Today we're going to talk to John Owens and learn about the process of splicing fiber.
So, right here we have a hand hole. It's buried in the ground, they have cases there that we can access the fiber. In this particular location, we have fiber coming from different streets, that all come together right here. We do the connections inside the trailer. We pull it in, put it through the window, and then when we're done working and close it up in the case, we coil it up and put it over in the hand ho;e. Some of this fiber will feed back to a cabinet that feeds the entire area, and some of it'll bypass to other areas to feed out other areas.
Okay, so what we're working with right now is we've got our fiber into a tray. This is a splice closure, they're waterproof. They protect the fiber from mud, dirt, water, anything that could get in there. We have extra coils right here for future use, in case they have to come in and splice, there'll be extra fiber to use, and we run it into the tray. This is where we do the actual splicing and pack the fiber in, and then anybody who has to access it can look through the clear top, see what they need to work on.
We have some information written on the lid and they can use that to access the fiber they need. Each color represents a number, and basically we multiply using the colors to get our count. It's too small to write a number on a fiber, so we have to go by the color order. We have this coating, that is the color, and we have to clean that off of it. Inside it's like a plastic glass polymer, it's basically just a straw, a tube, and the light travels through that. But we have to clean off the outside sheathing before we can splice.
It's a fusion splicer. So the machine has electrodes on either side and they shoot an electrical arc through on the fiber, and it actually melts the fiber on both sides and it pushes it together. Has to have a perfect alignment or you'll get an offset on it and it'll mess up your light traveling through it. So once it arcs it, the machine will also do a pull test. It'll pull on it to test the strength of it, and it'll hit it with light and test the quality of the burn on it. It does all that in a few seconds. After that these small shrinks, they go over this spot that was cleaned previously and it's put into the back. This is a heater and it'll heat it up, shrink it down and it protects it.
That's actually a really good idea to go through and set up an entire network like this. They have a lot of control over the quality control, doing the entire network new like this, and I think it's going to be really good for the area. It'll definitely speed up their data rates around here.
So this is a pedestal and the cable that we just worked on, the main line down the road feeds to here. So we mark different sides, the blue would be our office side, and the green will be our field side. Then we have, what's called a drop, this runs to the house, and it's where we access the fiber in the tray. This particular house is Fiber 138, and we write the fiber number and then the address in, and this is where the house is heated up and connected to the main line system.
And that will do it. Thanks to John and the splicing crew, and thank you for watching.
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