atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Picture of Good Work

I will bet that shiny Amish penny that you can't make that case... now, as Gary Winston said "Surprise me, challenge me, defy me!"

From your statement, I get the feeling you don't often see CAT5 terminated on 66 blocks. Around here that's what we find probably 90% of the time. You get pretty fast at it too with enough practice..

You are absolutely correct, Hal. We don't even keep plenum in stock; it's ordered as needed, which is rarely.

And I totally get what you're saying about termination time on big jobs. For most of our jobs, we're not doing enough drops to make a big difference.. I get it though.

Why does talking cost justification with a Mac guy seem like a bad idea? =) (just playin - we do Mac too, although not a lot)

I'm no accountant but the thought behind my admittedly hyperbolic statement was factoring more than just material costs. Space on the truck costs money, space in the warehouse (or converted barn, in our case) costs money, freight costs money..

I've been doing our purchasing for about three years now and still don't have all my landed costs worked out.

Hal makes a great point about repetitive strain injuries too.. with the absolutely obscene cost of healthcare in the US today, that alone probably negates all the things I've been considering by an order of magnitude or two.

Good food for thought, gentlemen. Thank you.

I heard the same joke, but it was two jews, not amish....

religious jokes are the new ethnic jokes.

My point is that it is much faster to terminate cat 3 on 66 blocks than terminating cat 5 on 66 blocks.

:rofl: good one

I am guessing since your reasoning is shipping and space, that you do small 1-5 cables at a time type of AMC jobs that are mostly data anyways?

i have no problem giving you the point on that. it's even faster to terminate cross-connect wire on 66 blocks.

well, no. our business is primarily small(ish)telephone systems and we often wrestle the cabling jobs away from the sparkies and bored CGs. our average job is under 50 drops, equally voice and data. say, two 12-port vertical patch panels, four 66-blocks, six 89Ds and a handful of mushrooms.. =)

however, i've taken more accounting classes than i have technical and even as anal-retentive as i am about doing things correctly, i'm always doing job costing in my head. our margins are slim but adequate as long as we don't confuse our objective, which ultimately is to turn a profit. as we grow, it's increasingly critical for our practices to be scalable (not to mention competitive).

that's the whole reason i'm asking questions: i want to be very careful not to lose sight of how things should be done when i'm making certain we're not losing money doing our work.

I've done voice and data for decades and really do not see much of a difference between them. Ethernet over Twisted Pair was developed to utilize existing voice telephone cables. I've run LAN connections on the violet pairs of a 25-pair cable feeding a 6-button KTS phone. No Problem!

I haven't started yet, as there have been delays, but I'm installing a roughly 200 position call center. Everyone gets a quad-4 ... four 4-pair "RJ-45" jacks to be used for whatever: corporate LAN, DSL LAN, digital telephone, single or multi-line analog telephone, even lamps and switches. All the cables will terminate on patch panels in the equipment racks. Each floor position laid out vertical on four 24 position patch panel.

The rep's phones are on an Avaya whatever. The lines from the Avaya terminate on connectorized 66 blocks -- running the cable involves attaching a pair of 25-pair connectors. Supervisor lines are local Centrex analog and arrive from the 1.1 on tie cables that I actually had to punch down. Both will be cross-connected to either 2-w jacks or 8-wire jacks, depending on whether or not they only use pair one. These 66-blocks are also connectorized, and Panduit makes both 1 pair and 4 pair connectorized patch panels.

In the equipment rack I'll be mounting (with some variation):

24 2-wire patch jacks (1 ru)
24-quad-4 floor cables on patch jacks (4 ru)
48 port LAN switch
24-quad-4 floor cables on patch jacks (4 ru)
48 2-wire patch jacks (2 ru)
24-quad-4 floor cables on patch jacks (4 ru)
48 port LAN switch
24-quad-4 floor cables on patch jacks (4 ru)
24 2-wire patch jacks (1 ru)
24 8-wire parch jacks (1 ru)

95%+ of all patch cables in the equipment racks will be 12" tip to tip running vertically between the LAN switch and a floor jack or a voice patch and a floor jack.

Talk to some of your suppliers and you will find that they are not selling Cat 3 and that it is a special order. Just got off the phone with these 2 suppliers - All Per 1000' Pricing
IE - Graybar - Cat 5E Riser *******
Cat 5E Plenum *******
Cat 3 Riser *******
Cat 3 Plenum *******

El Supply - Cat 5E Riser *******
Cat 5E Plenum *******
Cat 3 Riser $not available
Cat 3 Plenum *******

you will still find Cat 3 at your HD or Lowes but I am told in my area that it will not be stocking it when they run out.

We have been using Cat 5E for voice for the last 4 years and found that the cost is a fraction more. We always use Cat 5E 8 pin for Data and Cat 3 4 pin for voice. There is a little more time to terminate on a 66 block, but very little if you have an experienced tech who is used to cutting down large number of cables. We also use white cable for voice and blue for data unless we have a request for a specific color.

Just my $2.13 cents worth.

Cosmo

Edited due to forum policy violation regarding posting of pricing in public areas.

Rick, you might want to shop your suppliers more. There is quite a significant difference in the cost of C3 vs: C5, about 20% here.