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Comment by madaxe_again

13 hours ago

The metal coil will hold the actual fibre itself, yes - after a few more layers of protection. This is what is usually called “armoured” cable and is suitable for suspension and direct in ground. Dunno why he’s using it indoors.

Honestly, this writeup is… weird? Dude doesn’t know you can terminate fibre at home with like $50 of gear?

I had the fucking fox attack a freshly laid 500 meter line, literally the day before I was going to stuff it in conduit and bury it. Didn’t just break the fibre, she (I know this fox, well) chomped it into pieces, hauled on the exposed Kevlar, generally had a party.

Did I despair? Did I launch a baby complete with bathwater into the sun?

No. I bought a cleaver, some alcohol wipes, some stripping pliers and a whole bunch of mechanical terminators.

Needn’t have worried. Repaired it, outdoors, first attempt, in the rain, and have since buried it - no problems five months on.

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madaxe_again

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alienchow  13 hours ago

Hey actually I didn't know! It's my very first time dealing with fibre networking so I just maxed out the supposed durability specs. I figured I'd rather go overkill than regret not having done so. Ironic I know.

Unfortunately I can't easily dig the cable out and bury it again in this case. I'll have to figure out how to pull a new cable using the existing cable through the PVC conduits as the cable shares a larger conduit with multiple other fibre and Ethernet cables. The whole project was orchestrated remotely in a different timezone with me giving the electricians instructions over WhatsApp photos and audio recordings, so that limited what I could realistically control onsite back then. Often the contractors would proceed with a do first ask questions later approach while I was still asleep. The networking project was holding up the entire home renovation so everything was learnt and planned in a short amount of time.

AFAIK fibre splicing and terminating tools are very expensive. Do point me in the right direction for the $50 tools and I could go get some and DIY.

  • Sesse__  10 hours ago

    > AFAIK fibre splicing and terminating tools are very expensive.

    They're more like $600 expensive than $6000 expensive these days. For very low budget, you could go with a mechanical (aerobic) splice; it's more loss, less robust and takes up more space, but doesn't require a fusion splicer.

  • adinisom  13 hours ago

    If you want to pull another cable:

    - secure a string to the old cable

    - pull the cable out the other end, pulling the string through

    - secure the string to the new cable

    - pull the string out the other end, pulling the new cable into position

    • alexfoo  12 hours ago

      You forgot to also tie another piece of string to the new cable so that you pull the new cable AND this other bit of string through.

      This gives you a piece of string in the conduit run to be able to pull through the next thing days/weeks/years later.