I am in a bit of a situation, I am working with several older (Corrected from sma) FC connectorised Spectra Physics Laser cavities many of these are dual fiber pumped originally by either two J20 or J40 rack mount power supplies with one FC connectorised Laser internal to each J20 (20W) or J40 (40W) unit.
All of the Spectra Physics cavities employ either one or 2 FC inlets.
All my lab equipment utilizes one to four 20 to 40 watt SMA connectorised 808nm laser diodes each.
I have seen SMA/ FC butt splices mechanical but am having like no luck finding two FC cables surplus sure thorlabs will sell some for my firstborn.
I am collecting a number of acromat fc and sma fiber lauch lenses , I have seen these used to optically splice two fibers but not having an in depth knowledge of optical engineering is hindering me trying this.
Any suggestions appreciated I wish I could cleave terminate polish my own laser multimode cables and build some mixed connector type cables that are SMA to FC.
Anyone out there with knowledge of steps required to build a mixed cable from an SMA to SMA or FC to FC would be greatly appreciated. I know that the coherent SMA fibers are 800um multimode and have acceptance angles of 0.29-0.37 typically.