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Well, if you are used to trying to put a square peg into a round hole I guess it would make sense.

-Hal


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Several years ago, I was called in to "fix" an ongoing chronic problem of phones intermittently disconnecting and reconnecting seemingly at random times. It was a Mitel EL and I narrowed it down to one area of the hospital where new offices had been built. The 120 extensions were all experiencing the same, random problem.

We had bid this job to cable but it was determined that our bid was too high and, therefore, another "qualified" bidder had placed a bid "much" lower than our bid.

I thought it really odd that this was only happening to these 120 extensions and no other phones in the place had problems.

I went to the IDF closet and checked the wiring. 120 two pair stranded cables were run to each phone location. 66 blocks at the IDF and Keystone jacks at the station were used to terminate the cable.

My first thought was to drag the IT "weenie" that threw out our bid and gave it to this "qualified" bidder, but, instead, I worked up a quote to pull all the stranded off the 66 blocks and terminate them into a fabricated screw terminal barrier block assembly with stranded in and solid out. On the phone end, I happened to have a supply of older AMP connectors that take stranded cable on one end and splice to solid on the other, thus converting the stranded to solid to work in the Keystone IDC connectors. Reluctantly, the IT "weenie" approved the fix which, just happened to be, almost, twice what our initial bid for 4 pair teflon was. Imagine that? That fixed the phone problem.

As I was installing the stranded to solid splice device, one of the IT "weenie" minions asked me to check out the network cabling that this same "qualified" bidder installed, again, outbidding us for "much" less than our bid.

Much to my dismay, the exact same 2 pair stranded cable was used for the network wiring. The cables were terminated on modular IDC 48 port patch panels and into the same Keystone 5e jacks on the other. His exact words were "we can't figure out why all the computers, printers, etc. are constantly dropping out and, after a while, reconnecting." He also said 8 POE devices "just won't work, no matter what we try." Hummmm....

These cables, both phone and data were not pulled in conduit or raceway. In fact, both were hammered tight under Viking NM staples. How did I know they were Viking staples? The dummies left a half box in the attic crawl space.

My solution to that nightmare was to run all new wiring, in conduit. All the walls had to be opened up and patched. This little "fix" was 4 times our original bid and that did NOT include all the wall demolition and repair. Imagine that?

We got that job as well.

So, what do you think the administrator did to the IT "weenie" that cost the hospital 5 times more to redo a simple cable job?

Rcaman


Americom, Inc.
Where The Art And Science Of Communications Meet
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Well, being as how it was a bureaucracy within a bureaucracy they probably promoted him. grin


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Bingo!

Rcaman


Americom, Inc.
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[sarcasm]
Of course they promoted him. He was the one that was able to get the system back up and running correctly. The whole hiring of the wrong contractor for the job is ancient history. To the upper management he is a hero.
[/sarcasm]


Patrick T. Caezza
Santa Paula, CA 93060
C-7 - Low Voltage System Contractor - Lic# 992448
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Stranded wire has never been approved for use with any jacket displacement connector that I know of.

Then again I have only known a few security system technicians that cared what was approved practice and what wasn't.

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If there is a commercially available IDC communications connector approved for stranded conductors, I don't know of it.

There are several IDC connectors approved for stranded power conductors, however. Molex and Waldom come to mind.

The same is true, in reverse, for solid communications conductors and those 8P8C ends labeled "for solid wire." Unless there is a V shaped terminal for each conductor to terminate to, then it's not IDC rated. I know some people on this site have affirmed that such a connector exists, but,I personally, have not seen one. They may exist, but I don't know where.

Rcaman


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I do believe the good old AMP connector is rated for stranded wires. The same goes for several brands of the old DB connectors.


Patrick T. Caezza
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This is interesting . I was working on a job and notice all the new wiring they ran was stranded
I was thinking what is the difference why do the make it (patch cords)
I have always used solid wire
It seems to work ok I haven't heard otherwise

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Stranded is designed for patch cords because it is flexible and can be moved.


Jeff Moss

Moss Communications
Computer Repair-Networking-Cabling
MBSWWYPBX, JGAE
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