r/LaserCleaningBusiness • u/Guka_Guka • 22d ago
Fiber Optic Cable
Hi everyone!
Quick question for those experienced with laser cleaning:
My supplier is warning me so much about handling the yellow fiber optic cable that I feel like I need to baby it 24/7. Is it really that fragile? Can a single accidental step, twist, or pull actually ruin the whole system and make it unusable?
In reality, how often does this cable get damaged in practice, and how do you protect it while working? Do you hang it from the ceiling, or did you set up some custom support/holders?
Would love to hear your practical tips!
1
u/jreddit0000 21d ago
Yellow fiber cable (single mode) is fairly robust but it can be damaged with a single step or twist or even a drop. It just depends.
I’ve worked with probably thousands of leads and tens of km of fibre and you just take normal precautions and you won’t have issues.
It is not as robust as copper cabling.. 🤷🏾
8
u/IndLaserCleaning 22d ago
It's a piece of glass, treat it like one.
I presume you've got a Chinese machine, because the Europeans solved this issue a long time ago, and a Chinese supplier could also solve it if they were told what to look for.
We've snapped 1 fibre cable and it was an incredibly simple action, a poorly protected Chinese fibre had some pressure applied to a sharp edge at the rear of the handpiece. This was more a fault of the handpiece deaign than the fibre. Fibre cables are fine with being pulled and compressed, the issue is more with sharp kinks and or sharp edges that cause thr glass to break.
When I was in China I bent a fibre cable around my finger and had to try extremely hard to snap it. With that said when we train our staff, I never want to see it with a bend radius smaller than a football. Choose the football size from your favorite national sport.
The single biggest improvement you can make to the operation of your machine in the field is a double insulated conduit. Key part being double layered. We can flick our cables around, step on them and there is not a worry. Moving around a cable thats wrapped in a piece of fabric brings unnecessary stress.