sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Trimline Question

yea but Hal , he may need that cat5 to the bathroom for a "data dump " sometime

Is that catological humor?

lol

I say high quality as the conductors are thicker than normal; I'd say about as thick as the cross connect wire.

Maybe it's cat5E, dunno. But the wires are definately thicker.

CAT 5, CAT 5e etc. is always 24 ga, has to be to maintain it's specs for data. I saw someplace that some CAT 6 is 23 ga.

It's CAT 3 and non-catagory that can be had in 22 ga or larger. Cross connect wire is normally 24 ga.

-Hal

I ran ITT shielded Cat 6 and it was 23 AWG. When I worked for GTE our House cable (Vertical Side of the frame) was 24 AWG, and our Switch cables (Horizontal side)were 24 AWG, but our X-connect wire was 22 AWG. Engineering felt that this was a potential weak point that had to be addressed. And the xconnects were wire wrapped - not punched down.

There is something to be said for an outfit that stressed quality.

Sam

Most cat 6 is 23 gauge.

How did they arrive at the reasoning that a thicker wire was a weak point? And weak in what way?

Arthur:

I think that Sam was referring to the use of anything smaller than 22 gauge would be a weak point.

My guess would be that frame wire endures quite a bit of stress due to long runs and being tugged by other jumpers that are entangled with it. Not to mention that it has more tensile strength when it's run for hundreds of feet.

Then of course, there's always the concern that the tension placed upon it when being wrapped can cause it to fracture without it being detected right away. Frame blocks don't provide the individual "per-pair" fanning strips like 66 blocks do, so the jumper conductors really have to fend for themselves with regard to stress and movement.

I don't think that I've ever seen frame wire that wasn't 22 gauge. As if I'm telling you anything that you didn't already know. :p

I looked at the jacket, it's 24 ga.

It's all I had at the time, Ed's gonna hook me up.

Ed -

You're right, the engineers felt that the weak point in the circuit was the xconnect so they boosted the wire size to give it more strength.

We were required to use the appropriate cutting/stripping tools for wire wrapping so that cut down on the cracked wire, but there were always some guys who insisted on stripping with their pliers, dykes, shears etc. Even while they were looking at a set of strippers hanging on the frame.

I think we did have per pair fanning strips on the old Newton bakelite Blocks, but maybe those were just for the house/switch cables and not for the xconnect. My memory is fading on some of those things.

Sam