The thixotropic water-blocking compound packed into gel-filled loose tubes, inherited as a nickname from the flooding compound in filled telephone copper cable. It protects fibers from water and freezing, but it clings to everything, so splicers strip tubes over a waste rag and clean each fiber with gel remover and alcohol before cleaving. Dry water-blocked cable exists largely because nobody likes cleaning icky pick.
Grab the gel cleaner and a stack of wipes, this old feeder is full of icky pick and it's twenty degrees out.
Gel residue left on a fiber will contaminate the cleaver and the splicer V-grooves, so a dirty prep job ruins the next ten splices, not just one.
Also heard as
- icky-pic
- gel
- goop
- filling compound
Related terms
Loose-tube cable
Outside plant cable whose fibers float inside gel-filled or dry tubes, protecting them from strain and temperature changes.
Buffer
The protective plastic layer or tube around coated fiber, either a tight 900 µm jacket or a loose gel-filled tube.
Strip, clean, cleave
The three-step fiber prep routine done before every splice or splice-on connector.
Splice closure
A sealed, re-enterable housing that protects fiber splices in outside plant, on poles, in vaults or buried.