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Did I mention how much I hate Panduit jacks?

I've been a Leviton installer for years and, on small and medium jobs, it's common to pull multiple cables without tagging them, trim the jacks, then tone them for placement on a patch panel.

It didn't seem like a big deal to do this on my 28 drop Panduit job. If you've never done Panduit jacks, the particular ones I used have a rectangular collar that you fan the wires through, being careful to put the brown pair on top, the orange pair on the bottom and try to make the blue pair lean to the inside of the collar and the green pair to the outside. On the long ends of the rectangle are 4 slots. You use the guide on the side of the jack for A or B termination and drop the wires into the slots. Then you take a pair of small dikes and trim the inside wires, push the head of the jack into a tab in the collar and use a tool (channel locks or equivalent) to squeeze the jack on the collar until it cliicks. Of course, I've already got my Leviton jack terminated while you're still trimming wires, but that's another thread.

So I get down to my last 10 jacks under the retail counter, in the dark, and I have a huge brain fart. Now I start testing. About half way through the testing, the Scanner starts giving me errors. Some doofus reversed 7&8!! Geeze I wanted it to be on the patch panel so bad, but I'm not that lucky. Now it's time to UNSCREW the faceplates, pop the heads off the collar, reverse the pair, squeeze the head on the collar, retest, and screw the faceplate back in and put those little plastic things back in the holes.

My fingers are worn to the quick :-)

Carl "they'll be O.K. by Monday" Navarro

Reply to
Carl Navarro
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Carl Navarro wrote in part:

Well, at least you've toned them out so know where the misterminations are, right?

Cordless electric screwdrivers take most of the RSI grief out of the job, as does a termination biscuit.

Still, my sympathies.

-- Robert

Reply to
Robert Redelmeier

The Black & Decker two-speed tilt-arm and clutch is great, especially for not over tightening the screws. Not to mention the white LED for dark places. And a screw starter on the end - keeps screws from wobbling off AND keeps your fingers away from the business end. Screwdriver puncture wounds to the finger hurt.

Reply to
decaturtxcowboy

I've found they hurt most any area of my body. :)

Reply to
DLR

And how many of use have a collection of scissors on the bedroom chest of drawers that we forgot that were in our back pocket?

Reply to
decaturtxcowboy

Actually my wife keeps yelling at me for putting the box cutters there.

Reply to
DLR

??? A standards-compliant structured bedroom contains TWO (2) chests-of-drawers: One taller and one shorter with mirror. The tallboy is intented for the more masculine occupant, and the vanity for the more feminine :)

Contents of the two carriers are _not_ specified by std, however

+120 dB crosstalk isolation (NEXT, FEXT and PS!) is required :)

You should hear absolutely nothing. If you do, it might be a sign of a split-pair! Failing to have two chests is like running only 1 Cat5e to an outlet: sure to cause trouble!

Standards exist for good reason. Violating them leads to trouble unless the violator is extremely careful, knowledgeable and circumstances are lenient.

-- Robert

Reply to
Robert Redelmeier

Carl Navarro wrote in part:

If it is the panduit jacks that I used to know, I didn't know that you could get them apart again.

We didn't use them in one project that I worked on, but we had some around, anyway. I once needed to connect two RJ45's plugs together, and wired two panduit jacks on a short piece of cable. Once they snap, I didn't think they would come apart.

If I reversed a pair on one, I would probably switch it at the patch panel, anyway.

-- glen

Reply to
glen herrmannsfeldt

The snapping noise you hear is the plastic latch. A small screwdriver releases the latch.

Ah, two wrongs making a right :-)

Carl

Reply to
Carl Navarro

(snip regarding Panduit jacks)

It didn't look so easy at the time, so I didn't try.

Besides, most systems aren't affected by reversed polarity. It is usual for 10baseT to detect and adjust for it, if no other reason than another LED that they can advertise.

I believe later ones are also either insensitive or adjust for polarity. There are a few tone generating phones that are polarity sensitive, but most put a bridge rectifier where the line comes in to correct it.

-- glen

Reply to
glen herrmannsfeldt

Ya know, this has gone far afield, but the point is that you can't certify a cable with a reversed pair. You could reverse it at the patch panel and no one, exccept whoever came along after me would know the difference.

It's not easy to put my name on a job that is done poorly. Especially when it's a Union job....

Carl "I'd have to fix it on my own time" Navarro

Reply to
Carl Navarro

Carl Navarro wrote: (snip)

That is a completely different question than the one I was answering.

That is probably right for this group, though.

I more often post to comp.dcom.lans.ethernet. Unions never come up there.

-- glen

Reply to
glen herrmannsfeldt

I don't have to tone them our. All you have to do is punch away. When your done you can have one person walk from plate to plate with one end of your cat5e continuity tester while you plug your end in moving from jack to jack. Just an idea. Also, I've never used Panduit jacks, so can't speak from experience, but I have used Hellerman Tyton. They even provide a palm punch block for the jacks. They also sell a cool patch panel where the ports are removable. If one ever gets damaged from punching or just goes bad, you can replace the port, not the entire patch panel. Hope you find this useful...I'm going to look into the Panduit jacks.

Reply to
scolio

I'm doing network, I check all wires 3 times. Once as I separate the pairs, once after I have them in place, and once after I punch/crimp them. It doesn't take any more time and I have a very low rate of error. As far as switching pairs on the patch I believe it's best to do it right. If it's wrong at the plate, it should be fixed at the plate. Some day a tech will come behind and think a pair is punched wrong and try to fix it, only to find out it wasn't "wrong"

Reply to
scolio

so I don't have to tone them our. All you have to do is punch away. When your done you can have one person walk from plate to plate with one end of your cat5e continuity tester while you plug your end in moving from jack to jack. Just an idea. Also, I've never used Panduit jacks, so can't speak from experience, but I have used Hellerman Tyton. They even provide a palm punch block for the jacks. They also sell a cool patch panel where the ports are removable. If one ever gets damaged from punching or just goes bad, you can replace the port, not the entire patch panel. Hope you find this useful...I'm going to look into the Panduit jacks.

Please invest the time to turn on word wrap on your newsfeed.com. I gave up reading after the first right tab. The key is you've never used Panduit jacks. I got the data carrying pairs right, but turned over 7&8. Under a counter it was an easy mistake to not "triple" check.

I knew which jack I was testing, this wasn't a "toner issue" it was a certification issue and it was a one-man job. Or, I could use a second person for 1/2 the rate :-) Geeze it was only 26 cables.

BTW, since I tend to work from 4 boxes, I DON'T label each cable, but each area. Even if I have labelled the jacks, I still tone them out for location. It beats fixing a transposition in a patch panel.

Carl

Reply to
Carl Navarro

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