Two other ideas:
1. Go to a computer supply store. Buy the sheets of cable labels that can be
placed in a printer. Print, write, or type on the cable label. Pull label
off and apply to cable.
Each label is a strip that begins with a white band, and then continues
with several inches of clear material. The strip is coated with an adhesive
so that, when wrapped around a cable, the clear material wraps over the white
label to protect the label markings, and the whole thing sticks to the cable.
We use tons of these in our network switching centers, which (as you can
imagine) each have thousands of cables.
2. Go to the electrical supply store. Buy a set of rolls of colored Scotch
88 electrical tape. There are many colors to choose from. Wrap one or more
colored bands at the ends of your cables, and keep a legend. I use about six
colors (wht, blu, red, grn, bwn, yel), so two bands gives me 36 combinations.
Three bands gives another 216 possibilities.
For convention, I "read" the colors starting from the connector-end of the
cable so as to not confuse RED-BLU with BLU-RED.
In a few cases I also put labels in the middle of a cable run (e.g., at the
bottom of the tower). In this case, I also add a wrap of black tape to show
which way to read the colors (i.e., the black tape band takes the role of the
connector, so that blk-red-blu is equivalent to a red-blu cable).
The drawback of this method is that one has to keep a list of cables. For
convention, I use the order of the applicable colors within resistor color
code to organize the list: bwn, red, yel, grn, blu, wht... then bwn-bwn,
bwn-red, bwn-yel, bwn-grn, etc.
This system is superior to using ty-wraps: the cable thickness changes very
little; the tape does not get brittle and fall off as easily as a ty-wrap; the
cable is not pinched; there is no distance to measure between bands/wraps; the
colors hold up well in the outdoors and are easy to replace if/when fading
becomes a problem.
-- Eric K3NA
Eric.L.Scace@ADN.Sprint.Com
>From barry@w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) Wed Jul 27 00:52:33 1994
From: barry@w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) (Barry Kutner)
Subject: Pulling cables thru conduit
Message-ID: <aqe4Pc1w165w@w2up.wells.com>
Wonder if anyone has some pearls of wisdom (or experience) about pulling
cables thru conduit. I have a 4 inch PVC buried with 90 bends at each
end. The cables presently in there are hopelessly tangled, and I can't
pull my rope out to get another run thru.
Figure I'll try pulling out everything together and then reinsert them
with new, additional runs.
BTW, present conduit run is 100 ft.
73 Barry
--
Barry N. Kutner, W2UP Usenet/Internet: barry@w2up.wells.com
Newtown, PA Packet Radio: W2UP @ WB3JOE.#EPA.PA.USA.NA
Packet Cluster: W2UP >K2TW (FRC)
.......................................................................
>From Tim Coad" <Tim_Coad@smtp.esl.com Wed Jul 27 02:12:10 1994
From: Tim Coad" <Tim_Coad@smtp.esl.com (Tim Coad)
Subject: Gunning for grids
Message-ID: <n1436875912.37631@smtp.esl.com>
Reply to: RE>Gunning for grids
>>Give me a contest where the Q/M ratio is more than 10 and I'm in fat
city!!!
Except SS of course where the winners never look for mults.
Tim - NU6S
>From Walton L. Stinson" <wstinson@csn.org Wed Jul 27 02:22:58 1994
From: Walton L. Stinson" <wstinson@csn.org (Walton L. Stinson)
Subject: Dymo labels for cables
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9407261925.A23578-0100000@teal.csn.org>
no need to reinvent the wheel here, guys. you can go to any
electrical supply house and get great cable marking stuff. they
have three or four types. the kind i use feeds out in 6 inch
lengths. the first inch is white and is the part to write on, the
remaining five inches are clear, and forms a protective cover for
the white layer as you wrap it around the cable. this stuff comes
on a blue spool which looks kinda like a fat scotch tape dispenser.
73, walt, w0cp <wstinson@listenup.com>
>From Walton L. Stinson" <wstinson@csn.org Wed Jul 27 02:30:39 1994
From: Walton L. Stinson" <wstinson@csn.org (Walton L. Stinson)
Subject: Marking coax
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9407261923.A23578-0100000@teal.csn.org>
one other method i forgot to mention:
you can buy "identification cable ties". these are tylon fasteners
with a retangular identification area at one end. they are
available from mcm electronics, 1-800-543-4330. the same company
also sells the "rite-on" wire markers that i mentioned in my previous
message, as well as telecom identification tie kits and scotchcode
wire labelers. 73, walt, w0cp <wstinson@listenup.com>
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