North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Good Stuff [was] Re: shameful-cabling gallery of infamy - does anybody know
Article: Abandoned Cable Removal A Dogged Challenge For All Cabling Installatin & Maintenance Magazine By Patrick McLaughlin | July 2007 Issue http://preview.tinyurl.com/32cfak -- As an aside, legend has it that some of the larger skyscrapers in NY City would crumble under the weight of the cables installed inside them --particularly coaxial and proprietary mutli-pair cable runs that were used for market data services and desktop video displays prior to the proliferation of Ethernet over fiber backbones-- running up and down vertical riser shafts, were it not for the bracing and additional structural supports installed after the fact to support them. Frank --- On Wed Sep 12 10:10 , Joe Greco sent: > >> If you find any pictures of NY.NET; Terry Kennedy made the above >> look sloppy. Many places ban cable ties due to the sharp ends; >> some allow 'em if tensioned by a pistol-grip installer. > >The tie gun is a good solution, but quite frankly, you don't need one >to do a good job with cable ties. This is mainly a training issue, >and the training is substantially easier than training folks to use >lacing cord. The rule doesn't need to be much more than "clean cut >required, if you can't do a clean cut, then leave the tail on." > >Xcelite makes some fantastic tools, as anyone in this business should >know, and they have a wide selection of full flush cutters that will >work fine. There are some other manufacturers who make this sort of >cutter, of course, but they're a bit tricky to find. The key thing >is that people learn not to just use any old wire cutters to snip >these. > >If you're really good, and the situation allows, you can use a knife >or box cutter to trim ends as well. > >> Terry >> required lacing cord. You can guess his heritage. > >That's mostly a pain to do. Looks nice, but hell to modify, and more >time and effort to install initially. > >> As for horror stories, a certain ISP near here that started out in >> a video store had piles of Sportsters. The wall warts were lined >> up and glued dead-bug style to a number of long 1x3's; then #14 >> copper was run down each side, daisy-chain soldered to each plug >> blade. There was no attempt to insulate any of upright plugs... > >ExecPC, here in Wisconsin, had a much more elegant solution. ExecPC >BBS was the largest operating BBS in the world, with a large LAN net >and a PC per dial-in line. They had built a room with a custom rack >system built right in, where a motherboard, network, video, and modem >card sat in a slot, making a vertical stack of maybe 8 nodes, and then >a bunch of those horizontally, and then several rows of those. That >was interesting all by itself, but then they got into the Internet biz >early on. > >They had opted to go with USR Courier modems for the Internet stuff. >Being relatively "cheap", they didn't want to go for any fancier rack >mount stuff (== much more expensive). So they went shopping. They >found an all metal literature rack at the local office supply store >that had 120 slots (or maybe it was two 60 slot units). They took a >wood board and mounted it vertically above the unit. This held a >large commercial 120-to-24vac step-down transformer and a variac >that was used to trim the AC voltage down to the 20VAC(?) needed by >the Couriers. > >Down the backside, they ran a run of wide finger duct vertically. >Inside this, they ran two thick copper bars that had been drilled >and tapped 120 times by a local machine shop. When connected to >the step-down transformer's output, this formed the power backbone. >They had a guy snip the power cables off the Courier wall warts, >and spade lug them, and screwed them in. Instant power for 120 >modems. > >Slip a modem in each slot. Run phone wire up to one of five >AllenTel AT125-SM's hanging on the back of the plywood, and there >you have 5 25pr for inbound. Run serial cables up to one of four >Portmaster PM2E-30's sitting on top of the racks, then network to >a cheap Asante 10 megabit hub, and you're done. 5 x 25pr POTS in, >power in, ethernet out, standalone 120 line dialin solution. > >Multiply solution by 10 and you get to the biggest collection of >Courier modems I've ever seen. > >They continued to do this until the advent of X2, which required >T1's to a Total Control chassis, at which point they started to >migrate to rackmount gear (they had no space to go beyond 1200 >analog Couriers anyways). > >... JG >-- >Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net >"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I >won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) >With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
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