4.3.6.9. Modeling Cable Snipping and Splicing in Design World
Cables are normally attached to equipment at their ends, but sometimes technicians need to cut some cable media somewhere other than at the end, and attach other media (from the same or other cables) to the cut media. In IRM these advanced cable operations are referred to as snipping and splicing:
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Snipping - cutting a cable somewhere along its length, stripping any inner sheath from the ends, and exposing the media strands
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Splicing - joining or connecting media by interweaving or fusing the media strands at the ends, sometimes including the use of a simple mechanical device -- which we call a
coupler -- to assist.
Note
While these terms are commonly used in the industry, IRM has its own particular definitions, which may or may not line up exactly with the nuanced meanings assumed in different sub-disciplines, such as power cabling vs. data cabling. This is due to the broad applicability and general-purpose nature of IRM.
Snipping and splicing can be done with both copper and fiber cables. Snipping is essentially the same operation in all cases -- it just involves cutting select media. In contrast, there are several ways splicing can be done, depending on the type of media and goals of the user.
Copper splicing
The most prevalent example of copper splicing is the joining of bare media ends using wire nuts or terminal blocks.
Another example is splicing copper data cables in a campus-level outside plant. In situations where cables do not have enough length individually, two cables can be spliced together, which usually takes the technician a few minutes to perform. The "new" spliced cable should have approximately same bandwidth as either of the cables it was made from previously.
Fiber splicing
For optical fiber cables, Splicing is most commonly used in the field by means of fusion splicing but is also referred to mechanical splicing using pigtails within cable assembly housing. In field installations, splicing is used to restore fiber optic cables when a cable gets damaged or when needing to extend fiber cable runs by splicing one or more cables.
This introductory topic covers very basics of Cable Snipping and Splicing in practice, while the following subtopics cover how each is modeled within IRM, including detailed step-by-step use case scenario which includes both operations.
IRM Snipping and Splicing
Even though splicing is a relatively fast operation in real life, performing it still involves quite a few steps. In IRM it is possible to model the same scenario by only a few clicks:
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Specify the cable to be snipped and select the location of the Cable Snip.
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Ensure the Cable(s) being spliced are in close proximity to the Cable Snip or to an existing Cable end.
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Open the Splicing Dialog at the Snip location to specify the cable media ends to be spliced.
