20
Blew $180 on a cheap fusion splicer from Amazon - should have known better
I needed to do some fiber repairs in a pinch last month and grabbed a $180 fusion splicer off Amazon to save time. The thing misaligned cores on about half my splices and gave me huge loss readings. After wasting 3 hours redoing splices and 4 connectors, I tossed it in the trash and borrowed my buddy's Sumitomo. Has anyone else gotten burned by one of those budget splicers from online marketplaces?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
shanef341mo ago
Have you checked if maybe the electrodes were just dirty or needed a cleaning cycle? Those cheap splicers sometimes ship with residue from the factory and a quick arc clean fixes a lot of the alignment issues. I've seen guys toss them and later find out all they needed was 20 seconds of maintenance.
8
...and the kicker is that $180 could have bought a few hours of rental time on a real machine. Those cheap splicers don't even have true core alignment, they just guess at it and hope for the best. You basically paid to learn what the rest of us found out the hard way - you get what you pay for with fusion splicers.
7