atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring cabling in sequence

its what isn't seen that separates us from "any sparky "

"any sparky "can put the cables in order on each end , the "attention to details " that matter are how the jacks and patch panels are terminated and how the cable has been run .

sequential or not has nothing to do with performance the attention to the details that matter do .


as Ed pointed out there will be add's often before the move in.

do you re-number ?

charge the customer or eat the cost ?

or wind up with "nonsequential, weird numbered faceplates, " ?

We always put our jacks in order but what you guys are saying makes a lot of sense. As far as V&D on the same plate being the same numbers even we can't do that. All installations will have a different number of voice and data jacks. Wall phones obviously will not have an accompanying data jack, printers for instance will have no voice jack. When you consider adds and moves later on any sequence goes out the window.

We were even crazy enough to keep our voice jack and extension numbers the same but that rarely lasted more than a few weeks. We still start our voice jack numbering at 10 though.

-Hal

It doesn't matter to me if it's a 15 drop install or a 150 drop install, at least at the initial install all the cables will be in order.

I don't have a problem with anyone that does it the other way. I have worked for many companies that let the numbers fall where they may. Being a small shop I have the extra time to do it my way.

I agree that once the next new cable gets installed, the numbering scheme goes out the window. When that occurs, you just have to pick up with the next number in the order and go with it. Re-labeling would not be an option unless the customer was really 'anal' about it, and wants to foot the bill for it.

I guess I was looking at this wrong on my first read and comment. Just to clarify myself I label everything as I pull it and terminate in order. I have very rarely had a job where the v and d numbers were the same and if they were it wasn't for very long. I guess what it comes down to for me if you have say a long wall that may have cubicles along it and all the jacks are in the wall plate, that the numbers are sequential. First one may be v1 and d1 and d2 but if you keep this going down the line next plate v2 d3 and d4 if at leasts gives somebody coming in behind me an idea of where to look when they need to track down a jack. It could even be me and I just don't remember how I did it in the beginning but the numbers has a sequence I can narrow it down.

So keeping the same numbers on wallplates not a priority for me but the sequence is more important to me.

Thats my feeling as well.

I'm in agreement here. We always us the 'shotgun' approach when roughing in the cables. It is way faster than trying to keep track of tagging them as you go, especially when you're pulling 6 - 8 runs at once.

Sending one man to do a two-man job is poor time management.

I always number my cables with a sharpie, then number the boxes accordingly. Make whatever pulls are necessary to complete the job and start terminating. Generally most of my customers here have fairly extensive labeling schemes. An example would be A1W-100 (a building, 1st floor, west idf, number 100) a typical in these buildings are 1 voice and 2 data. Generally the voice and data 1 are a match in every single situation, the second data is labeled but it is not terribly important what the number is as long as it is marked on the floor prints.
On brand new installations I follow the same principal, always have cables numbered on both ends, with voice matching data and additional data out of sequence.
I have always found that when pulling bulk cable in any situation it is a lot faster to terminate and test when you know which cable goes where. If a toner gets used on one of my jobs someone is catching hell because he didn't label a cable.
Every voice cable is tested with a mod tap, every data certified with either my agilent wirescope 350 or whatever instrument the customer requires and provides (default is always the agilent).
I have found that it is immensely faster to know what your station numbers and port numbers are when testing. Toning is slow at best and wastes significant amounts of time. I can see if you are pulling two cables and don't have a sharpie handy how toning would work just fine, but from my experience if you have a sharpie (and you should) just put a one and two on them and go for it!
Even with OSP there are binders telling you which pair number you are dealing with, nothing random there either.

A good alternative to repulling things or totally relabeling if the customer has a problem with one data on a jack being out of sequence is to just relabel the jacks as A1W-100D1 and A1W-100D2, but most of my customers would not want to mess with the status quo in that situation since there are upwards of 2500 data and 1400 voice on each floor in the buildings that I service.

If you take the time to set up the job prior to just banging away with punch tool and letting things fall where they may you would be surprised how fast it actually is. Setup is everything in my opinion, doesn't matter where you are working, manholes, IDF's, MPOE's.....if you don't take the time to set it up it will take longer and look worse.

DING, DING, DING! Give that man a seegar! One thing that nobody seems to have mentioned, If you mark/label all runs BEFORE you pull the cable, it only takes ONE GUY!!!!!! If you REALLY like toning cables, you can do that when you are checking your work. And when you don't have to tone and search, it only takes ONE GUY!!!! Oops, repititious! And if you are checking work, it takes 2 guys less time than; Terminate jack, plug in toner, wait for IDF guy to signal he found it, unplug toner, go to next unlabeled dangling cable, terminate and connect toner, wait for IDF guy.................. etc, etc, etc. Roaming jack terminator waits for IDF guy, IDF guy waits for roaming jack terminator. Times-a-wastin'! Obviously, care and accuracy in marking the cables IS necessary, but if you can't do that, you shouldn't be in this business! John C.

well lightninghorse, the few jobs i have cabled from top to bottom thats what i did as well, number my cable boxes and pull, no toning was needed and it worked out 99.999999% of the time

I always mark as I go with rite-on lables. They show up good and you spot where your lable is and is easy to seperate. I mark up my print locations then start with the longest pulls and it maybe (103 or whatever)take 5 min and seperate and move on to the next. I only use my intel-tone pro 200 when trouble shooting or had two diffrent people labling and have dobles. As far as add-ons we and our POC's know as we add there is going to be spots that dont go in order. But 95% will be.


James T. Dobson
Dobson Network Cabling
Hampton,Va