FTTH terminating fiber

[exsilium]

Hi everyone!

I'm aware that there are fiber termination topics out here and there before this one, but they can all be summarized with "Call the professional" tip, which I'm sure is a very valid point to make and a hint that applies in all conceivable scenarios that can happen in life. However, I didn't manage to find any FTTH (Fiber To the Home) DIY discussions for fiber termination and tools. So I wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with the real shoddy-looking but affordable termination kits like the following (or something similar):

http://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Optical-Termination-Cleaver-Pen-type/dp/B00K76M42E

Note, that the scope I'm touching here is fiber @ home and I don't have any intent on building critical fiber infrastructure using these tools. If the link is down then nobody will die or go bankrupt.. I do however have some fibers running at home which I have installed myself but using ready made patch cords (SC/APC socketed singlemode cables with 125um core) and was wondering if actually a toolkit like mentioned above would do the trick for me to create my own cables - mostly just for the fun of it.

Couple of reasons for this being:

1) To get some experience points and possibly level up
2) To get cables just in the right length - this particular issue is due to my brain but I really like tidy cabinets and when cables have been run correctly which is very hard to achieve if you buy ready made cables.
3) I have certain parts of the conduits at home where I'm just unable to run new cable with the already terminated sockets

So back to the plan.. has anyhone tried such termination kits? Do they even work?

 

[Macco]

Can't comment on the quality of any of the items, the cleaver appears to be Sumitomo (or a knock off) which I've used in the past before I upgraded to the Fujikura CT-38 and it worked well enough, few bad cleaves here and there but I figure most of that was from a bad spot on the blade. All the items appear to be from Alibabba as well. Likewise you'll need to figure out what you want to use for connectors, Corning Unicam and AFL Fast are the 2 I see the most of but I really deal with fusion splicing so my experience with these is mostly from playing with them at tradeshows.

As far as your reasoning:
1 - Fair enough, though it's not much of an in demand skill in most area's
2 - Slack is your friend when it comes to fiber, you have an issue at one end it's much easier to pull some of the loop out and redo one end then it is both. Though if we're talking about single fibers it's pretty moot, but you start getting into fibers with multiple buffer tubes it gets to be a pain.
3 - There's always a way to get a cable where it needs to go

My advise if you really want to do it is to make sure you get a quality cleaver, if you're cleaves aren't clean you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[wizdum]

Hi everyone!

I'm aware that there are fiber termination topics out here and there before this one, but they can all be summarized with "Call the professional" tip, which I'm sure is a very valid point to make and a hint that applies in all conceivable scenarios that can happen in life. However, I didn't manage to find any FTTH (Fiber To the Home) DIY discussions for fiber termination and tools. So I wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with the real shoddy-looking but affordable termination kits like the following (or something similar):

I think that bolded part is your problem with the searching. FTTH generally refers to ISPs, and no ISP in their right mind is going to let a customer terminate their fiber.

 

[Red Squirrel]

We recently got FTTH and they hired a contractor to do all the splicing and running of cables. The I&R techs use long patch cables to go from the pole to the NID on the house and from the NID to the ONT.

I'm not sure what happens if there is a fibre cut though, guess they'll get their own splicers to go fix it, the same way they fix transport fibre along the highway and what not.

Fibre splicing is quite specialized and probably not really something that much in demand as it tends to be something you do once and then only do again if you need to repair, and typically that gets outsourced, like the case of my ISP who hired contractors for the initial install.

It would be something neat to be equipped and know how to do though but to get proper equipment it's VERY expensive, like fully loaded 4x4 pickup truck expensive.

 

[exsilium]

Thank you all for your input. I realize I misused the term FTTH to describe my case. Fiber @ Home or DIY is sufficient to describe my intent here I'll try out the kit and i've seen the FAST connectors being terminated.. didn't notice any rocket science in there. If there are any other connector suggestions I'm all ears.