Why did I send Jason on a training course?! - today of all days! We had a rush fibre channel job come in and although I can drive the Tritec the young man Jason (my trainee) does it a lot quicker than me! So, having spent a day hunched over a hot fusion splicer and gone nearly blind in my left eye from peering down the microscope here are a few observations:

• You have to keep everything scrupulously clean - if you leave even fragments of glass on the cleaver (for example) you get a ragged cut and it never splices properly.
  
• The fusion splicer has a low power mode for cleaning the end of the fibre before you join it - but if you do it more than once before you fuse it seems to close the end of the fibre and you get a weak splice.
  
• You need to space the ends of the fibres by about ten microns before you fuse - any closer and you get a 'bulge' and any further and the joint is clearly tapered - in both cases the join is weak and breaks once it's out of the splicer.
  
• Slowly does it - the 204 micron strip tool for the bare fibres rarely breaks the fibre but the one for stripping the pigtails needs a bit of getting used to - I found (after working on some offcuts) that you need to make a determined cut and then as you pull allow the coated end of the fibre to slide through you fingers a bit (to avoid it snapping with the lateral tension).
  

Now I need a quiet evening - I believe I'm going out for a spot of supper with Rick (he runs Why? clublet - see my blog links right).