Some Samsung TVs come with a system called One Connect, where all external cabling is connected to a separate box so that only a small signal cable goes to the TV. In some versions, the TV connecting cable to its connection box is a pure fiber optic cable that is almost transparent and therefore easy to hide.
Thin fiber optic cables are fragile though; When [Elecami Wolf] Got one of these TVs at a very low price, it turned out that its one connect cable was broken. Replacement cables are quite expensive, so [Elecami Wolf] Investigate the workings of fiber optic cables and find out how to repair a broken one.
The wire consists of four pairs of plastic-coated glass fibers, which are attached to the receiver and transmitter inside a thick connector at both ends. Two things are needed to repair the cable: determining which fibers should be connected to each other and a reliable way to connect them together.
The first was hard enough: a simple 1: 1 connection didn’t work, so it worked a bit to figure out the right connection setup. A clever trick was to point a camera at a work wire and compare the flashing light at each end; This helped to identify the correct sequence for two of the four pairs. For the other two, a complete wiring diagram has been found with a combination of reverse-engineering of electronic circuits and some systematic trial-and-error.
For the second part, [Elecami Wolf] He called a fiber optic specialist who gave him a fusion splicer. It is a rather neat tool that semi-automatically combines two pieces of fiber and welds with an electric pressure. Once this was done, the splices had to be covered to protect them from sharp turns and the fancy TV was working again.
Although not everyone will have access to a multi-mode fusion splicer machine, [Elecami Wolf]Its videos provide fascinating insights into the workings of modern fiber-optic based consumer electronics. This may be the first fiber-optic splicing attempt we have seen; But if you are trying to add an optical fiber to your circuit, this ball lens setup is a neat technique.
Thanks for the tip, [X-Cubed]!