atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Too many cooks

Thank you, Arthur. I've done my best to refrain for obvious reasons. The original Western Electric modular connecting block design allowed for the mixing of types of plugs from its inception.

It is the manufacturers who do not follow these exacting design standards that may have such issues.

Frankly, I've never encountered the elusive "pin 1/pin 8" failure issue. I guess that I've been lucky so far.

I'm not clear on what that photo proves. If we agree that the "small plug in the large jack" syndrome caused it, why would the #2 pin also be damaged? The # 2 pin (and the #7 pin) are mechanically depressed by the shoulders of the plug, and in no way can be mangled, as far as my research has shown.

As I mentioned in my previous message, I have not found any combination of manufacturers' products that cause that problem. I have here on the bench, in fact, an ICC jack, a Levitton jack, a WE Merlin® jack, and 6p line cords from WE, AT&T, Samsung, and a few generic (off-shore) ones. Not one combination exhibits any incompatibility or damage.

Why don't we try to find some industry documentation that describes the Bellcore (or equivalent) specifications for these products? There must have been, at one time, some intellectual intervention by the folks at Bell Labs, when these products were being developed.

If everything is correct and to the standards then as Arthur says it will work. But as Ed mentioned some brands have low quality specs and do not play well with others. The above picture is what usually happens when a 6 pin plug is in a 8 pin jack and some one pulls the cable to the side to much. The little tab that centers the plug is not strong enough to prevent this.

I can understand that if you haven't seen this that it can be rejected. But it has been said that bumblebees shouldn't fly but they do.

My pic is from an install where the customer had all their phones in moving boxes and we were told that they would plug in their phones themselves over the weekend. My jacks were all labeled Vxx and Dxx with Voice on top and Data on the bottom.
The jacks were all made by Leviton using 6P6C for Voice and 8P8C for Data.

Come Monday morning, I got an irate call from their CG that several of the new data jacks didn't work. This pic shows what I found. I could have kept several of them but I figured that only one was necessary as a sample. I have also had other service calls where I have found the pins misplaced and needed to pop them back into their slots.

It appears that the bottom of that jack (where the tab of the plug goes in) has been chipped or broken. That wouldn't be caused by simply inserting the wrong plug into the jack. Maybe that also explains the bent pins?

Well as it happens I too just encountered a damaged pin on a 8p8c/RJ45/data Jack. It is pin 8.

Funny thing is, apart from the fax and postage machine, you would be hard pressed to find a standard line cord anywhere in this building since it is all VoIP phones. This also happened to be on the "out" ethernet port on the phone.

I do not know how it happened. Their CG just gave me the phone saying that the port is bad all of the sudden. It is subtle,but the receiving pin in the jack is unseated from it's slot (the one the pin bends into) and then is flattened and slightly twisted. (I don't have good enough lighting ot get a picture).

I have literally done hundreds of phone cords into these 8p8c/RJ45/data (God, I hate being politically/technically correct) jacks and have absolutley no failures both at the wall and at the patch panel. I have had some that really did need a little wiggling to get them to work. I do not recommend using them for this particuar reason, but I have yet to see one damaged and be attributed to this. ( I even tried this morning).

I have also see the 6p6c jacks damaged in the same manner. How does that happen? people plugging in handset cords? I doubt it. There is some other evil force at work

I think it has to do with the handle of the plug and the keyway in the jack. Maybe there is too much slop in that intersection of those two parts.

Since digital photography has not yet been discovered on my island, I can't show you the one I have right here on the computer desk. It's the cord of a Dracon blue "mouse" plugged into a Leviton "Cat5e" jack, and there's no wobble or clearance at all.

There's nothing that could possibly fetch up on the two outer pins, because they are depressed by the shoulders of the plug. There is nothing sharp, pointed, or hanging out that could snag them.

I agree, though, that if there any possibility to create a mess, a customer will find a way to do it.

To paraphrase Hal:

"If it weren't for the boss, the government, the suppliers, that manufacturers, the LEC's, the cost of gasoline, and the customers, this would be a great job."

ffej010, I dunno if the chip was originally there or caused later by my carrying it in the bottom of my tool bag. It was from a few years back and I used to carry it to show the occasional IT guy who wanted to see it.

The bummer is that this was a Leviton jack and stamped "Made in USA". The other side of the issue is that all our jacks were labeled but the user still plugged phones into these data jacks. Maybe their line cords were made in China??? :shrug:

I guess I always thought the damage of doing this was the result of the shoulder of the 6p6c plug depressing pins 1 and 8 of the 8p8c jack that much more than the other pins so as to where they started to lose their ability to spring back enough to make contact with pins 1 and 8 when an 8p8c plug was inserted into the same jack. That certainly is not the same damage indicated in Dave's photo, and I've never personally seen this myself. I have however seen where a 6p6c plug could be inserted into an 8p8c jack so cock-eyed that it was one pin off to one side. This was quite a few years ago though, I don't remember what type of jacks were being used so it could have been some chinese crap for all I know, or even a handset cord plug, who knows.