimes the first step towards that goal. It is a process of controlled breaking of the glass of a bare fiber. It begins with making a tiny fracture (scratch) on the side of the fiber, e.g. with a sharp diamond, carbide or ceramic blade, before or while some defined tension or bending is applied to the fiber. This causes the fiber to break, starting at the mentioned fracture point: the fracture rapidly propagates over the full fiber cross-section. Often, the cleaving leads to a very clean surface of the obtained two fiber parts. Instruction Manual for High Precision Fiber CleaverCT-30 Series”, URL: https://shop.nag.ru/uploads/CT-30%20new%20manual.pdf.

For very high-quality fiber surfaces, it is often necessary to apply some polishing procedure after cleaving. One may, for example, insert the fiber end into a hollow glass tube and fix it there with a glue. The tube gives the fiber a higher strength and is inserted into a polishing apparatus. The fiber is polished down together with the glass tube. This procedure allows one to produce a high-quality surface with an arbitrary well-defined orientation of the fiber surface. However, it takes substantially more time than simple cleaving. See the article on polishing of fibers for details. Laser Cleaving of Fibers M. Okada, M. Kihara, M. Hosoda, and M. Toyonaga, “Simple inspection tool for cleaved optical fiber ends and optical fiber connector end surface”, in Proceedings of the 60th IWCS (2011). The CT-58 cleaver is designed specifically for cleaving silica fibres with 80μm cladding and up to 400μm coatings. It delivers unprecedented durability and simplistic maintenance unseen with any other cleaver, in part thanks to its Bluetooth connectivity and smartphone app, which makes it convenient to managed blade life. With motorised push-button blade rotation and a convenient thumbwheel for blade height adjustment, routine cleaver adjustments have also never been easier.J. Mazurowski and J. Toney, Efficacy of manual fiber optic cleavers used on coated optical fibers, In: IEEE Avionics, Fiber-Optics and Photonics Technology Conference, AVFOP 2008 (2008). Both optical fiber slicing techniques require that the fiber tips are a smooth end face that is perpendicular (90°) to the fiber axis as shown below. Steps of Fusion Splicing Fiber Optic Cables, URL: https://telecom.samm.com/steps-of-fusion-splicing-fiber-optic-cables. The scribe or manual cleaver, which is cheaper than the precision cleaver, is the most original type of fiber optic cleaver. Scribe cleavers are usually shaped like ballpoint pens with diamond tipped wedges or come in the form of tile squares. The scribe has a hard and sharp tip, generally made of carbide or diamond, to scratch the fiber manually. Then the operator pulls the fiber to break it. Since the breaking process is under manual control, it is hard to control the force, which makes the cleaving less accurate and precise. That’s why most technicians shy away from these cheap cleavers. Precision Cleavers