Changed my mind on fiber fusion after a wet splice in Seattle

I used to think fusion splicers were overkill for residential drops, that mechanical connectors were good enough. Then last Tuesday we had a steady drizzle and I did a mechanical splice on a customer's line in Ballard. Signal was fine at first, but by Thursday the light loss jumped from 0.2 dB to 2.8 dB and the modem kept dropping. I went back, re-did it with a fusion unit borrowed from a buddy, and it's been rock solid for five days now. Moisture gets into those mechanical joints way easier than I thought, especially near the ground box. Has anyone else seen this same issue on aerial vs. buried drops, or is it just my bad luck with the rain?

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barbara3991mo ago

Yeah, that wet splice thing hit home for me. Last fall I did a repair on a buried drop near a sprinkler line and thought it was sealed good, but the next week the loss went from nothing to 3.1 dB and the customer was furious. I switched to fusion only for anything within five feet of the ground or in a box, and I haven't had a single callback since. That 0.2 to 2.8 jump you saw matches my experience exactly, moisture just creeps in and wrecks the light path over a couple days.

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