News archive: We Learn How to Fleet Fibre

November 12th, 2012
Author: Chris Conder
Tags: community digitalbritain fibre fleeting ftth jfdi
Posted In: Archive News

Last week we learnt how to do long fibre blows.

Once again, many thanks to Emtelle for their expert guidance, knowledge transfer and support of this community project. It is very much appreciated.

Congratulations to all who have worked so hard this past few weeks to accomplish this. The blow was 3.5 kilometres, and fusion is now ongoing, and Arkholme will shortly go live, so both ends of our main core route will be working.

If you are blowing a distance its better to fleet the fibre (some call it spooling) in between the access chambers. You can buy a machine to fleet on to, but we did it without one. We started with a small pair of sheets but they weren’t big enough, so the chap in the house where we were working said he had a camping sheet. Very lucky he was there, it did the job perfectly, especially when he contributed two plant pots. We learnt that its easier to fleet with four or five people once the blower gets the speed up. The fibre must not be bent, and is coiled in a figure of eight so its easy to re-blow down the next length without getting tangled up.

Next job is to join up the in between villages.
The Arkholme route is still ongoing, spreading Northwards now to the next village due to demand.

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