Technical > Photos of Broadband gear > MDF Cleanup

MDF Cleanup

What a Mess!

Tangled Web

Large Mass Removed

That's Better

Looks decent. Although the colored CaT5 needs to be standardized and cleaned up. That's exactly what starts spaghetti messes in the first place.

Gonna clean, clean it all.

reply to jmich
Darn right it looks decent. no offense to you canadian wirehacks (kewlkeed) but ALL the wires have colors and you must have amazing eyes to see that those are Cat5 (or as you put it "CaT5") or are you just an expert at spaghetti messes?

Looks to me like jmich did a righteous service for this customer and considering what he seems to be capable of I wouldn't throw stones. I'm pretty sure he was probably cleaning up a mess made by someone like yourself that thinks they can do it better just cause they saw a picture on the interwebs.......ahey

reply to jmich
Good job, jmich !

Always glad to see pics of your work and hope you'll post more soon!

reply to jmich
Um, how come there's a girl in your lab?

Shes been living back there for the last 8 years and was discovered during the cleanup.

reply to jmich
Not throwing stones. It's by far a good job for what it looked like before. I'm just saying some of the colored ones aren't exactly done too cleanly compared to the other patches. Normally there are cable guides and such put in.

Not trying to be a dick about it, it's just if you're gonna do it, do it all the way. I'm sure Splitpair or any other cabling fanatic here will agree with me. And please learn a bit before making "saw a picture on the interwebs" smartarse comment like that. I do this shit for a living thank you very much.
--
Justin - DSLR resident grouch and Mr Negativity
TSI Fanboy - "Dontchya wish your 'net was hot like mine! Ohhh Dontchya!"
Have a nice day!

Hey kewlkeed,
"I'm not a cable man by any means... " I believe you stated not 2 weeks ago on another posting...I guess what you're really saying is that you do it for a living but you're not very good at it?

Listen Sport, I may be new to DSLR but I made this business into a career for the last 25 years, and I have provided instruction for others for a very long time, my creds are impeccable but I try to remain humble because there is always someone you can learn from. You on the other hand dish out off handed comments like you invented Time domain Reflectometry, you must realize that from your 19" jizz covered screen and keyboard you cant always see what you believe to be defects in others work in a 640 x 800 shot of 3 feet of cable that is obviously not the focus of jmich's posting. Why don't you go crimp plugs on PVC and run it in your plenum.

RGT not to get into a war or anything. I think he was getting at that they should have been all the same color to help clean it up. Nothing like rainbow wiring.

reply to jmich
Color coding is one thing yes. But these just look like they were recycled from the wiring mess.

If I do a rip and replace, it's a total rip and replace. Nothing gets reused. Also just by looking at the cables and their terminations you can tell it's a mix'n'match. Half don't have the same type of terminations. They were probably just re-used cables. Which in most practice isn't a big problem. But on a total replace like this it's best to go with all new stuff. Also again, no cable guide sections, sharpie marked cables, and the actual guiding of the cables is sloppy compared with the rest of the job. There's nothing holding these cable, so they simply hold themselves there. There's no strain on them which is good, but again they should have proper guiding. Some of them are used for patching where it looks like a bit of a longer patch jumper could be used. What happens when the jumpers used for patching aren't long enough when/if something changes? Since there's no proper cable runways you'll now have another cable running across the front or another guided along the side and hanging in the bundles in the front. 2 years from now that may be every patch cable being velcro-tied in big bundles along the front? No this may not be a very dynamic patch bay, but at least plan for it. Seeing the mess from before, it does look like there is always change.

BTW I say "I'm not a cabling person by any means" because I don't like pulling my chain. Again ask a cabling person around here (Wayne where are ya!) and they'll say the same as me.

I agree it's a hell of an improvement from the previous nastyness. But it's like getting a beautiful new Ferrari and putting cheapo tires on it. Go all the way.
--
Justin - DSLR resident grouch and Mr Negativity
TSI Fanboy - "Dontchya wish your 'net was hot like mine! Ohhh Dontchya!"
Have a nice day!

I'm a server guy, not a cable puller, but we sometimes do cable work for clients. I'm a stickler for using all new cables in exact sizes, proper horizontal and vertical cable management and restraints, etc.

But many of our clients (non-profits, local governments, school systems) are very cost conscious. Basic cable reorg can be a tough sell, but it clearly does pay for itself. The extra $2-300 to make it perfect is much harder to justify.

On top of that, there is the waste aspect of it. Reduce, reuse recycle--why throw away a perfectly good cable that's only been used once? Sure, toss anything that's kinked or twisted or has broken ends, etc. But we often pull cables that may not be the right color, but they're as good a new.

Joey

reply to jmich
Hey jmich, where did you get the short patch cords from? Looks good...
-Jeff

special order thru Graybar. if you have older 96 port cat5 panels like these i would recommend 8 inch--these 6 inch were a little snug for some ports.

reply to jmich
Interesting, I have some of those Ortronics panels in 24 and 48 port. I order from Graybar fairly often, I will ask my sales rep. Are they made by Allen Tel?

reply to RGT RCDD

reply to jeffmoss26

reply to jmich
As a professional, we all want to do the best work possible. However many times the customer's budget does not allow us to do everything we might want to. I have run into that many times as I am sure most of us have. I think it's a great improvement. Jmich always does an excellent job.