pat360•21d agoProlific Poster

Tried fiber couplers on a 3 year old splice and the signal jumped

I had a customer in Raleigh who wanted us to re-terminate some old fusion splices from 2021. Instead of cutting them back, I tried using fiber couplers to bridge the existing ends to new pigtails. The loss was actually lower than I expected, around 0.3 dB on most runs. Now I'm wondering if I've been wasting time re-splicing old joints when couplers work fine. Has anyone else tested this on older outdoor plant?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese55021d ago

Funny you mention that. Had a similar situation last year with some old aerial plant that got hit by a tree branch. Instead of splicing, I just used couplers and it held up fine through winter. Made me question why I bother with the fusion splicer half the time.

evanpalmer21d agoTop Commenter

Wait, wouldn't a coupler add a lot more chance of signal loss compared to a clean fusion splice though? I mean, I get that it worked through winter, but around here with the temperature swings we get, those mechanical connections can get flaky real fast. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather take the extra few minutes with the splicer than have to go back up a ladder when the ice melts.