Repairing Tips for a Cut Underground Fiber-Optic Cable

Underground fiber-optic cable can be accidentally cut. The most
common factor which can cause this accident is the use of backhoe
while digging. If it happens to you, you can simply look for backhoe
and get the cut cable. However, if it is caused by moles, it will be
difficult for you to troubleshoot it. You will need some equipment to
involve.The first thing you have to do is to look for the break in
your cable. Commonly, the fiber-optic technicians utilize a device
which is known as an optical time-domain reflectometer or OTDR. It is
able to work like radar which sends a light pulse down to the cable.
It will be reflected back to your device when it encounters break. It
helps technician knows the location of the break.After knowing the
location of the break, you should dig up the cable with the break.
Then, strip the fiber around 9 feet of the cable using cable rip cord.
Peel the jacket gently so that the fiber-optic tubes exposed and
eliminate the excess jacket. Then, clean that cable gel using cable
gel remover and cut any sheath and yarn. Separate the tubes of the
fiber. Avoid damaging the strength member since it is required to hold
the cable in splice enclosure.The next thing you have to do is to
expose fiber cladding at 2 inches by using a fiber-coating stripper
tool and clean the fiber in the tubes. Trim any damage on the fiber
ends using high-precision fiber cleaver. If you want to perform a
fusion splice, you need to place a fusion splice protector to the
fiber. Hereafter, you have to clean that striped fiber using lint-free
wipes which is soaked in alcohol. In addition, if you want to create a
mechanical connection, you have to put quick-connect fiber-optic
connectors onto the fiber and clean the stripped fiber with alcohol
and lint-free wipes. Make sure that the fiber does not touch
anything.Then, if you make a fusion splice, you need to put the fibers
which will be spliced in the fusion splicer. Then, fire the fusion
splicer based on the manual. After that, you need to move the fusion
connector into a heat shrink oven. Press a button to heat shrink. In
some cases, the fusion splice is better than mechanical splice since
the signal loss is under 0.1 decibels (dB). On the other hand, the
mechanical splice has signal loss under 0.5 dB. The last thing is to
see the connection of fiber-optic with the OTDR. Then put back those
splices into the splice enclosure. Close the enclosure and then rebury
the cable.