Importance

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Abstract

The present apparatus and method make it extremely easy for a worker, even when located in a manhole or on a telephone pole, to rapidly achieve a perfect break in an optical fiber and at a precisely predetermined position relative to a connector means. The breaking is the same, regardless of the upright, inverted or inclined position of the tool. Only a single motion of the blade is required at any desired speed, and there is no necessity for the blade to contact the fiber at a pressure within certain limits. These and other major results are obtained by clamping an optical connector element to the optical fiber before breaking is effected, and then removably securing the connector element to the breaker at a precisely known position which is correlated to the location of the scoring blade and to the characteristics of the connector. The fiber is then clamped, bent, tensioned and scored in response to a single squeezing and releasing motion by one hand of the operator--these actions being substantially entirely unaffected by excessively hard squeezing forces. The scoring is effected by a hard-mounted tungsten carbide blade which moves, in an arcuate path, toward and across the tensioned fiber. The blade is of a certain type which--when thus moved--causes scoring to occur so instantaneously that, despite the indicated hard mounting, there is almost no danger that the fiber end will be crushed or otherwise damaged. In a second embodiment, means are provided to heat the fiber for rapid burning of the synthetic resin coating therefrom. The invention includes not only the breaker and method per se, but also the apparatus and method whereby the breaker is combined with an optical connector to create a combination breaker and connector.

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First Claim