old fiber optic termination kits

[acableconnection]

I know my dad has an old fiber termination kit that I used about 15 years ago, that had and oven, and you had to manually cleave and sand. I thought that you put the connectors into the oven when you were done to cure, but I could be wrong, and It might be a "hot melt" style. I am hoping that I can use this to do the newer 3M hot-melts for smaller jobs, to keep costs down. What do you think? I am going to pick it up tonight, and see what it is. We were using a tool for a few years call AT&C? that all you had to do was strip and insert the fiber and put the connector into the tool ,crimp, and it would cleave for you and you were done. Unfortunately i dropped it, and it needs to be recablibrated. My next choice is Hubbels pre-terminated connectors where all you really need is a beaver style cleaver.

 

[acableconnection]

Ok, just talked to him. apparently it is an AT&T kit, and you had to insert glue, and then heeat to cure the glue. Now its coming back. Im going to try this oven with a hot-melt connector to see how it works.

 

[resorttech12]

I would always choose the hot-melt/epoxy type terminations. I tried those "dumb" connectors and hated em. I was a fiber guy for 10 years and was still seeing terrible loss on 10-25% of the connectors. At least these leave it up to the skill of the tech . . .

Good luck!

 

[mikeydidit]

I still have one of the kits that you mention. I really only use it for emergencies though. You know something beats nothing every time.

The newer kits use an epoxy that gets pretty hard which makes the connectors pretty durable. These are really designed as a time saver for those who do it every day.

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[schoebo]

i prefer hotmelts they have a lot less lose if you know how to use it right. i think the quick connex is junk i well not ever use them unless they stop making hotmelts. or sc/st connectors

 

[acableconnection]

Dang, why didnt you guys reply earlier... hahah
I just bought the corning "beaver tail" cleaver, which will work on most of the "dumb" connectors including unicam and Hubbel. I just watched another contractor terminate with hot-melts and it took him all day to do a 6 strand, with moving the table to the other idf, etc. He did have pretty low loss though. .2 I am curious to see what the loss will be with these Hubbel "2click"
Thanks for the replys

 

[resorttech12]

I have used both the UV cure epoxies (Siecor), and the chemical epoxy (Lucent). Both worked real well, but could never beat the UVs. Love those things.
As for all day for 6f, a lot of that is break out time. Between stripping the cable and setting up the panel/tray, that's where most of the time is. You can at least double the installation time from Indoor to OSP.

One last thing on the dumb connectors: time, vibration, and weather fluctuations are the enemy. If they last more than a year or two, count yourself lucky. Good luck.