July 1, 2008 -- Sumitomo Electric Lightwave (www.sumitomoelectric.com) has introduced its FC-7R, billed as a handheld, 1-step, fiber cleaver with automatic blade adjustment for use in fusion splicing, field termination, and other precision applications.
The company says the tool eliminates the often time-consuming and error prone process of manual height and blade rotation adjustments, thereby increasing ease of use and precision for field technicians. Sumitomo's patent pending technology automatically rotates the cleaver blade during use for fast, precise cleaves of single or multiple fibers with maximum precision in a one-step process. With its automatically aligned blade rotation function, the FC-7R also can extend the maximum life of the cleaver blade to approximately 24,000 cleaves, claims the company.
The FC-7R also features a larger, built-in fiber scrap catcher than the earlier FC-7 cleaver. Like the FC-7, the new cleaver's operation maintains cleave quality specifications for low reflectance terminations, enabling optimum performance of fiber-optic components and systems. The cleaver prevents double scoring of fibers and offers a typical cleave angle of <0.5 degrees, and can be used for both single and mass (up to 4-fiber ribbon) splicing of both singlemode and multimode fibers.
"The introduction of the FC-7R, along with our recent first-to-market innovations including the industry's only dual-heater splicers, reflects Sumitomo's commitment to offering our customers new and better technologies for speed, increased productivity, and lower deployment costs for their networks," comments Joshua Seawell, Sumitomo Electric Lightwave's fusion and termination product manager.