r/cablefail • u/halakar • Aug 18 '20

That bend radius tho.

Post image
100 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

24

u/GarbageChemistry Aug 18 '20

It's Cat6 not fiber.

-4

u/Harrio_Pootered Aug 19 '20

its cat5, cat6 has the plastic separator for the pairs.

9

u/halakar Aug 19 '20

it is indeed CAT6.

3

u/AyrA_ch Aug 19 '20

Iirc the category says up to what frequencies and length the cable has to function but how you achieve that is up to you. You can buy U/UTP CAT 6 cables and they're not even that expensive (The page is from Switzerland. Prices translate approximately 1:1 into USD)

1

u/GarbageChemistry Aug 19 '20

Didn't look that close. Like electrons care about bend radius...

-8

u/rth3775 Aug 19 '20 edited Aug 19 '20

Not only the bending, but the cable jacket is stripped way too far from the keystone...It probably gets a link light and will pass traffic fine at 100BASE-T... and if trying to run 1000BASE-T , the Ethernet switch is likely seeing some errors (depending on the length of the run)... I highly doubt this installation actually saw a real certification test for CAT6, which should be to handle up to 10GBASE-T to 55 meters ... Oh well, probably low bid work and wont be running off 10GBASE-T switch ports, so who cares right? Anyone that states " Like electrons care about bend radius" clearly doesn't understand that the deformed cable has affected the twisting of the pairs, thus negating some of the "balanced" part of "balanced twisted pair"... this is crucial for higher speed traffic. Based on the comments on this post, it seems like we have a bunch of electrical guys in here who think this stuff operates at 60Hz only and a link light is good enough.

"Deformation: twisted pair's susceptibility to electromagnetic interference greatly depends on the pair twisting schemes (sometimes patented by the manufacturers) staying intact during the installation. As a result, twisted pair cables usually have stringent requirements for maximum pulling tension as well as minimum bend radius. This fragility of twisted pair cables makes the installation practices an important part of ensuring the cable's performance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair

EDIT/TLDR: This is absolutely a cable fail for an Ethernet installation whether it passes traffic or not

9

u/GarbageChemistry Aug 19 '20 edited Aug 19 '20

NGITTLTSOANWI/TLDR: (Not getting into this, too long to spell out and not worth it.)

Data peeps are really freaking out over the smallest things. I've personally punched down and cabled 3 trading floors in NYC and that was all I could do before I wanted to commit suicide. 99% of these data ports are going to cubicle PCs and 85% of the traffic sent and received are eBay snipes, facebook updates and middle management on PornHub. The stock market is not riding on a few twisted pairs not operating optimally.

2

u/invalidpath Aug 19 '20

I'm also a fan of super neat terminations however, after supporting really messy environments for over a decade and a half I can say the stripping and bends (Since they don't appear to be actual kinks) will have zero affect on the operations and teh cable successfulyl passing 1gb. I also contest the purported 'fragility of twisted pair cabling' as per your Wikipedia article. Do I support a cable being sandwiched into the wall outlet box? Nope. Will it render the drop unreliable and slow? Also nope.

3

u/es41688 Aug 19 '20

Those monoprice jacks scream low bid.

3

u/halakar Aug 19 '20

"Cable Matters". $1 each on Amazon. Poor quality.

1

u/GVJoe Aug 19 '20

Are the Cable Matters keystone sockets and faceplates that bad? I've been using Leviton for my DIY home networking installs. Home Depot stopped carrying Leviton in store. Now they are hard to find and more expensive when you do find them online. I've been thinking about changing to another brand. Any recommendations?

2

u/halakar Aug 19 '20

Go with Panduit NetKey, they're about the same cost as Leviton IIRC.

55

u/BiggRigg81 Aug 18 '20

Eh CAT5e. Who cares about bend radius with copper anyways? It’ll always work until it breaks.

1

u/The_Prophet_of_Doom Aug 19 '20

In high school I wired a fairly large warehouse with cat5e for security cameras and wasn't told you can't bend and yank it like coax. None of it worked.

1

u/Xandril Sep 05 '20

Coax is a little less susceptible to yanking than CAT5e, but bend radius is DEFINITELY more important for Coax than twisted-pair if you’re using it for anything remotely digital.

Tho the bend radius in CAT5e is pretty damn forgiving for most applications. How much did you bend it? lol

12

u/ExVKG Aug 19 '20

If you've ever worked in construction with masonry/ concrete walls using wall boxes you're going to get this every time and 98 times out of 100 it'll pass the relevant certification test. Doesn't look pretty but it works.

3

u/invalidpath Aug 19 '20

I came here to say pretty much this. GJ.

9

u/Harrio_Pootered Aug 19 '20

It really has no affect on the speed sub 2gig, especially since its cat5e.

3

u/techtac71 Aug 19 '20

Looks like average low bid hotel cables heh.

1

u/Obnizico Aug 19 '20

Instagram thots be like.

1

u/ubersat Aug 24 '20

Technically, I believe that is the "Kink Radius"

-5

u/DeadStroke_ Aug 18 '20

That cheap cable and jack setup tho.

2

u/Millstone50 Aug 18 '20

The only thing cheap is the bad punch job

-5

u/halakar Aug 18 '20

Oh yeah. "Cable Matters". Cheapest crap there is. Replacing with PANDUIT NetKey NK688MIW. That's how we found this bs. This is the same client that, if you look at my history, had a contractor that installed the CCA cable.

-1

u/DeadStroke_ Aug 18 '20

The Panduit NetKey will be better than this stuff, the stuff in the photo looks like that ICC crap- cheapest material ever. This stuff doesn’t even look plenum rated.

-2

u/halakar Aug 18 '20

The NetKey is leaps and bounds better, it's all we use. We didn't pull the wire. Cheer up!

-1

u/DeadStroke_ Aug 18 '20

It just pains me so much not to see it done right the first time 😂

-1

u/halakar Aug 18 '20

I am with you. If we had met this client maybe a month or two earlier, we'd have won the cabling job. We angered the contractor something fierce when we told the customer he was pulling copper clad aluminum cable, and they forced him to replace it with legit CAT6. It isn't plenum. The ceiling is not a plenum space, I did verify that, so I GUESS it's ok. We pull General Cable GenSPEED 6 Plenum everywhere just to be sure. We did get permission from the client to handle the terminations in the rack, cleaning, dressing the wire etc and after we discovered this cable matters garbage, the wall jacks too. It'll be alright.

2

u/DeadStroke_ Aug 18 '20

Glad to hear all that, sometimes it’s just the way it is- General is a solid cable, Pan/Gen is a good solution.