JPH07270655A - Optical fiber ribbon and its splicer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To apply a definite clear display irrespective of a ribbon velocity, to manually read the display and also to automatically read the display by a machine by printing plural bar lines on the ribbon surface along the longitudinal direction of the ribbon. CONSTITUTION:The display marks are plural parallel bar lines 1 to 3 printed on the ribbon surface along the longitudinal direction of the ribbon 1. Then, however high the tape velocity may be, the display marks are definitely and accurately printed without causing irregularities in printing. Information on a unit number and a ribbon number, etc., are displayed by the number of the parallel bar lines displayed on the ribbon surface and the difference of the distance between the bar lines. Thus, a tape splicing operator reads the information on the unit number and the ribbon number, etc., from the display marks, and then, selects the ribbon 1 to be mutually spliced, and also, the operator can visually confirm the matching of both ribbons to be mutually spliced by recognizing a pattern by the combination of plural parallel bar lines.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical fiber tape having an identification mark printed on one plane, which simplifies and facilitates the printing of the identification mark, and the compatibility of both optical fiber tapes to be connected to each other. Can be automatically confirmed by a fusion splicer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Spinning of wires such as optical fibers, coating of wires,
A series of processes such as tape formation and curing of taped coating are performed on a series of production lines.The winding device at the end of this production line winds up the finished tape, but it is placed behind the coating device. An identification symbol (for example, "1-3", which means the third tape in the first unit) is printed on the coated surface of the tape at regular intervals by the printing device. This printing is performed by intermittently printing the tape flowing at a constant speed at a constant time interval. The above-mentioned printing is generally an ink dot method or a jet ejection method, but in any case, a large number of dots (dots) are used to display characters and symbols. Or printed from top to bottom. This printing speed is fast and one character or symbol can be printed in an instant, but since the tape speed is high, for example, "1-
When "3" is printed, the characters are distorted as shown in FIG. Since the speed of the tape is high, it causes distortion of printed characters and symbols and uneven printing.Therefore, if the speed of the tape is reduced, the distortion of printing can be prevented, but the printing device is placed in the tape manufacturing line as described above. Therefore, if the tape speed is reduced, the productivity of the production line is significantly reduced, and therefore it is impossible to reduce the tape speed due to the convenience of printing. In addition, even if the tape feeding speed can be made extremely high in view of the capability of the manufacturing line, if the printing condition cannot be put to practical use because the tape feeding speed is too high, the printing condition is There is no choice but to slow down to the point where it can be put to practical use. The above-mentioned printed display is capable of displaying a lot of different information as compared with the display by coloring the tape and color-coding,
Although the cost for display is lower than that for color segment display, it is a great advantage, but in addition to the above problems associated with speeding up of tape, characters printed on the tape surface as tape becomes thinner Symbols are becoming smaller and smaller, and in combination with the above distortion of letters and symbols, it is becoming more and more difficult to read the letters and symbols accurately. The above problem is caused by reading the unit number and the tape number by the character and symbol, and matching the tapes to be connected to each other by using the character and symbol as the display. Therefore, as long as the display using letters and symbols is adopted, this problem cannot be fundamentally solved, and the shape of the letters is inconsistent.
It is not possible to mechanically read, verify and finally check the consistency of the tapes that should be connected to each other.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems, and for that purpose it is possible to give a certain clear indication regardless of the tape speed, and
It is an object of the invention to devise a display method by which the display can be read by a human and also automatically mechanically.

[0004]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The measures taken to solve the above problems are to print a plurality of parallel bar lines along the longitudinal direction of the tape on the surface of the tape, and determine the number of bar lines and the distance between the bar lines. This means that information such as the unit number and tape number is displayed depending on the difference.

[0005]

[Operation] Indications are a plurality of parallel bars printed on the surface of the tape along the length of the tape. Therefore, no matter how fast the tape speed is, the printing is not disturbed, and the display is printed in a constant shape and accurately. Information such as the unit number and tape number is displayed depending on the number of parallel bars displayed on the surface of the tape and the difference between the bars. By reading the information, selecting the tapes to be connected to each other, and recognizing the pattern of combinations of parallel bars,
The consistency of both tapes to be connected to each other can be visually confirmed. That is, even if the unit numbers and tape numbers displayed by a plurality of parallel bars are not recognized, the matching of the above patterns and the matching of both tapes to be connected to each other by visually recognizing the mismatch ,
You can confirm the discrepancy. Since this confirmation is extremely mechanical, an automatic reader provided in the tape splicing machine can recognize this pattern, and therefore, it is necessary to mechanically and reliably check the operator's mistake in confirming the consistency of the tape. You can Further, since the display with a plurality of parallel bar lines is a bar display along the longitudinal direction of the tape, the display at the cut end does not change at any position of the tape. Therefore, when the tape is attached to the connecting machine, the reading by the automatic reader is accurately performed regardless of the cutting position.

[0006]

[Example] Next, an example of a bar line displayed on the surface of the tape will be described with reference to FIGS. The optical fiber tape 1 is, for example, a slot type,
As shown in FIG. 1, a large number of slots 3 are mounted on the core 2 and mounted in a stacked manner. The tapes mounted in each slot are called the first unit and the second unit, and the tapes mounted in each unit are called, for example, the first tape and the second tape in order from the top. The tape in the uppermost layer is called the first tape of the third unit, and this designation and the indication displayed on the surface of each tape match. Each tape 1 has a large number of optical fiber cores, and the optical fiber core wire at the left end is a and the optical fiber core wire at the right end is b when the surface 4 is up (see FIG. 2). When connecting a tape, the optical fiber core a must be connected to the optical fiber core a of another tape. When the front and back are connected in reverse, the optical fiber core a is connected to the optical fiber core b of another tape. An example of displaying three parallel bars on the surface of the tape is shown in FIG. In the case of 3-1 in FIG. 3, the interval between the bars at the left end is 2 pitches, the interval between the bars is 1 pitch, and in the case of 3-2 is the interval between the bars. 2 pitches, the interval between rods and bars is 2 pitches, and 3-3, the interval between rods is 2 pitches, and the interval between rods is 3 pitches. This one shows the position of the optical fiber core a by the bar line at the left end,
The tape number is displayed according to the interval. Therefore, 3-1 is a bar line, and the interval is 1 pitch to represent the first tape, 3-2 is a bar line, and the interval is 2 pitches to represent the second tape.
-3 is a bar line, and the space between them is 3 pitches, which represents the third tape. The fact that the number of rods is 2 indicates that it is the second unit. In the case of the most unit, there are two bars as shown in FIG. 4, and the bars and are displayed, and by changing the interval between bars to 1 pitch, 2 pitches, 3 pitches Display tape, second tape, and third tape respectively. When assembling a bar line display by such a rule, the bar line for displaying the unit number is the bar line for the tape of the third unit,
, The tape number is displayed by changing the interval between the rightmost bar line and the bar line next to it from 1 pitch, 2 pitches, and 3 pitches. The rule based on which the unit number and the tape number are displayed by a plurality of bars can be appropriately selected like the normal bar code display, and the above rule is not an essential matter of the present invention. For example, in some cases, the display of the unit number is omitted, and only the tape number is displayed by the parallel bar lines, and there is no problem in practical use. In this case, only the change in pitch between the bar lines has meaning, and the number of bar lines does not have a meaning. Therefore, only the tape number is displayed by at least two bar lines. In addition, the unit number and tape number can be displayed by combining different line thicknesses, different numbers of bars, and different pitches between bars. It is possible to cope with a large number of cases. Further, when the tape is opaque, the front and back of the tape can be recognized by reading the presence or absence of the indication of the bar line on the surface. Therefore, by recognizing the front and back, the front and back of the tape to be connected can be matched to the tape 1 to be connected. The optical fiber core wires a and a can be matched. Therefore, in this case, there is no particular inconvenience even if the position of the rod is not displayed as the position of the optical fiber core a. However, when the tape is made of transparent resin and the arrangement of the rods is read by the transparent method with an optical automatic reader installed in the splicer, it is not possible to identify the presence or absence of the rods on the surface.
The front and back of the tape cannot be read due to the presence or absence of a bar. Therefore, in this case, it is necessary to set the position of the rod to the position of the optical fiber core wire a.

[0007]

[Effects] The above-mentioned object of the present invention is novel. Therefore, it is the effect peculiar to the present invention in itself that the new problems are solved and the problems in the prior art are solved. That is, the unit number according to the arrangement pattern of a plurality of bars printed on the tape surface along the longitudinal direction of the tape,
Since the information such as the tape number is printed on the surface of the optical fiber tape, a certain symbol can be accurately printed regardless of the size of the tape speed in the printing process, and the printed symbol is distorted, Even if the tape is thin and the width of the surface is extremely small, the display symbol is extremely simple and easy to read, and the symbol is not erroneously read. Also, since the symbol can be read by pattern recognition, it can be read at the time of connection by an automatic reader provided in the connection machine, and the consistency of the tapes connected to each other can be mechanically checked. The reliability can be guaranteed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an optical fiber cable.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of an optical fiber tape.

FIG. 3 is an example of one display according to the present invention, where (3-1) is the first tape of the second unit, (3-2) is the second tape of the second unit, and (3-3) is the second tape. It is the third tape of the unit.

FIG. 4 is another display example according to the present invention, where (4-1) is the first tape of the first unit, (4-2) is the second tape of the first unit, and (4-3) is the first tape. It is the third tape of the unit.

FIG. 5 is an example of a conventional display.

[Explanation of symbols] 1 ... Optical fiber tape 2 ... Core 3 ... Slot 4 ... Surface of optical fiber tape

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Suehiro Miyamoto 1440 Rokuzaki, Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture Fujikura Co., Ltd.Sakura Plant (72) Inventor Katsushi Ishida 1440, Rosaki, Sakura City, Chiba Fujikura Ltd. Sakura factory (72) Inventor Kazunaga Kobayashi 1440 Rokuzaki, Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture Fujikura Co., Ltd.Sakura Plant (72) Inventor Shinji Araki 1440 Rosaki, Sakura City, Chiba Fujikura Sakura Plant Co., Ltd. ( 72) Inventor Shigeru Tomita 1-1-6 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Nihon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An optical fiber tape in which a plurality of parallel bar lines along the longitudinal direction of the tape are printed on the surface of the tape, and information such as a unit number and a tape number is displayed according to the number of parallel bar lines and the difference between the bar lines. . 2. The optical fiber tape is a transparent body.
The optical fiber tape described. 3. An optical fiber tape splicing machine provided with a reading device for optically reading the display of parallel bar lines of the optical fiber tape according to claim 1.