sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Fiber termination preferences

Yeah I remember them saying the opticam can be used two times. I have actually used the leviton over and over for demo purposes for a high school class to let tech class students terminate and i can still get those ends to pass.

We terminate alot of fiber, some customers require us to use the glue and buff. When and if all possible I use quick crimp, yes they are about 5.00 dollars more per tip but the amount of time that it takes out weighs the price per tip.Now that i think about it if you add the price of tips, sand paper, glue and time consumed to tip it might just cost more. Out of 50 quick crimp, I might srew 1 up,thats much better than what I do with the buff type.

Leviton has a new Unicam out that is reusable also. They spec it to be reusable up to 3 terminations. Currently I have been using Corning CamLocks and they work pretty good. We use a vendor for outer plant that installs with fusion termination. Now those are nice. But for small jobs I'll continue to use cam locks.

My fiber termination eveolution went from AMP Lightcrimp - crimp/polish(in the late eighties), to 3M Hot Melt - epoxy/polish, (early to mid nineties), then finally to Corning (Siecor) Unicam for the last several years. My kit must be over 10 years old by now. The real benefit comes when you have a very limited space and need to redo one connector without upsetting or breaking the ones that have already tested OK. After a while you get a feel for when you have pushed the glass into the pre-polished connector just right. If you have good light to see clearly and a decent work space, you can really get a lot of them done in a very short period of time accurately.