atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Cross connect colors

Hey guys, simple and mundane question here. Are there any conventions for the colors of cross connects? I'm planning to rearrange my backboard a little bit and I'm wondering how it should be done. Right now, my KSU cables come to one side of a block, and the station cables are on the other side. This allows me to pull the bridging clips to troubleshoot, but makes zero allowance to change the numbering. I don't really see much need to change stations around, but there's times when I'd like to. I plan on moving the KSU cables to different blocks and cross connecting to the existing station blocks. Also, I have a "CO" block and related KSU "CO" blocks, and they're cross connected with whatever I had around. I have better than half a roll of 3 pair x-connect, so I was using that, and I really hate the tri-colored x-connects. I bought a roll of yellow/blue single pair x-connect wire, so I have that to work with now, but I'm thinking the station x-connects should be different colors than the CO x-connects. This is all for my personal/hobby setup, but of course I want it to look right.

WARNING! Using colors other than yellow/blue will get you an EDucation from Ed, although I disagree with him.

Personally I use a different colour so I know when I walk in whether someone's been screwing with it. Just my 2 cents...

Oh man! Now you've gone and done it. Ed will be here shortly...

-Hal

Chris -

Station cable numbers shouldn't change. (I do remember trying to troubleshoot one job where the station cables were marked with the names of the people who sat at those desks - when the job was cabled!)

As far as cross-connect colors - 3 pair x-connect is for 1A2 only. (There is a 2.5 pair cross connect that we used to use for transmission work on DSX bays that looks similar, but isn't). For single pair White/Blue was very common. NY Tel used Yellow/Blue at some point. GTE used White/Orange.

When I did a very large job I used to use different color cross connects for different things (ex. In a hospital W/BL for patient phones and W/OR for Admin phones, W/R for emergency sets. On the Trunk side W/BL for OGT, W/OR for DIDs etc..) It made tracing cross connects easier on a frame 20' long.

Basically though on a small job not much of that is necessary. I would advise against one color of single pair for everything, especially if some of the connections require 2 or 3 pairs. It makes trouble shooting very difficult. I remember finding an Electronic Key System (NEC Electra 100 maybe?) where the entire job was done with BL/Y. I called the foreman in charge and had the installer come back and do it right - on his own time. It was either that or get laid off.

Sam

Ha ha, Dave and Hal!

I'm going to have to disagree for a few reasons. First, it's hard to maintain a uniform standard of different colors. That means you have to tote around several spools just for what is perceived to be a convenience. If there was a national color standard, then by all means, it should be followed by everyone. If someone comes up with their own unique set of colors, the next technician that comes along isn't going to know what they were thinking. It's all about block markings and effective use of a toner at that point.

Secondly, I seriously doubt if anyone is going to walk two blocks or down a dozen floors just to get the "correct" color of jumper wire. Be honest, you're going to run that one unexpected jumper using what you have or what you find in the closet.

Third, what's to stop your supplier discontinuing your color(s) of choice? That actually happened to me a few years back when I standardized with yellow/red for digital stations and yellow/blue for analog stations or CO lines. The manufacturer (General Cable) stopped making yellow/red in quantity, and my suppliers stopped carrying it for this reason. We now just use yellow/blue for everything. Anyone who knows what they're doing shouldn't have to rely upon unique jumper colors to do their job.

Lastly, most of our competition uses white/blue for everything. Bell uses yellow/blue for everything. On our installs, it's easy to spot if the customer has had someone else in there working on our systems. Verizon technicians sure aren't going to be messing with station jumpers, so it's not likely that their yellow/blue will ever be an issue mixing with ours.

My thing is more about the quality of the cross-connect wire. Yes, you can buy cheap white/blue anywhere, but it's loosely-twisted and often falls apart if you don't pay it out from the spool properly. Who's going to worry about how the spool is dispensed? Nobody. The result is loosely-twisted pairs that snag on anything in sight. I prefer type F cross connect wire, which maintains a CAT3 twist level and has more robust wire insulation. Sure, it costs more, but unless you're buying miles of it at a time, a $10.00 difference in the cost of a spool isn't going to break the bank. Besides, I used to buy a dozen spools a month. Now it's more like a dozen per year.

Yes, type F is available in many different color combinations.

I carry 3 rolls of cross connect in my bag. Blue/white for digital phones, yellow/blue for analog phones, red/white for CO lines.

No one else has access to my closets, so I'm not worried about anyone messing with my blocks.

The lost art of telephony, as lamented on this very forum recently. Back in the old days, everyone used the same convention for colors, and there were no peckerhead civilians allowed in the closets. We could walk into a closet that we had never seen before, and know exactly what the previous ten guys had done.

I was able to install and repair 4 gazillion 1A2 telephones over the years with triple-pair (B,O,G) for station features, Blue/Yellow for CO lines, and solid color red, green and black, single leads stolen from quad wire when spools were too far away, for ringer matrix, CMB, relays, etc. Same color codes as used by the manufacturer on KTU's and PBX equipment plates.

Red = power, Black = ground, Green = interconnection between relays.

Yellow/blue for buzzers.

Red/white for special ckts, such as alarms, tie-trunks, pushbutton on the secretary's desk to let the boss know that his wife just got off the elevator, and boy, does she looked pissed!

I guess I should hide my spool (or is it two?) of Y/R crossconnect wire, and, possibly the spool of r/bl & r/or two-pair

Guys, Thanks. I always love getting an education from you. I guess yellow/blue it is. I'm not going to be messing with my 1A2 connections... yet. This is strictly for my Partner system, so 2 pairs per station, some only one. Sam, what I meant was I can't easily change the number of a particular station. The station cables go where they go, but with the station cables and KSU cables on opposite sides of the same block I can't really make extension 20 become extension 15, for example. That's why I want to get the cables off the same block and cross connect, so I can assign an extension number to the room of my choice. The problem was brought on by my own short sightedness. As I built out the system, I just worked down the block, adding cables to various stations and devices in numerical order (numerical being the partners port numbers.) Some of these "Extensions" were to VoIP gadgets, or just stuff I don't have a need for anymore, so now there's gaps in the numbering sequence. I'm currently in a state of, call it contraction if you want, where I'm thinning things out. I love my old phones, but the honest truth is, they aren't all that practical. For the places where I work and actually use a telephone regularly, I've replaced the 1A2 set with a proper Partner set. To me it just seemed like, I have this sophisticated, relatively modern, and fairly expensive telephone system with all kinds of features, and I'm not really using it. My 1A2 will always be there, just not as my "daily driver".

Got it, Chris. I didn't understand you were bridge clipping extensions from the Partner system.

Sam