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

Why do clients ignore cable management when they have it? I really hate coming back to a site and seeing the patch cords going all over the place after I so carefully arranged them in a neat manner.

In my thinking, this is how it goes down when customers run new patches:

"Oh, I need to run a patch. I better get a cable that's long enough to complete the job."

Rather than looking at the work at hand, a "layperson" (how do you like that term) will usually grab the longest premade and proceed to patch port to port, not even messing with cable management, or using a proper sized patch cord, color coding, or whichever other standards are in place. Most likely, the patch could have been completed with a 4' patch routed correctly. Now you have 6' of slack dangling in front of the rack to play with, and eventually replace.

REMEMBER - a 10' patch is much better than a properly sized 4' patch cord. [/sarcasm]

There are still a few of us around that insist installation are done right

I get it, Dean (assuming you are referencing the upside-down mounting of Cisco hardware). I had to double-check since you are so tongue-in-cheek.

I think that is simply a Cisco box. Maybe he's refering to the size wire tray used for the one ground wire.

Just kidding. Looks good so far, show us some pictures when it is done.

Job is already completed. Yes, I believe it was just an empty box.

This is a data center for a well known dot.com. I think there were 45 4 post racks in this one room.

I just went back to a seasonal customer (hotel/restaurant) to make sure everything is working for the Summer rush. I maintain their phone system, point of sale (POS) wiring, and computer network.

The customer paid me a lot of money a few years ago to put every low voltage wire in many hundreds of feet of PVC conduit, for both indoor and outdoor terminations, for the obvious reasons of keeping everything weather resistant and also rodent resistant during the off-season.

Every POS location has two Cat5e wires -- one for service, one for back-up -- so in the middle of a mad weekend, they can just unplug a kitchen printer, for instance, from the "A" port to the "B" port, and service is not interrupted.

During the winter, an electrician did some renovation in the kitchen. One of the printer locations had its conduit (with two gray Cat5e wires inside) cut off near its location, and now is fed with one blue Cat5e wire TIE-WRAPPED TO THE CONDUIT, all the way back through walls and ceilings, to the MDF / patch panel.

At the patch panel, the lone blue wire is punched down on a single biscuit /jack, stuck next to the original 24-port jack panel. He could have just re-used the existing wires, or he could have used them as a drag for TWO new wires, and he could have used one (or two) of the spare jacks on the panel or he could have used the two original jacks.

I don't understand why they take more effort to do it wrong, than to follow the lead of the person who originally did a picture-perfect job.

Because they don't have the knowledge or training required to do it right. Guy was probably a 3months or so apprentice that had no idea what the word "QUALITY" entails. "Can you run wire?" "Sure, how do you start it?"

More $$$ doing a crappy job, than taking pride in a job well done and doing right by your customer.

I must me lazy, because I will always find the easiest way do get a job done, and the job done right at the same time.

Here's one for a 5 story office with everything home run to the second floor server room



Of course everything starts getting ugly when the carriers begin mounting their routers. (See back wall)