JP3230226B2 - Optical fiber cutting machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical fiber cutting machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When an optical fiber is butt-spliced or the like, it is required that the end face of the optical fiber be cut at a right angle to the axial direction and a smooth mirror surface. Conventionally, a stapling method and a pillow method have been used as instruments for performing such cutting. As shown in FIG. 5, the stapling type has a blade portion 21 and an optical fiber holding portion.
22 that holds the bare fiber portion 25 between the rubber plate 23 and the clamp 24, damages it with a blade 26, and cuts the optical fiber 27 by bending it. It is.
On the other hand, in the case of the pillow type, as shown in FIG.
After fixing with the pillows 28 and 29, the blade 30 is slid between the blades and wounded, and the wounded portion is pressed by the pillow 31 to be cut. Another method is to clamp a bare fiber portion and a coating portion with a relatively high constant tension (about 200 g) applied to an optical fiber, slide the blade between them, and cut and cut. There is also.

[0003]

However, in the case of the staple type, the degree of damage and the degree of bending of the optical fiber after the damage are greatly influenced by the skill of the operator, and stable cutting cannot be performed. In addition, the pillow type is excellent in that it does not require the skill of the operator because the work from injury to injury to cutting is performed mechanically. In some cases, minute flaws are formed, resulting in a decrease in the strength of the optical fiber. Furthermore, the method of cutting with a relatively high constant tension has a problem in that although the details of the cutting mechanism are not well understood, the obtained cut surface lacks smoothness.

[0004]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and the feature of the present invention is to fix a coating portion of an optical fiber terminal and a bare fiber portion from which the coating has been removed, and to fix the coating. An optical fiber cutting machine that cuts the bare fiber portion by sliding the blade in, wherein the clamp base that fixes the coating portion or the bare fiber portion rebounds in a direction away from the blade to straighten the optical fiber. An elastic body is provided so as to be able to apply a constant tension such as to maintain , and further, between the clamp table and the blade, an inclined surface formed on the clamp table,
Combination of plungers provided on slider to face this
A tension biasing mechanism is formed by
After applying a certain tension and sliding the blade to injure the optical fiber , the tension is applied by the tension applying mechanism and
It is in an optical fiber cutting machine for enlarging and cutting the damaged part .

[0005]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 to 4 show a cutting machine according to the present invention, which are a plan view, a front view, a schematic longitudinal sectional view, and a schematic transverse sectional view, respectively. (Construction) As shown in the figure, a cutting machine according to the present invention comprises a cladding base 1 for fixing a coating part of an optical fiber, a blade 6 for cutting an optical fiber, and a clamp base 4 for fixing a bare fiber part.
Are mounted on the base 8. First, the coating part clamp base 1 fixes the coating part of the optical fiber.
A guide groove 3 is formed at one end on the base, and has an upper surface formed with an optical fiber. The guide groove 3 is usually V-shaped in cross section, but may be rectangular in some cases. When fixing an optical fiber, the optical fiber is pressed and fixed by closing the covering part clamp 2 hinged on this table.

In addition, the cladding base 1 can apply a relatively weak constant tension (about 80 g) to the set optical fiber 10 in cooperation with the bare fiber clamping base 4 described later. That is, the clamp table 1 is always at a predetermined position, but can be slid in the direction (optical fiber axis direction) close to the blade 6 during cutting, and
11 (elastic body, see FIG. 3) rebounds and returns to a predetermined position at all times. At the time of cutting, the covering portion is clamped, and the clamp base 1 is slid to a position close to the blade 6 to fix the bare fiber portion. Can be given one tension.

[0007] Further, the covering portion clamp table 1 is provided with an inclined surface 12 (see FIG. 4) facing the slider 7 that supports the blade 6. As will be described in detail later, the plunger 13 provided on the slider 7 comes into contact with a groove having an inclination gradually approaching the blade from the front to the back of the cutting machine, and in addition to the constant tension, the tension is added. Can be energized.

On the other hand, the bare fiber part clamp table 4 is for fixing the bare fiber part from which the coating of the optical fiber has been removed, and is fixed to the other end of the base and the bare fiber part clamp 5 is hinged. . The optical fiber is fixed by sandwiching the optical fiber between the clamp 5 and the clamp base 4. In addition, the contact part 2 between the clamps 2 and 5 and the optical fiber
a and 5a are made of rubber or the like.

A blade 6 is provided between the clamp tables 1 and 4. This blade 6 has a disk shape,
It is fixed to the slider 7 on the base and can slide in a direction perpendicular to the optical fiber (vertical direction in FIG. 1). Further, the plunger 13 is provided on the slider so as to face the inclined surface 12 of the covering portion clamp. Optical fiber 10 is damaged by blade 6
When the blade 6 comes into contact with the optical fiber 10, the tip of the plunger 13 contacts the inclined surface 12. Since the inclined surface 12 has an inclination gradually approaching the blade as going from the front to the back of the cutting machine, the plunger 13 gradually presses the covering part clamp table 1 gradually with the sliding of the blade 6,
The tension of the optical fiber can be biased. In this apparatus, the strength of the plunger 13 was adjusted so that a tension of about 200 g was finally applied. A leaf spring may be used instead of the plunger 13. Although the blade 6 is located below the bare fiber, its height can be finely adjusted so that the amount of wrap between the blade and the optical fiber can be adjusted. In FIG. 1, a scale 9 is for setting a cutting length of an optical fiber.

(Cutting method) First, as a pretreatment, the coating on one end of the optical fiber is peeled off, and the slider 7 is operated to set the blade 6 so as to be positioned below FIG. 1 (indicated by a broken line in FIG. 1). Next, the two clamps 2 and 5 are opened, the coated portion of the optical fiber is fitted into the guide groove 3, and the bare fiber portion is placed on the bare fiber portion clamp table. Next, the covering part clamp 2 is closed, and the covering part clamp table 1 is closed.
Push in the direction close to the blade 6 and stop at a predetermined position,
In this state, the bare fiber clamp 5 is closed. At this time, the covering part clamp table 1 is
As a result, a certain tension is applied to the optical fiber in order to return to the direction away from the blade 6. However, the plunger 13 has not yet contacted the inclined surface 12. Here, when the blade 6 is slid upward in FIG. 1 (in a direction orthogonal to the optical fiber) (indicated by a broken line in FIG. 1), the optical fiber is damaged by hitting the bare fiber portion. At this time, a constant tension (approximately 80 g) is applied, but this tension cannot enlarge the damaged portion to the fractured surface. Then, just when the blade comes into contact with the optical fiber, the tip of the plunger 13 also comes into contact with the inclined surface 12, and presses the covering portion clamp base 1 gradually and gradually as the blade 6 slides. For this reason, the tension of the optical fiber is also urged, and the damaged portion expands to a fractured surface, leading to cutting. As described above, according to the cutting machine of the present invention, since the tension can be urged straight in the optical fiber axial direction, excellent cutting characteristics can be obtained unlike the conventional cutting machine which bends the damaged portion.

When the cut surface was actually observed with a microscope,
It was confirmed that it was a good cut surface with extremely excellent smoothness. When the cut surface was compared with the case of cutting with a relatively high constant tension (approximately 200 g), the result of the device of the present invention was far better. As described above, first, the optical fiber is injured while maintaining a straight state by applying a constant tension, and then the wound portion is enlarged to a broken surface and cut by applying the tension. Face can be obtained.

[0012]

As described above, according to the cutting machine of the present invention, a very good cut surface can be obtained by providing a mechanism for applying constant tension and gradually applying tension after injury. In particular, the optical fiber is not damaged by clamping the covering portion. Further, stable cutting can be performed without requiring skill for the cutting operation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a cutting machine of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the cutting machine of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic vertical sectional view of the cutting machine of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic cross-sectional view of the cutting machine of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic view showing a conventional stapling type cutting machine.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view showing a conventional pillow-type cutting machine.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Coating part clamp base 2 Coating part clamp 2a Contact part 3 Guide groove 4 Bare fiber part clamp base 5 Bare fiber part clamp 5a Contact part 6 Blade 7 Slider 8 Base 9 Scale 10 Optical fiber 11 Spring 12 Inclined surface 13 Plunger 21 Blade 22 Holder 23 Rubber plate 24 Clamp 25 Bare fiber 26 Blade 27 Optical fiber 28 Clamp 29 Clamp 30 Blade 31 Pillow

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Kiyoshi Ogawa 2-3-5, Yumiki-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe-shi, Hyogo (56) References Tokuyo Sho 59-500023 (JP, A) (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B26D 7/14

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An optical fiber cutting machine for fixing a coating portion of an optical fiber terminal and a bare fiber portion from which a coating has been removed, and cutting a bare fiber portion by sliding a blade between the coating portion and the bare fiber portion. The clamp base for fixing the fiber
Straightens optical fiber by repelling away from blade
An elastic body comprising that can impart a constant tension such as to maintain the state and further, between the clamp base and blade shape in the clamp base
Formed on the inclined surface and the
A tension urging mechanism is formed by the combination of
After applying a constant tension to the optical fiber and sliding the blade to damage the optical fiber, the tension is applied by the tension urging mechanism.
An optical fiber cutting machine for enlarging and cutting the damaged portion by applying a force .