Mid-Span Access Tool K-MSAT5

• Opens the tube, not the cable: the tool shaves a window into one loose buffer tube mid-span, so a drop or branch can be spliced at any point along the route — the cable is never cut through and the route is never broken
• Express fibers pass through untouched: the fibers not needed at this point stay inside the opened tube and run on through the closure uncut and un-spliced, so adding a branch interrupts nothing that is already carrying traffic
• Five sizing channels are built into the body as the gauge — 1.9, 2.2, 2.5, 2.7 and 3.0 mm: lay the tube across them before you start, and the channel it fits is the one that centres it for the shave
• Nothing to adjust and nothing to change between sizes: the blade stands at a factory pre-set depth, so it shaves through the tube wall and stops at the fibers — no depth to set, no dies to swap
• The hinged lid closes over the tube where it lies in the cable and latches for the whole draw, holding the tube seated in its trough so the shaved window runs straight and even
• The blade sits in its channel under a plate fixed by two screws — when it eventually dulls, it swaps out with a screwdriver instead of retiring the tool
• Pocket-size impact-resistant polymer body at 38.5 g, with the blade covered when the lid is latched — it rides in a kit or a pocket between closures
• Supplied neutral and unbranded as standard; private labeling is made to your requirements — labels with your logo, part numbers and barcodes on the inner boxes and outer cartons, so the goods arrive ready for your warehouse

Most fibers in a loose tube cable are express fibers: they pass straight through every closure on the route and are never spliced there. Only a few fibers in one tube are needed at any given point — for a drop, a branch, or a repair. Cutting the cable, or cutting that tube through, to reach them would break every live fiber in it. Mid-span access exists to avoid exactly that: the tube is opened in place, mid-route, the needed fibers are lifted out and spliced, and everything else — the cable, the other tubes, and the uncut express fibers in the opened tube itself — carries on as it was.

The K-MSAT5 does the opening mechanically. With the cable jacket already windowed and the tubes separated, the target tube is laid along the body of the tool, seated in the troughs at both ends, and the hinged lid is closed and latched over it. Draw the tool along the tube and the straight blade, standing at a fixed depth in its channel across the body, shaves a slot along the top wall of the tube as it goes. Lift the shaved strip away and the fibers lie exposed in the open window, ready to be identified, cleaned and spliced — the blade's reach is set by the channel and the tube's seating, not by the installer's hand, so the fibers under the wall are never the thing being cut.

The five sizing channels along the body are the setup. Before opening the tool, lay the tube across the channels — 1.9, 2.2, 2.5, 2.7 and 3.0 mm — and find the one it drops into: that fit is what centres the tube under the blade for an even shave. A tube much smaller than its seating can roll as you draw, and the shave wanders off the crown of the tube; the channels exist so the size is gauged in seconds, on the tool itself, with no separate measure and no adjustment afterwards — the blade depth is pre-set at the factory for the whole 1.9–3.0 mm range.

Work the window as part of the closure job, in order. Open the cable jacket, separate the buffer tubes, and coil the tubes you are not touching into the tray untouched. Shave the window in the one target tube, then count and identify the fibers before anything is cut: the fibers being dropped are cut and spliced to the branch, while the express fibers are dressed straight through the tray, still inside their opened tube. Counting matters — a fiber cut by mistake at mid-span is a through-circuit down, which is the whole thing this tool is designed to prevent.

Set against the other tube tools on this page, the split of work is by what happens to the tube: the groove slitters split a tube wall lengthwise so the tube opens into halves — the tool for cable ends and full tube openings — while the K-MSAT5 shaves only a window out of the top wall of a 1.9–3.0 mm tube that stays in service on the cable. After the job, wipe the gel out of the troughs and the blade channel, check the blade edge, and store the tool latched shut with the blade covered. A dull blade is replaced by undoing the two screws on its cover plate; the body has nothing else to service.

• One K-MSAT5 mid-span access tool