structured cabling cabs

[itgeek]

Hi I really need to sort all 28 cabs out they are a mess!!
Any advise would be appreciated, I would like cable management products ties etc?

Thanks

[IanT]

try and get your self some 0.25 patch cables, make the job easier when the cabs are tidy and too work around.

We have to get them made specially though.

[john]

Velcro is also the answer rather than plastic cable ties.

[MatthewL]

We use short leads i.e. 25cm ones, have 3 patch panels (24 port ones) and then a switch or if its 6 patch panels but both switches in the middle. Always try and put the fibre at the top if you can. Use management rails under the fibre to run that tidy and if you have a distribution switch use a management rail.

[Griffo]

I would agree with MatthewL especially if you have the 7 - 8 foot tall cabs like we have and especially if they are full from top to bottom. Moving the switches to be in the middle of the patch pannels they connect to will mean much shorter wires and les chance of them getting tangled up with others.

It's a problem we have, whenever a new switch is installed it just gets put in the nearest free slot, in most cases the bottom, and more often than not the pannels it will connect to will be near the top meaning long cable runs up and down the length of the cab. So reorganising the cabs in this way will make tham much tieier

[TechMonkey]

I saw a rack where they had single row patch panel, switch, single row patch panel, repeated down the cabinet. This obviously takes some pre thought (especially with the patch panels) & you end up with redundant switch space up until you are at capacity, but looks a very neat way and easiest to trace back. I'll try and find where I saw this.

@Matt: can you post a pic of your cab setup? Think I've got the idea but a visual guide would be cool.

[cpjitservices]

+1 for Velcro cable ties they are a marvellous invention for cabinets, we use 1.5 metre cables and we set our cabs up so that patch panel and switch are side by side, so we use short cables and long cables it works but it does need a re-vamp.

[plexer]

Get your self some Patch Grip velcro on a roll you can tear it a pre determined lengths put you can also use long lengths of it.

Get some vertical cable management in as well.

Ben

[michaelf]

Another recommendation for short patch leads and/or velcro depending on the lengths in question. If you MUST use cable ties then make sure to leave plenty of slack, there's nothing worse than trying to trace a cable only to find it tied in the middle of a bunch with no wriggle room.

[CyberNerd]

I quite like using longer patch leads with a cable management system. I find with short leads they can become just as messy because they are too short to fit into the cable tidys. At least with longer leads they can loop inside the back of the cabinet and your less likely to stretch anything.
+1 for velco again :-)

[communyx]

Don't use cable ties, they are generally over tightened damaging the patch leads. When someone needs to remove a cable and they don't have cutters they'll just pull the cable out removing the RJ45 off the end and un-patching any other cables that share the cable tie.

Cable mangement, one for every two 24 way panels is the best ratio. You can also get vertical management rings if neccesary. You can use velcro but if others have access to your cab you may find they don't always reuse it, that's my expericence anyway!

I would personally use some management and buy a few different length patch leads, or if you're handy with crimps buy some patch cable and make your own bespoke ones!