Bending Cables
Items needed to bend your fiber optic:
So let’s say you want to make a fiber conform to the shape of a house to put Christmas lights up on it.
Or maybe you want to come up an outside wall and have a right angle bend to the fiber. Well you can do this very easily. All you need is:
A tray with boiling water
Some narrow tubing
The fiber you will be working with
How to bend your fiber optic:
Cut two pieces of tubing into which the fiber can be inserted. Where they “join” is where you will make the bend (see below).
Put some boiling water into a tray so that the piece of fiber can be inserted without burning your fingers. By the way, that is one of the reasons you will use some tubing - not only will it keep the fiber straight where you don’t want to make a bend, but it allows you to insert and manipulate the fiber in boiling water. Now insert the far end of the fiber into the tray and push it against the wall of the tray until it is bent in relation to the near end of the fiber.
Now remove the ‘assembly’ from the tray and you have a perfect, permanent bend in the fiber.
Watch how the whole process on how to bend fibers:
In this video, you will learn how to bend a fiber and keep that bend using boiling water and aluminum tubing. It is a useful trick for installing lights in your car or creating a lighting setup for your space. Just insert the fiber into tubing, submerge it in boiling water, bend it against a corner, cool it, and remove from tubing. That is it! Thanks for watching.
Do not forget to try out this fiber bending technique for your next lighting project! And if you want to see more videos about Dwarvin lightings, be sure to check out our playlist for more helpful tips and tricks. Thanks for watching!
Straighting Cables
Have you ever tried to straighten a piece of fiber optic cable?
If you go on the web you will find examples of straightening fibers using hot air guns. I have tried this method, but it is very easy to melt the fiber by mistake! So I decided to try using hot water as an alternative. I put together an array of aluminum tubes with an internal diameter similar to that of the fiber I wanted to straighten. I then inserted fibers in those tubes and placed the assembly into almost boiling water.
Removing them after 10 seconds I put them under cold water. Upon removing the fibers they were found to be remarkably straight. This method works!!
Why is this a useful technique? Fibers are typically placed onto a roll straight after manufacturing. This provides the fiber with a permanent bend. However, there are times when this may be a nuisance. An example is when inserting fibers into a building to provide lighting. Instead of standing up vertically, they will naturally want to curl over. There are several solutions to this. One is to insert the fiber into a rod - such as a plastic coffee stirrer, similar to those found in coffee shops. This works very well and I have used this often. A great alternative is to straighten the fibers to be used using the hot water method described above. Insert them through a small hole in your project and they will remain vertical.
Also check out the video of the process here!
This video provides a simple approach to straightening fiber-optic cables. The video host demonstrates the traditional method of using a hot air gun and shares the limitations of this technique, including the risk of damaging the fiber. The host then introduces a new method that involves using aluminum tubes and boiling water.
The video shows how easy it is to straighten the fibers with this technique, and the resulting fibers are very straight. The video concludes with an invitation to use fiber optics for lighting buildings, scenery, and even dollhouses without the need for wiring.