I accidentally cut through a 4 core fibre data cable
Earlier this year, I cabled the engineers garage and main buildings together here at Hawklaw. Given the 170m cable run, standard ethernet was out of the question. So, I hurriedly installed a 170m pre-terminated armoured fibre cable. I haven’t yet gotten around to burying the cable, a task that’s been on my to-do list.
Last weekend, while tidying up the area around our chickens, I had an unfortunate mishap. My expensive cable made an unfortunate connection with my scrub cutter. I was faced with replacing the whole run or finding someone who could splice a fibre cable.
Initially, I considered purchasing a fusion splicer to fix it myself. However, with a price tag of £6000, there was no way I could justify the investment for a one-time repair. Hiring one was another option, but that would have taken too long and I didn’t want to be without data between the two buildings for that long.
Luckily, if you live in Fife, you’re only 2 degrees of separation from anyone and this was no exception, luckily, I “kent a boy that kens a boy” (well, it was a girl actually) who had a fusion splicer. This friend of a friend came to the rescue, and with his expertise and the magic of the splicer, he managed to repair the cable. It was a tense moment, but thanks to our helpful community, we were back online in no time!
Lesson learned—I won’t make that mistake again. Stay tuned for more updates from Hawklaw!
Now all I need to do is get round to hiring a mini-digger and getting this cable safely underground, where it should be!