How Many Optical Fibers Can Be Placed In A Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve?

Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve is a heat shrink Sleeve specially used to protect fused optical fibers. Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve is used to strengthen optical fibers. How many cores can you put in the Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve? Theoretically, Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve is single-core, that is, a Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve only has one fiber (strip cable is excluded), but in practice, in order to reduce costs and save time, Some wear two or three cores, because the hot melt tube in the Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve is completely melted, which has the function of fixing and preventing displacement. However, it is not recommended to do so, because wearing multiple fibers at the same time may cause certain damage to the optical link.

What are the hazards of placing multiple optical fibers at the same time?

Optical Fiber Damage Increases

Due to the characteristics of Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve, the pressure generated on the fiber during heat contraction comes from around the fiber. If multiple optical fibers are placed in a single Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve, the connectors of multiple optical fibers are bound to squeeze each other during heat shrinkage, causing uneven stress on the optical fibers and increasing damage to the fragile optical fibers. Even if the optical fibers are arranged side by side in the single-core Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve before heat shrinkage, the arrangement will change due to heat shrinkage pressure, resulting in twisting and slightly bending, resulting in damage.

Poor Filling Sealing

In addition to increasing the mechanical strength of the optical Fiber connector, the Protective Sleeve also plays the role of filling and sealing, avoiding residual bubbles in the protective tube and preventing moisture intrusion, so as to maintain the long-term stability of the optical fiber transmission performance. Multiple fibers are placed in a single-core Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve. The gaps between the fibers and the connectors cannot be completely filled by the melted Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve. There is a small amount of air left in the Protective Sleeve of Fiber Splice, which will increase and deepen the microcracks on the surface of bare fiber, accelerate the aging of joint, shorten the service life, and affect the temperature characteristics of the fiber connection.

Other Hazards

When multiple optical fibers heat shrink together, uniform tension cannot be applied to all optical fibers and all optical fibers are in a straight line. Multiple optical fiber connectors heat shrink together, which increases the difficulty of optical fiber winding and easily damages other optical fibers during optical fiber winding.To sum up, do not place multiple optical fibers at the same time in the Fiber Splice Protective Sleeve for heat shrinkage. If necessary, it is recommended to use special multi-core optical fiber heat shrinkage reinforcement tube.

FCST - Better FTTx, Better Life.

We have been designing, manufacturing and supplying passive components for fiber optical networks since 2003. Everything we do in FCST is designed to provide efficient, simple and innovative solutions to solve complicated tasks.

We offer 4 solutions

l FTTH ODN Solution

l Underground Cable Installation Solution

l Aerial Cable Installation Solution

l Fiber Tools & Test Solution

As a FTTx solution supplier, we can also do ODM according to project. We will continue to innovate and contribute more to the construction of the global optical fiber network.