Terminating Fiber with a Fan-Out Kit

[giganteface]

Hi, this may be a shot in the dark but I'm teaching myself how to terminate fiber for work; specifically I'm going to be terminating a 6-fiber count loose tube cable with epoxy/polish connectors and a fan-out kit. I cut off several lengths of the cable I'm going to be terminating so I can practice, but I'm running into a problem when terminating. Basically, the situation I'm trying to resolve is when I've already terminated at least one of the fibers and then I mess up when terminating a different fiber, requiring me to cut off the connector and try again. The problem is, cutting off the connector makes it so none of the fiber is sticking out of the end of the fan-out kit tube (since the fiber and that particular fan-out kit tube are now the exact same length); in order to get some excess to stick out what I'd normally think to do is to slide down the fan-out kit a bit, causing the fibers to pull out of the ends of the fan-out kit tubes a bit, then cut that particular fan-out kit tube a little shorter, and then re-insert the fibers all the way back into the fan-out kit again, causing the excess length of the fiber to stick out of the now shorter fan-out kit tube. However since I've already terminated at least one connector at this point I can't slide down the fan-out kit anymore, since it's now stuck in place. I don't have any strippers at the moment capable of stripping the 900 micron fan-out kit tube down to the 250 micron fiber, but I can easily order some; is this what I'm supposed to do in this situation? I was afraid of doing that because I would think the strippers could nick the fiber inside, but if this is what I'm supposed to do then that's fine, I just need somebody to tell me that that's what I'm supposed to do! Thank you anybody for the help.

 

[robertjo24]

Unfortunately, I have some experience with this. You need to use strippers to cut back the tube on the fan-out kit for the fiber in question.

When learning to terminate fiber, I have found that having the right tools makes all the difference. I would also keep a tutorial close at hand. Many manufacturers have tutorials online for their connector types.
Watch - do - repeat until proficient.

 

[giganteface]

Thanks for the reply, I bought the strippers and successfully used them to strip the fan-out kit tube.

Now that I've done it I realize it was probably kind of a silly question, but I just wanted to make sure before I bought these strippers and tried them.

 

[robertjo24]

Brain surgery is simple...once youve done it a 100 times. It all takes practice.

Best of luck to you.