How To Avoid Common Structured Cabling Pitfalls As An Engineer

It's common for those who are new to handling structured cabling to have similar problems. Here are a few common mistakes that engineers working on structured cabling often make, including what you can do to avoid them and have your network come out looking fine. 

Forgetting About Cable Length

With all of those cables that you'll be looking at, it's easy to forget that there actually is a max length of cables and that you will have to do a bit of strategic planning to make sure the physical cables all connect up properly. For example, you won't usually have more than 100 meters or so for maximum cable length since this is the recommendation for maximum length between devices.

This means that you can measure how much is going to be left every time you come out from the wall since you can subtract from 100. If you're patching at 15 meters, then there's 85 left on the wall, for example. It may be physically possible to go longer, but it's going to be risky since you could have failures.

Crushing Cables

It's easy to think of cables as invincible wires that will carry data no matter where you put them, but this just isn't the case. If you put too much on a cable tray, for example, the pressure could crush the cables and damage them. If you try squeezing cables around corners, under furniture and so on, you're only inviting inevitable disaster.   

Using Cables That Are Too Cheap

If you're trying to save money on your project, you would be cautious to not go overboard. For example, cutting back on the amount of copper core in a cable will be more inexpensive, but it will also make for more of a lost signal. Additionally, you could end up with interference problems due to impedance.

If you try to use cheap patch cords, this could also have a similar problem. People will often try to use cores that don't use copper as a core at all, or that have poor sheathing around the core, or that are cheaply made in some other way.  

Overall, it's important to make sure you take extra care to avoid the pitfalls that others trying the same project have fallen into through ill-fated attempts at shortcuts. If you focus on keeping the quality of the project high you should be able to avoid such problems, however. Contact a local outlet, such as EXO Communications, for further assistance.

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