JP2007206419A - Optical fiber cable manufacturing method and the optical fiber cable - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an optical fiber cable manufacturing method, with which a slit can be formed in an optical fiber cable having a neck height of ≤3 mm, and to provide an optical fiber cable. <P>SOLUTION: In the optical fiber cable, there are connected at a neck part 16: a support line section 13, for which a sheath 12 is provided on the outer periphery of a tension body 11; and a cable section 15, which stores one or more coated optical fiber ribbons 14 and which has a nearly rectangular cross section. In the method of continuously manufacturing the optical fiber cable, the slit 18 is formed by irradiating the neck part 16 with a laser beam 20 during the manufacturing. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an aerial optical fiber cable, and more particularly, to an optical fiber cable manufacturing method in which a support line portion and an optical fiber cable portion are connected at a neck portion, and the optical fiber cable.

  A drop cable (optical fiber cable) used for pulling into a general house is required to be easy to work and low in price, and has a self-supporting cable structure such as an SSW type (open window type) (Patent Documents 1 and 2). ) And a smaller diameter and lighter weight are required so as to be suitable for the intended use.

  In this aerial optical fiber cable, a support wire part having a sheath on the outer periphery of a strength member and a cable part having a substantially rectangular cross section for accommodating one or more optical fiber ribbons are connected at the neck part. In order to reduce the diameter, the support wire portion is 3 mmφ, the cable portion is 3 mm wide, the height is 5 mm, and the neck connecting the support wire portion and the cable portion has a height of 3 mm or less. .

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-78538 JP-A-10-332998

  By the way, the optical fiber cable has a cable part with respect to the support line part in order to branch an arbitrary optical fiber so that no tension is applied to the cable part when suspended and the optical fiber of the cable part is in a live state. It is necessary to give an extra length of about 0.1 to 0.5%. For this purpose, it is necessary not to make the neck portion continuous in the length direction but to provide an interval or intermittently form slits in the length direction.

  However, in the above-mentioned self-supporting cable such as SSW type, the diameter of the cable is large, so that it can be connected with a slit or a gap while providing an extra length when manufacturing the cable, but the height of the neck is 3 mm. In the following optical fiber cables, it is difficult to form a slit or the like at the same time as manufacturing, and therefore an optical fiber cable with a slit has not been realized.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an optical fiber cable manufacturing method and an optical fiber cable that can solve the above-described problems and can form a slit in an optical fiber cable having a neck height of 3 mm or less.

  In order to achieve the above object, the invention of claim 1 includes a support wire portion in which a sheath is provided on the outer periphery of a strength member, a cable portion having a substantially rectangular cross section for accommodating one or more optical fiber ribbons. However, in the method of manufacturing an optical fiber cable that is continuously manufactured by being connected at the neck, the slit is formed by irradiating the neck with a laser beam at the time of manufacturing.

  The invention of claim 2 is the method of manufacturing an optical fiber cable according to claim 1, wherein the laser beam is irradiated so that the height of the neck is 3 mm or less and the slit width is less than 1 mm.

  According to the invention of claim 3, the cable portion is extruded while pulling the support wire portion and the cable portion so as to have a surplus length of 0.1 to 0.5% with respect to the support wire portion, and the extruded neck portion The method of manufacturing an optical fiber cable according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a slit is formed by irradiating a laser beam onto the optical fiber cable.

The invention of claim 4 is the method of manufacturing an optical fiber cable according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a CO ₂ laser or YAG laser of 30 W or more is used for the laser light.

  A fifth aspect of the present invention is an optical fiber cable manufactured using the manufacturing method according to any one of the first to fourth aspects.

  According to the present invention, by forming a slit using laser light, an excellent effect that a small-diameter optical fiber cable can be produced is exhibited.

  A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 denotes an optical fiber cable of the present invention, which has a cross-section that accommodates one or more support wire portions 13 having a sheath 12 on the outer periphery of a tensile body 11 and optical fiber ribbons 14. The rectangular cable portion 15 is connected to the neck portion 16 and continuously manufactured by an extruder (not shown). The cable member 15 is provided with tension members 17 positioned above and below the optical fiber ribbon 14 to be accommodated.

  The optical fiber cable 10 is manufactured by extruding polyethylene from an extruder through a die having a cross-sectional shape of the optical fiber cable, and covering the tensile strength member 11, the optical fiber ribbon 14, and the tension member 17 to be passed with the polyethylene. Manufactured.

At this time, as shown in FIG. 3, the slit 18 is formed by irradiating the laser beam 20 with a CO ₂ laser or YAG laser of 30 W or more located at the neck 16. In the optical fiber cable 10 used for the drop cable, the support wire portion 13 is 3 mmφ, the cable portion 15 is 3 mm wide, 5 mm high, and the height a of the neck 16 is 3 mm or less. The slit 18 is formed so that the width b is less than 1 mm, the length of the slit 18 is 200 mm, and the length of the neck is 20 mm.

  Thus, in the present invention, the slit 18 can be formed in the neck portion 16 by irradiating the laser beam 20.

  In the embodiment of FIG. 1, the example in which the length ratio of the support wire portion 13 and the cable portion 15 is 1: 1 has been described, but in FIG. 2, the length ratio of the support wire portion 13 and the cable portion 15 is 1: An example of the optical fiber cable 10 in which the cable portion 15 has an extra length of 1.001 or more and 1: 1.005 or less is shown.

  In order to allow the cable portion 15 to have a surplus length, when the support wire portion 13 and the cable portion 15 are wound by the cable take-up drum of the extruder, the diameter of the drum around which the cable portion 15 is wound is different from that of the support wire portion 13. Winding with a diameter larger than the diameter of the drum to be wound, and by irradiating the laser beam 20 as described above to form the slit 18, the support wire portion 13 and the cable portion 15 are intermittently connected to each other by the neck portion 16. Can be granted.

  In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the height a of the neck 16 and the width b of the slit 18 are the same, that is, the slit width is 3 mm or less, but less than 1 mm, that is, the height a of the neck 16 is 1 mm. You may make it be less than.

  Further, as described in FIG. 1, the neck 16 height a may be 3 mm or less, and the slit width b may be less than 1 mm.

It is a perspective view which shows one embodiment of this invention. It is a perspective view which shows other embodiment of this invention. In this invention, it is explanatory drawing at the time of forming a slit in a neck part.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Optical fiber cable 11 Strength body 12 Sheath 13 Support line part 14 Optical fiber tape core wire 15 Cable part 16 Neck part 18 Slit 20 Laser beam

Claims (5)

  A light that is continuously manufactured by connecting a support wire portion having a sheath on the outer periphery of a strength member and a cable portion having a substantially rectangular cross section for accommodating one or more optical fiber ribbons at the neck portion. In the manufacturing method of a fiber cable, a slit is formed by irradiating a laser beam to a neck part at the time of manufacture, The manufacturing method of the optical fiber cable characterized by the above-mentioned.   The manufacturing method of the optical fiber cable of Claim 1 which irradiates a laser beam so that the height of a neck part is 3 mm or less, and a slit width is less than 1 mm.   Extrude the support line and cable part while pulling the support line and cable part so that the cable part has an extra length of 0.1 to 0.5%, and irradiate the extruded neck with laser light. The manufacturing method of the optical fiber cable of Claim 1 or 2 which forms a slit. The laser light, a method of manufacturing an optical fiber cable according to claim 1 using a CO ₂ laser or YAG laser than 30 W. An optical fiber cable manufactured using the manufacturing method according to claim 1.

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