At this week's OFC/NFOEC 2010 show, OFS released its active clad alignment FITEL S153A handheld fusion splicer to the North American market.
The company also unveiled its FITEL S178 fusion splicer in January 2010; OFS says it engineered the two machines to endure harsh operating conditions by improving shock/impact resistance with rubber pads embedded on four corners of the splicer body. Both fusion splicers are also water-resistance compliant to IPX2 and dust-resistance compliant to IP5X.
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Another feature of the S178 and the S153A is reduced operation time as compared to a conventional fusion splicer. Protection sleeve shrink time is 25 seconds (with pre-heating mode), while splicing requires 9 seconds with S153A.
The S153A is capable of splicing common telecommunication fibers such as SM/MM (singlemode/multimode). In addition, the S153A boasts splice programs for BIF/UBIF (bend insensitive fiber/ultra bend insensitive fiber) which is more commonly used for FTTH applications.