A complete large-core fiber splicing includes fiber preparation, fiber splicing, tension testing, fiber sleeve heat shrinkage, cooling and other steps. Now, the specific process of fiber splicing is introduced in detail step by step.
1. Power on
Insert the power adapter into the power socket on the side of the machine, press and hold the power button until the power indicator lights up and the buzzer sounds, and then the LCD lights up, and enters the self-test screen of the large-core fiber splicer. After the self-test passes, it enters the standby interface, as shown in the figure below.
2. Fiber end face preparation
Prepare two optical fibers to be spliced, use alcohol cotton balls to remove the oil and dust attached to the optical fibers, and then reserve 30 to 40mm of bare fiber and strip off the optical fiber coating. Use an absorbent cotton ball dipped in anhydrous alcohol (purity>99%) to wipe off the coating debris remaining on the surface of the optical fiber. Put the cleaned optical fiber into the positioning groove of the cutting knife, and control the cutting length to 11~13mm. After the cutting is completed, carefully remove the fiber with the cut end face, and do not let the fiber cross section touch any other object to avoid damaging or contaminating the end face.
3. Fiber clamping
Open the windshield of the large core fiber splicer, put the fiber into the fiber clamp, and install it on the splicer. The fiber end face should be located between the line connecting the two electrode tips and the edge of the V groove. When closing the large pressure plate cover, put it down gently to prevent the fiber from lateral displacement and not falling accurately into the V groove. Please operate carefully and do not let the fiber end face touch any other object. All optical fibers should be placed horizontally in the V groove without warping. If the clamping fails once, you can carefully lift the fiber and repeat the above operation until the fiber clamping is qualified. Similarly, prepare and clamp another optical fiber. Then close the windshield and continue to observe the magnified optical fiber from the display. If the fiber end face is obviously uneven, tilted, or damaged, the fiber should be removed and cut again.
4. Fiber splicing
After clamping, the fiber machine enters the state of waiting for splicing. If it is in "automatic" splicing mode, the machine will start the fiber splicing process after closing the windshield. If it is in "manual" splicing mode, the user needs to press the splicing button before the large core fiber splicer starts working.
First, select the splicing parameter group according to the type of fiber to be spliced. Press the menu button to enter the main menu interface, then select the "parameter" icon, and press the "confirm" button to enter the menu. Select the splicing parameter group that matches the type of fiber to be spliced. Press the splicing button to start splicing the fiber. The large core fiber splicer first drives the motor to push the left and right fibers to the middle of the screen, measures the physical parameters of the fiber end face, such as the fiber end face angle, mode field diameter, and end face quality, and displays the fiber end face parameters.
If the end face meets the judgment conditions, it will enter the next process, otherwise there will be a warning message. After judging the end face, calculate the spacing and offset between each fiber pair, and drive the core alignment motor to align the left and right fibers. Finally, the splicer finally discharges to generate an arc to complete the splicing of the fiber. After the splicing is completed, the program calculates the estimated splicing loss by analyzing the fiber image and displays it, as shown in the figure below. In some cases, the estimated loss calculated by the program is within the allowable range, but splicing defects are found when observed through the display. It is recommended to use a large core fiber for re-splice.