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

Product Information

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. In the field of fiber optics, it is very necessary to use fiber optic cables with clean and smooth end face. The fiber optic cleaver is a crucial tools for low-loss and low-reflectance fiber optic splices or terminations, especially when using the pre-polished connectors with internal splices. The fiber cleaver usually work in conjunction with fusion splicers to do optimum splicing jobs, and is the key to quality connectors and splices. What Is Cleaving and Fiber Cleaver? Sumitomo is most well known for their consistently high-quality fusion splicers which are now considered standard equipment by many technicians and engineers in the fiber optic field.

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. The downside to these built-in cleavers is that if either the cleaver or splicer requires maintenance, the technician loses two valuable tools, which can hold up the job at hand. And an optical fiber cleaver is the tool to cut (called cleave in the fiber optic industry) the fiber in such a good way. Note that it is often very worthwhile to carefully inspect fiber cleaves before using them, as later on it may be much more tedious to locate a fault. Even with a mechanical precision cleaver, the results may not be fully reliable because they require correct settings and can be spoiled by a defect blade, which is not easy to recognize. Additional Treatment: Polishing

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 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.

A fiber cleaver utilizes an automatic anvil drop for fewer required steps and better cleaving consistency. The automated anvil design can save time and significantly improve the quality of the cleave by eliminating human error and subpar cleaves associated with scribes and manual cleavers. To perfectly cleave optical fibers, perform the following steps: By purchasing from reputable manufacturers, you’ll enjoy manufacturer support and warranties; service for periodic maintenance and cleaning that extends the life of the cleaver; and a cleaver made of the best durable metal materials. The reliability and resulting quality is substantially better than with real mechanical cleaving, and this of course leads to substantial advantages in terms of yield and working time. That is particularly the case when polishing steps have to follow; the time spent on those (and the amount of used consumables) can be reduced due to the improved starting quality. On the other hand, a laser lever is of course substantially more expensive than a mechanical cleaver. 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 If fibers should be fusion-spliced, the cleaved surfaces should be quite precisely perpendicular to the axis and must be smooth over the whole fiber cross-section. For example, one could not properly but together the fiber surfaces if a fiber had a small protrusion (a part standing out), even if that is only near the edge, far away from the fiber core. Also, only for smooth regular surfaces, the surface tension of the softened fibers will optimally self-align the fibers during the fusion process. In addition, a kink shape due to non-perpendicular cleaves can cause substantial coupling losses, particularly for large mode area fibers.

Additional Treatment: Polishing

Fibers with particularly large diameters, e.g. beyond 200μm, can also be difficult to cleave. They need a higher tension force. 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. The quality of the obtained cleaves has different aspects, the relevance of which depends on the application: A precision ground diamond blade is attached to a resonant acoustic stepped horn. The ultrasonic horn resonance is maintained by an electronic circuit for the duration of the cleave and then automatically terminated to preserve battery life. The ultrasonically vibrating blade moves slowly toward the tensioned fiber on stictionless damped bearings. Cleaving then takes place without the damage from compressive stresses and blade intrusion into the fiber that is typical of conventional cleavers. The adjustable diamond blade normally gives 20,000 cleaves and is replaceable.

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. AFL Telecommunications, a subsidiary of Fujikura Ltd. of Japan since 2005, is widely recognized by the telecommunications industry as one of the foremost fiber optic solution providers. Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. was founded in 1884 and since that time has played a dominant role in the growth of the global marketplace. Since manufacturing the world's first optical fiber cable in 1974, Furukawa has led the development of optical fibers by establishing a total production system for products ranging from high-performance silica-based optical fibers to a variety of optical fiber cables manufactured under the brand name "FITEL". In the cleaving process, the brittle glass fiber is fractured in a controlled manner as shown below.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. 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 Since fracture is such a violent and difficult to control process, even the best commercial cleaver will sometime produce defective cleaves. 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.