atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Clean Up Work

I've seen some real messes in the field and in the "Pictures of Ugly Work" threads here. For those that do clean up work on the less than stellar cabling jobs, where do you start?

Jack

Map everything, and then rip it all out.

No, really.

It's painful, and often requires you to press-gang the job over a weekend, but it's as much work or more to work around all the mess you have to start with.

I've had to do it a few times, and it is indeed no fun, but I've *tried* to do it the other way -- working around what' already running, and the extra effort you waste is only compounded by the extra frustration.

And you won't end up with as neat a final job.

Depends on the customer and how often I am out there and how much I am making. If it is a good and regular customer I try to clean up a little with each visit. If it's a one visit deal then they are on thier own unless something is stopping me from getting my work done.

If Everything is working, I start by cleaning out all wiring that is disconnected on one end.

Before you start, find out if they have any weird hacks or special devices (One site had wired a POTS FAX into the station cabling because a lazy bastid didn't want to run a new drop for it. LABEL everything by bunch or pair when you mapping them.

It most certainly should not be attempted unless you really understand the system they have. For instance, I wont take cleanup jobs on PBX systems. Small Business POTS/Centrex shouldn't have been messed up, but those tend to be sparky installs. When cleaning anything, you will see lots of Bass Ackward setups.

My follow-on question for anyone who does this on PBX systems...Do you find more situations where a good install went bad over time, or more bad initial installs? The latter needing a full rip and redo where the former may need less work to clean it out?

A good point that I should have expanded to.

Often, that's 80% of the problem, and I just did this behind one of my racks. Pulled out all the power cords that didn't go anywhere, and it was half the power cords. :-)

(Well, ok, honestly, it was more "pull them all out, and have half of them left over when you're done plugging them back in", but it does still illustrate the point well...)

I've often found that the first step should be to try to make as much wall space as you can by eliminating silly things like any abandoned KSUs or associated blocks/cabling.

Power strips, paging adapters, power supplies, etc. are pretty much no-brainers to temporarily move out of the way since their wiring connections are fairly limited. Move those to the floor if necessary during cleanup.

The next step is to focus upon easy things like POTS lines. Temporarily remove their cabling from the blocks and Scotchlok them to jumper wire (connected where it should be) for the time-being. DO NOT trust the phone number labeling on NIDs! Always ID them yourself. It is very easy for a customer to have a number changed by calling the business office. The telco isn't going to send a tech out to the site to relabel the blocks.

Work your way in from the outside to the middle. Make plans to waste a complete roll of jumper wire making temporary connections. Go green and reuse the longer pieces after you've made a permanent connection for the next temporary bypass.

I know that many people often use the term "PBX" for pretty much any phone system these days, but for those who have worked in moving real PBXs (as in free-standing cabinets), here are a few tips I came up when moving them live:

1. It is much easier to move the switch cabinets toward the blocks than toward the power source(s). Estimate the length of movement you'll need to move away from the power supply and secure an adequate amount of identical power cable. Strip each end of the slack piece of cable and about a 2-3" slit in the jacket of the existing power cable (ONE AT A TIME!). Using split bolt connectors, attach both ends of your slack piece of wire to the existing hot cable, with the ends facing each other. Once the split bolts are tight, tape or otherwise insulate them. Cut the original power cable in between the two split bolts and finish insulating the two (now separate) split bolt connectors. Once all power conductors have had this slack cut in, you'll have plenty of freedom in movement of the cabinets.

2. Hot-sliding the cabinets: Do as much as you possibly can to disconnect any attachments securing the tails coming from the switch cabinets. This may include removing ladder racking, etc. so that the tails are completely free to move as much as possible.

Using a pair of drywall hanger's jacks (or even a pair of pry bars) at one end of a cabinet, gently lift it high enough to fit a piece of 1" PVC conduit that is about a foot longer than the depth of the cabinet. This pipe should go from front-to-back of the cabinet. Lift the cabinet as high as possible so that multiple pieces of pipe can be placed. Repeat this process along the entire row of cabinets, except switching from the end cabinet to the front/rear of the next cabinet on down the line. At each lift, slide another piece of pipe underneath, then move on down the line. When you are done, your series of PBX cabinets will resemble box cars on a railroad with the PVC pipes being the wheels.

Gently begin rolling the cabinets along as a single unit, just a few inches at a time. Keep one extra piece of PVC pipe on-hand. As you move along, the other pipes will roll out the end and break free. Place the spare piece at the front of the "train" as you move along and repeat until the move is complete.

Since it is likely that the existing PBX will be coming out at some point, leave it resting upon the PVC pipe sections until then. Besides, PVC pipe is cheap, so it won't hurt the bottom line to leave it behind.