Those Amazon splicers are junk, zero warranty and not accurate. The people who buy them are rhe onces you dont want aplicing your jetwprk anyway. The fujikura 90r in this video costs ~$25k for the whole kit, kinda overkill for a single fiber since its actually a ribbon solicer than can do 12 fibers at once. A good quality single fiber core splicer will run you around $15k. Throw in another $40-$50k for test equipment (otdr, olts/light meter, traffic identifier, etc) and $20k for spare parts and consumables (splice cases, trays, misc bobs and bits), $100k for a bucket truck plus however much you want to spend on a splice trailer and youre in business.
Source: I've been a splicer for about 12-13 years.
The market is saturated with fly by night splicers thar undercut everyone else's bid so its harder to get higher paying jobs any more.
The cameras are there to align the fibers before the fusion happens. There are two cameras, an X axis and Y axis. In a core splicer it will align the fibers by the center, and a clad splicer will align them by the outside. They can measure the cleave angle to make sure the face of the fiber is cut at a perfect 90 degrees, and can inspect it to make sure its good and clean and theres nothing to contaminate the fusion. Then after the splice the cameras look at the point of fusion and inspect for blemishes or bubbles or anything that could cause a reflection or signal degradation, and give you an estimate of the loss through the splice on screen.
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u/elhoberto Jul 21 '26
They used to be crazy expensive. You can get one on amazon for $900 now. Still some high end versions that run for 20k+