Dipping the Cleaning Tip of a Mechanical Click Cleaner Directly Into the Cleaning Fluid When Doing a Wet to Dry Cleaning Process

QUESTION: Why is it a bad idea to dip the cleaning tip of a mechanical click cleaner directly into the cleaning fluid when doing a wet to dry cleaning process?

ANSWER:

All of the mechanical click cleaners currently on the market use a synthetic woven fabric cleaning strand or cleaning ribbon. The cleaning strands or cleaning ribbons will flow across a tip on in a single direction. This motion effectively wipes away the contamination from the ferrule end face.

The synthetic woven micro strand has excellent absorbency for wiping away common residue based contaminates like skin oil, humidity, or alcohol residue. If an operator inserts the cleaner’s cleaning trip directly into the cleaning fluid, he will have a problem. The cleaning fluid will absorbed up onto both sides of the cleaning strand. You will not be able to control how much cleaning fluid is being wicked up onto the strand. The cleaning strand will become over-saturated with the cleaning fluid on both sides. When this happens, the operator is going to have to engage the cleaner multiple times to get to a dry section of the cleaning strand.

This is mechanical click cleaner’s tip with the outer barrel removed:

If you have put the cleaning tip directly into the cleaning fluid, your best option is to stop using the cleaner for a few minutes and let the cleaning fluid evaporate off. You can tell when the fluid is gone by touching the tip periodically until it feels dry. You don’t need to worry about cross contamination touching the cleaning strand to see if I feels dry. When you engage the cleaner, the part of the strand that has your skin oil be move away in the engagement process.  The next step is to engage the cleaner five or six times in a row to make sure all of the over-saturated section of the cleaning strand has passed.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT & RESOURCES:

• Category Resource: FOC Cleaning Page 
• Find More Information in this Blog:  The art of cleaning: Follow these specific cleaning techniques during fiber optic cable assembly manufacturing and installation

  Answered by AskFOC Technical Team WITH the Sticklers MicroCare Corporation Team June 4, 2017

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