The present invention discloses an optical fiber
fusion splicer which, together with fusing and splicing optical fibers in the state in which the jacket of each optical fiber core is clamped by being provided with a means by which a V-shaped groove base is moved up and down so that the axial centers of optical fiber cores are positioned at the proper position for electrical discharge, is provided with a mechanism that temporarily moves clamp upward and V-shaped groove base downward followed by re-clamping in order to eliminate a lift-up phenomenon during rotation alignment of the constant polarization optical fibers.
In order to achieve the object, an optical fiber
fusion splicer of the present invention equipped with: a V-shaped groove base that respectively fixes and clamps left and right optical fibers in a V-shaped groove and a clamp for fixing optical fibers in the V-shaped groove, an observation means for observing the left and right optical fibers from the side, a V-shaped groove movement mechanism that aligns the end surfaces of optical fibers by performing axial alignment of the left and right optical fibers based on observation information from the observation means, and electrodes that generate an electrical discharge at the aligned portions to fuse and join them; wherein, a V-shaped groove base vertical movement means is provided that moves the V-shaped groove base up and down so that the centers of the axes of the optical fibers are positioned at the proper location for electrical discharge corresponding to the magnitude of the optical fiber diameter.
According to this optical fiber fusion splicer, although the position of the axis center of the optical fiber core changes relative to the V-shaped groove depending on the magnitude of sheath diameter, since the V-shaped groove base that holds the core is moved up and down according to that sheath diameter, the axis center of the core can be positioned at the proper position for electrical discharge. Thus, end alignment work can be performed reliably without the axis center shifting from the proper position for electrical discharge using only a simple mechanism in the form of the V-shaped groove base vertical movement means.
In the optical fiber fusion splicer, it is preferable that the observation means has observation axes in two directions which mutually form a right angle, the intersection of the observation axes in two directions is located at the proper location for the electrical discharge, and the V-shaped groove movement mechanism has a means for moving at least one of either of the left and right optical fibers in a direction that forms a right angle with the observation axes in two directions.
