Congratulations! After all the planning and preparing, you are now ready to start pulling in your FieldShield Fiber from Clearfield. Maybe you are new to microfiber, maybe you are new to Clearfield products, or maybe you’ve used our products many times and are just looking for some tips to ensure pulling in the fiber is a smooth process. Whether you’re an experienced installer or a new contractor, these tips will help make pulling in FieldShield Fiber easy, resulting in a smooth installation.
1. Tie a good knot. I know that seems like a no-brainer, but I have been on installs where the technician ties a quick knot, starts pulling and guess what…the knot comes undone. Now not only can you not finish the pull, you have to spool up your fiber and find a way to get new string in the duct. Just take a little extra time to make sure you tie a knot that won’t come undone.
2. Have someone at the spool end when you are pulling. FieldShield is a ruggedized microfiber with quite a bit of memory to it. Keeping constant tension on the fiber is key. If you have to stop pulling for whatever reason, the spool may keep spinning, allowing the FieldShield Fiber to spill over the flanges of the spool. Also, the fiber could coil up on the ground and if you start pulling again without spooling the fiber back up, you could break the fiber. If you have someone at both ends, the person at the spool end can make sure that the spool stops spinning at the appropriate times.
3. Slow down and assess your duct run. You don’t need to pull the fiber as fast as you can. In my experience, you should never have to pull FieldShield Fiber so hard that your hands hurt; our products are designed to make pulling easy. I like to “feel out the duct.” When pulling a little slower, I can feel if I hit a bad turn or if the pull is gradually getting harder…which could mean dirt in the duct, too many turns in the run or other issues. This is very important because you don’t want to have to pull with all of your strength, nor should you have to with Clearfield products. If you are, and you are trying to pull as fast as possible, you may damage the fiber.
I hope these tips for pulling FieldShield Fiber help on your next install. If you want to know more, please reach out to Clearfield. We’re happy to help.
By Brock Hill
Brock Hill, Field Technician, has worked at Clearfield for 7 years. His area of expertise is in installation…particularly, first-time installs. Brock has BICSI Installer 2, Optical Fiber certification.