Video: Fusing a fibre cable

At Pipe Networks' landing station tour last week, the company showed ZDNet.com.au how to fuse two pieces of fibre cable together.

Both fibre cable ends were stripped of their plastic coating, and then cleaned with alcohol. They were then put into a fibre cleaver, where the fibre was cut cleanly.

A heat shrink splice protector was slid onto one end of the cable, but was moved down so it is not in the way.

The ends were then both put into a fusion splicing machine, which aligned the cores and cladding of the fibres before using an arc of electricity to melt the glass and fuse them.

The fused fibres were then taken out, and the protective heat shrink covering was slid over the join. The fibres were placed into a different part of the fusion splicing machine, which heated them to shrink the protector.