sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Cable pulling-to mark or not to mark

I label the box the same # as the cable and use a sharpie to label the cable and I write it 3 times about 6 inches apart incase it get rubbed off or is just hard to read.

Here's My problem with keeping them in order. You have just finished job, are labeling last jack, customer says "oh we forgot 3 runs" Those 3 runs are in room 3 and 4, but panel is full to 41. There goes all your order right out the window. We don't tag first for several reasons.
1. It takes more time to tag everything
2. It takes more time to sort through as
you terminate
3. You have to test anyway, if you tone first you are making 2 trips to all locations.
4. Pull, terminate, test and tag.

Toshiba Bob I like the idea about using letters when cables are addad. We have used that and we get calls that data 3 isn't working drive to site and find that it was 3d. I don't know why but itseems to mess up the customer.

While pulling cable back in the day (I do miss it sometimes) I never once thought, “Oh, I’ll just tome ‘em out after the fact.” I don’t see the need to do the extra footwork. If I pulled just 2 cables, I’d still label on the box and then the cable in 2 or 3 spots on with a Sharpie, One and 2. (Spelling out one, six, nine, ten, etc. rather than using the numeric symbol)

By reading some of these posts I’m thinkin’ some ya’ll are making things with labeling more difficult than it needs to be… (Especially toning out large jobs IMO) During the years I slung cable I never once had a customer / end-user that wanted the cable itself labeled. Reading through some of these post is really puzzling me. Are there really customers that want the CABLE itself labeled? :confused: The jack faceplates labeled of course. The patch panel labeled… err, and labeled to match the far end of course, all of ‘em wanted that.

I got kind-a all corn-fused up on one of my first larger scale cabling gigs. Fortunately the guy I was working with got me straitened out. The job was an entire floor of cubicles. I don’t remember the exact numbering scheme the customer wanted but it went something like this:
3-N-(1 thru 10) data
3-N-(1 thru 10) voice
3-NE-(1 thru 10) data
3-NE-(1 thru 10) voice
3-E-(1 thru 10) data
3-E-(1 thru 10) voice
3-SE-(1 thru 10) data
3-SE-(1 thru 10) voice
3-S-(1 thru 10) data
3-S-(1 thru 10) voice
3-SW-(1 thru 10) data
3-SW-(1 thru 10) voice
3-W-(1 thru 10) data
3-W-(1 thru 10) voice
3-NW-(1 thru 10) data
3-NW-(1 thru 10) voice

* 3 represented the 3rd floor
* The alpha character represented the quadrant on the floor space N=North; NE=north east etc.
* The 1 – 10 would have been the drop number.
* Data was Cat 5
* Voice was Cat 3

The more ‘sperienced tech leading the job told me to set up and label 10 boxes of data and 10 boxes of voice cable and handed me my own copy of the floor print. Let’s get started pulling. So what did I do…? I took a Sharpie and started writing “3-N-1 data” and “3-N-1 voice” on the cable box and on the cable itself three times. I remember thinkin’ “Great gobs of Sharpie ink! This is going to take freakin’ forever, just to label!” :scratch:

The lead on the job and gave me some valuable OJT education… “Just write ONE on the first cable, 2 on the second… 3 on the third…and so on,” he tells me. “Then mark YOUR copy of the floor print with a ONE next to cube location 3-N-1, 2 next to 3-N-2.” Voice cable is grey, and data cable is white, no need to worry about getting those mixed up. It will all sort out pretty quick and easy when it’s time to terminate. … And it did. Had the customer NOT specified their own labeling scheme it would have went even slicker! We could have just terminated everything and labeled as we went during testing.

The entire point if this long-winded thesis is “Don’t worry about WHAT the cable is labeled.” You can label the faceplates and patch panel something different and more logical AFTER the fact.

Guess I was not entirely clear. When we mark a cable we K.I.S.S.

The marking scheme is simple. If the print location is 2W-4-14, then we mark the cable 4.14 to make it fast and simple. it takes virtually no time to mark cables. Depending on the cable we are pulling and type of site, we will pull from 12 to 35 cables per pull! By the end of the day, we may pull 100 - 150+ cables per team.

As I stated in my first post, toning that many wires takes a LOT of man-hours since our sites have hundreds of cables in the trays!

In small offices, sure, you can tone, but I can mark up the cable faster than you could tone end to end. I am assuming most here doing small locations work solo, or at most with one other. No matter how you cut it, toning takes more time. And as Bryan noted, you can use any scheme to mark your cable that you want, if it makes since to you and those who work with you.

To mark 10 cables takes maybe 30 seconds.

To tone 10 cables takes at least 2 minutes or more. Time goes up as density of cables goes up! In addition, if you are toning by yourself, walking to location from the IDF/MDF adds to that time. If you are using two people, you have to multiply that time taken to tone by 2 to get the real man-hour cost.

By the way, most customers do not care about cables being marked or not, they just want to have a clear print so they can make their interconnections accurately at the IDF/MDF and location. Marking or toning is just our opportunity to make more money by being able to service more customers/clients. In any given man-hour.

Doesn't BICSI "suggest" a machine-generated label on the cable itself behind the jack at the WAO as well as behind the patch panel?

We usually pull up to about 14 cables per man at a time. We mark the cable and box with a Sharpie, using the finished name per blueprints. Even though we try to keep our panels organized, by the end of the job the customer usually has adds, so total organization goes right out the window.

Bill

Well, it depends.

I just did a job today with 15 drops of triple cat5 (1 phone and 2 data) and I did NOT pre-label. On a job this small it is easier for ME to tone and label when I am dressing them into the rack and backer board.

On bigger jobs I definitely pre-label everything.

I have always tried to label a print (hand drawn or whatever), put the number of the cable on the box/reel, mark the cable with that number....pull the longest runs first, write the number on the other end of the cable...cut and check off the print.
While speed of installation may be great and profitable today, the quality of installation will speak for itself tomorrow as newtecky found out and the customer has to pay for latter.

We pull mostly quads and usually quite a few when we do it. I always use a write-on cable label to mark the cables. It's white and stands out much better than sharpie. It's faster because you only have to mark it once and you don't have to worry about the sharpie smudging.

We always mark the wire on both ends with the correct jack number using a machine generated label. Lately our customers have been asking for this kind of labeling.

Quality doesn't cost....It pays.

We pull up to 40 runs at a time and ALWAYS label the runs. White for voice and Blue for data and mark the location number on a copy of the floor plan, as well as inside the box. After certification the cable maps and certification details are put into plastic sleeves and a binder to be left (for the customer to loose) in the T.C.. Sharpies work well if the painters don't cover you up. Blue masking tape over the lable comes off easily and protects the label from those guys with their spray guns.The map removes doubt and makes a cut-over a breeze.