atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Electricians runnin cable again!

Need to blow off steam and post this in hopes an electrician will read it. Went to an office complex to install a phone system. I was assured by the customer the offices were prewired and I already knew they were new offices. Usually my experiance tells me to verify first. We all know that prewired usually means a 3pair cat 3 daisy chain. But the call was last minute and customer was moving so I uninstall from old site and head over. When I arrived it looked great at first glance. A nice new 66 block with 6 cat5's homerun to it. I was impressed until I took the cover off of the 66 block. All six cables we stripped back and the green & brown pairs were wound together and stuffed behind the block. The blue & orange pair were terminated on column 2 of the 66 block starting at the center of the block. The station cables were terminated after a tight top to bottom connector of jumper wire starting from top to bottom. Pin 1 to pin 3 to pin 5 and so on and this ended up under the tight station cables.

Whoever did this had a punch tool.

Next was all jacks were 568A.

No service loop in ceiling to use to do it right.

Note to electricians: This project was "ALMOST" a good job. Post below what was not correct and your opinion of how to do it correct. I will evaluate all responses and award a prize to the best response.

Seasoned veterans of the Telephone cabling busines s may respond but are not eligable for the prize.
:shrug:

Correction, All jacks were terminated 568B. This will also be the first hint on this post.

John

And I bet they did the it for 25 a run.

John,
You don't really think an electrician can answer your question do you? I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope an IT guy could. I had one just this past week an electrician did, all I can say is your guy was a genius compared to what I found.

A question I like to pose to my customer is "Would you want me, your telephone man, to run all of your 110 & 220 volt cables?" Of course the answer is ALWAYS "NO!" Then I ask "Then why do you want your electrician running your telephone cables?"
This only works beforehand of course, but I've gotten every wiring job that I did this on.

Also, I explain to the customer that I will take absolutely no responsibility for the condition of the cables ran by someone else and that if the keysystem gets damaged and/or destroyed by a cable problem I will not be responsible. This disclaimer is included in the written quote ( which the customer signs if approved ) and the incoice as well. I also apply it on jobs where the customer wants me to use existing cables that have been working "for years".

I always test the cables for shorts and grounds before I connect anything to them but I don't have to tell the customer that. To tell the truth, I test the cables I run as well if it was a pre-wire job because ya never know what other contractors have done to your cables, such as cut them or drive a nail through them.

Simply put, CYA in writing when it comes to existing or other people's cables ! :thumb:

Hey John, I think those guys must also work in my area!

Did they terminat them on Cat 5e jacks?

I had one the other day that I had to crawl into an attic to find the cross connect. This was right above a utility room that would have been perfect for a couple of 66 blocks. The 25 pair cable was laid down in an order I can only hope made sense to someone. Looked like the 25 pair threw up on the block. They then split the block. If you count the pins from left to right they had one on pin 2 one on pin 4 and the station wiring matched that. When I asked who wired this, hte response was of course the electrician

I had one recently where it seems the computer geek had been filling the customer's head with garbage. We did work for this customer several times before, new system in his business, premises wiring in his house. We always did the wiring.

Now it seems he is expanding his office to the space above it. He tells me that the computer geek is going to do the wiring. Okay. I go there to look and the customer tells me that he is going to install one of those "structured wiring" cabinets in the closet of the new space and the CG is going to run all wiring into it, voice and data. It's the latest thing you know.

Well, his phone system is in the back room of the first floor. He only has about 4 or 5 jack locations in the new space. I tell him that it would be much simpler to just home run each new jack back to the crossconnect on the system backboard. No, he wants them run into that God awful "structured wiring cabinet" piece of crap. So, only thing to do is run 25 pair from the cabinet back to the system backboard which we do. I don't know how they figured they were going to make those phones work, apparently if it isn't CAT5 it's over their head.

I make a surprise visit the other day to see how they are progressing. Sheetrock is up and being taped and the cabinet is in. It's about 15" wide by 24" high by 4" deep recessed in the wall between the studs with a door that closes making it flush with the wall. Cute. There are a bunch of 8 pin jack modules at the top to which the CG punched down his data cables. My voice cables were hanging below in the cabinet with the 25 pair. I have to install one or two 66 blocks in there to terminate the 25 pair and the 4 pairs, maybe do a crossconnect.

I was concerned about the depth of a 66 block with bracket and whether it would fit in the cabinet, then it hit me. Where's this guy going to put the router or hub for the data?

The customer tells me "no problem, we'll just bring the cables back out of the cabinet and put the router on the wall".

Duhhh! Why the frig didn't you just put up a piece of plywood to begin with!

-Hal

We even get them. I have an order for a LAN drop into the power room. "Conduit has been run to the LAN room." Yeah. 150 feet of 3/4 inch, no pull string, no j-boxes, and five 90 degree bends.

This subject always pushes my button! I just finished a job where sparkie done the voice and data wiring. Each outlet has two cat5e drops - one marked phone, the other data. They ALL go to the network interface on the outside of the building. OK for phone - if all you need is SLT's. It made me wonder if sparkie thought the owner was going to put the server outside at the NI! All the Cat5's are run with the 110 - even taped to it! Main run under building has 110, coax for cable and cat5's ALL taped together! Obviously I had to pull it all out and rerun it. And electricians ALWAYS think they are qualified to run voice/data just because they can run 110/220!!!! :bang: